At a time when an international magazine makes protesters its Person of the Year, Najib is fighting hard to keep protesters off the streets, says Charles Santiago.
This period in time is certainly Malaysia’s historic tragedy for rights. Why do I say this? It is because the country’s Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has played a double game when it comes to basic rights of the people.
While the world’s biggest-selling news magazine, TIME, has named the protesters as Person of the Year, Najib’s administration had bulldozed through the Peaceful Assembly Bill in Parliament – an act that poses a grave threat to the civil and political liberties of Malaysians as it tries to keep the protesters away from the streets.
How Najib manoeuvered this dangerous turn of events is interesting. He spent weeks playing the reformist role – making an unannounced entrance at a pop concert, cycling with Penangites and announcing a so-called people-friendly budget.
These dramatic gestures were peppered with self-styled proclamations vowing to widen the democratic space in the country. Even I wished this was for real.
But just before the excitement settled, Najib introduced the Bill which prohibits street protests. He did it with a touch of arrogance and an enormous amount of audacity.
Then his stooges went to town backing the Bill, fashioning it out to be a piece of legislation that would ensure peace and stability in the country.
The TIME article described the protesters as the “prime makers of history”. In Malaysia, the unarmed protesters were met with baton-wielding anti-riot policemen, water cannon laced with mace and tear gas.
The article further summed up the protesters as the group of people who, in the 1960s in America, marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; rose up against Iran and Portugal in the 1970s and in the 1980s spoke out against nuclear weapons in the US and Europe, against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe.
These people, like fellow Malaysians, braved arrests and torture in the hands of the enforcement authorities to condemn brutality by nation states and fight for their basic rights.
They are the ones who went down in history as the people who struggled to make a change; to make the world a better place.
The situation here at home
Here, the protesters took to the streets to call for an end to repressive laws, to fight against water privatisation, to defend the rights of workers, to mourn the death of democracy in the country, to denounce the abuse of power by the police and other enforcement authorities and to demand a clean-up of an electoral system which is blatantly open to abuses and favours the ruling government.
Following the arbitrary passing of the Peaceful Assembly Bill, we have seen Malaysians from all walks of life gathering at KLCC to demand the legislation be thrown out at the Senate. It’s a long shot but their protest has been registered.
It does not take a genius to figure out why this Bill was hastily introduced and pushed through Parliament.
We all know the embarrassment Najib and his administration faced following the Bersih 2.0 rally which saw thousands of people protest on the streets to call for free and fair elections.
The image of the police force took a further whack for the violence unleashed on the protesters and the large-scale arrests, which made headlines worldwide. And more importantly, Najib and Umno were frightened of the large swell of crowd and its potential to overthrow the ruling government.
As fear is the operating word here, we saw Najib playing the race card to win the hearts of the Malays at the recently-ended Umno general assembly. His racially inflammatory speech was echoed by other Umno leaders who are equally frightened of losing the grip on power.
The overthrow of any repressive regime comes from the strong will of the people who protest to bring about reforms and change.
Since the 1950s a series of popular uprisings and protests forced president Frederik Willem de Klerk to begin negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa. The unrelenting protest for a democratic nation has paved the way for the Burmese junta to begin engaging with the icon of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi.
In Malaysia, decades of fighting to abolish the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows for detention without trial compelled the government to announce the repeal of the Act.
Therefore, the protesters in Malaysia would continue to make their demands heard. It’s rather odd that Najib and his administration do not get this simple fact.
Charles Santiago is DAP’s member of parliament for Klang.
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