The Importance Of Being Mahfuz Omar
Several
thousand opposition supporters, and 500 policemen, were at Kajang prison to welcome the
PAS trio, who included its youth leader and MP for Pokok Sena, Mr Mahfuz Omar, in yet
another test of will between opposition and government. The prison released them
at 0200 yesterday (09 December 00), six hours earlier than normal, and took them for an
unscheduled drive, two to Lembah Patai in Kuala Lumpur, and Mahfuz somewhere north, presumably
to his home in Kedah. Mr Mahfuz jumped out of the four-wheeled vehicle at the
Rawang toll booths, called his political secretary, and both made their way to Kajang
to meet his welcoming crowd. Since he had been released, the prison officials in
the van could do nothing. Opposition leaders and others meanwhile attempted to see
Mahfuz at prison shortly after they arrived only to be told he had been released.
He arrived about an hour later to a emoitional welcome and to mosque for prayers.
Last night, he recounted his experiences in the one month he spent in jail when he
refused to pay a fine for protesting against an Israeli cricket team playing in Kuala
Lumpur in April 1997.
The police said the gathering
outside Kajang was illegal but it did nothing to stop it. It could not act
without a backlash against the government. So, a battalion of policemen, with an
accompanying police helicopter, -- or one policeman to five or six supporters -- to
keep the peace, an unnecessary show of force. It overreacted. And failed.
For, however you look at it, Mr Mahfuz, in electing prison to a fine, changed the
political ground rules. More people would opt for jail in future trials deemed
political in a show of passive resistance, what Mahatma Gandhi called
"satyagraha" when he humbled the the invincible British Empire in India.
The government is caught in its straitjacket, without a clue how to react short of more
policemen on these occasions. But this suggests it loses control. Which is
what it is.
This is the backlash in the extended struggle
for the Malay cultural mantle, after the Prime Minister dismissed his deputy prime
minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, had him arrested, was beaten up almost to death by
the police chief, and jailed for corruption and sodomy in court trials, with creative
prosecution testimony, that angered the Malay community. In every major confrontation
since, the government was on the defensive. So what happened at Kajang prison yesterday
does not surprise. The government does not know how to react. In the Lunas
byelection, the seamless unity of the opposition contrasted sharply with the disarray,
as we now find out, within the National Front. In the National Front postmortem,
it accepts that it fielded the wrong candidate, campaigned with arrogance, was
clueless, arrogant, did not understand local issues. And with pressure, it
disintegrates.
Two intransigient men hold the key:
The Prime Minister and his nemesis, Dato' Seri Anwar. The theocratic PAS's gains
would not have been as dramatic, nor UMNO's electoral decline as stark, without the
cultural fallout from how Dato' Seri Anwar was treated. It affects all levels of society.
The government is moribund. The armed forces is divided. The police
impresses one for its bullying. The judiciary is unreliable, and this is affirmed
by the two contentious trials which jailed Dato' Seri Anwar. Mr Mahfuz Omar
opened another front: to pressure the government with passive resistance.
On hindsight, this is what Mr Lim Guan Eng, the son of the DAP national chairman, Mr
Lim Kit Siang, should have done. Not to appeal, but to go to prison. The courts
judge people harshly and play safe knowing full well it would be appealed.
Mr Mahfuz challenged that, and the courts must now be more circumspect. There is,
after all, no more advantage to one's future if one delivers judgements not what one
should but what one's leaders expect. Mr Justice Arifin Jaka, having sentenced Dato'
Seri Anwar to jail for sodomy, has not written his judgement. Without it, Dato'
Seri Anwar cannot appeal. But if he did write it, he could himself be convicted
and jailed for abusing his office. He is, in other words, in a dilemma, as the
judiciary already is, the new chief justice notwithstanding. That he does not
ensure Dato' Seri Anwar continues to be denied due process.
So, what happened outside Kajang Prison is more than a political activist released from
jail. It gives the opposition yet another boost. Mr Mahfuz is an electrifying
speaker, and he can dine on his experiences in prison to fuel the anger that asserts
the Malay mind. But it is not what he has to say, or even what he underwent, that
damages the government. It is that when challenged it decides to take the high official
ground that all these gatherings are illegal. Gatherings of five and more is
illegal without a police permit. No opposition meeting these days have one, if
only because they are routinely denied. Many just do not bother. As
Malaysians do not of threats ministers make.
However you
look at it, the call to motorists to pay up their unpaid parking offences or face
arrest misses one important legal principle: that one can challenge this in court.
I believe, for instance, parking tickets in Kuala Lumpur is illegal for there is no
legal provision for them. But the exercise itself shows not a desire to put
matters right but a total breakdown in enforcement. And so it goes on, in every
department and ministry. The police is not exempt. Nor the cabinet nor just
about every institution of government. But these do not attract public interest.
The jailing of a member of parliament does. That is why the situation on the
ground is worse than we are told it is. Mr Mahfuz and his collegures in going to
jail weakend the government even more.
M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my
