“Politicising” Teoh Beng Hock’s death - Where do we draw the line?

by Nathaniel Tan

I just wanted to write a little about all this alleged “politicisation” of Teoh Beng Hock’s death.

I know too well how often politics sounds like a dirty word. I know the thought of people trying to gain political mileage from someone’s death is abhorrent, and rightfully so.

Try as I might though, I find it near impossible to separate political elements from Sdr. Teoh’s untimely death.

To begin with, politics touches every realm of our lives. It is a defining feature of politics. There is little or no bettering Malaysia without bettering its politics, and that is why I’ve seen fit to get involved.

Nowhere is this more true than in the case of this “sudden death.”

The simple question is, could Teoh’s death have been avoided if there were differences in Malaysia’s political landscape?

Needless to say, given the extreme mystery surrounding Teoh’s death, we are left with only speculations.

I’ll even admit that anything is technically possible. Maybe he just was overcome with sudden depression and threw himself out the window in an act of suicide.

Possible, but I confess it exceedingly unlikely.

Man is gifted with reason, and it is with reason that we must evaluate how we can avoid such deaths in the future.

With regard to ‘politicisation,’ I feel that the following questions - while purely speculative - are relevant:

- Would Teoh have died if he was working for a BN YB instead of a PR one?

- Does Teoh’s death have anything to do with BN efforts to use MACC to destabilise PR?

- Are PR elements been targeted disproportionately by the MACC as compared to BN ones?

- Has the current federal government done enough to clamp down on abuses and deaths in detention, so as to provide a preventive deterrent?

To my mind, all of these questions are relevant and related to the death of Beng Hock, to avoiding future similar deaths, and to the politics of Malaysia.

Many of us do not take political stances because it’s fun and bunnies. It is an arena in which souls get blackened, and where greed can turn the best of men into the worst of men.

While we continue to struggle to bring integrity to politics, *both* from the outside and the inside, there is to my mind no ignoring the political element in this wrongful death.

I too would seriously caution politicians, and advise them to choose their words with great care. Exploiting a man’s death to advance one’s own goals is reprehensible, so every care must be taken to ensure that where politics is engaged, it is engaged with a view to justice for all.

That said, I believe politics led to Teoh Beng Hock’s death, and I feel that political solutions are necessary to ensure that no more anak Malaysia will meet such a dastardly fate at the hands of the unjust.