The secret police of Malaysia – the Police Special Branch cannot be but observers of a change they cannot affect – they cannot change the course of Malaysian history, they are close observers at best.
I am writing this piece after being at the Butterworth Police Station this afternoon, awaiting the outcome of the Police detention of the 17 PSM activists in the Butterworth Police Station for nothing more than distributing materials against a political party called UMNO. This has to be kept very clear in all our minds, the pamphlets they distributed said no more than to retire UMNO another political party at 55 – the year we all are supposed to retire. However this political party, UMNO seems to believe and act as if it is their god ordained role to rule this country till eternity and that everything in this country is owned by them and that the others outside their ambit will have some of it only as a result of their benevolence.
This is being increasingly challenged. What role do the Secret Police of Malaysia play in trying to stave off this change. One thing they do very well is that they stay very close to the ground and report to their benefactors about the moods on the gound and advise their benefactors on how they can change the course of a history that they are totally powerless to do anything about..
This is what the SB will report to their bosses about the incidents of protests by the citizens they have apprehended who dare to challenge UMNO the political party – the numbers of these troublemakers that are remanded with each protest episode are increasing – there were 53 of them from the Hindraf group in February, in their march against UMNO’s racism, now there are 59 of them from the PSM group wanting to retire UMNO. Fear does not seem to subdue them, as it used to their fathers. These people are more defiant than they have ever been. The numbers are growing at a concerning pace. They are beginning to join their battles. The synergy of such joining is frightening for what it can do to the greed of the elite. The Uthayakumars and the Jeyakumars are multiplying.
They, the SBs of course do not see their hands in all of these outcomes. They are instruments of repression and they are actually and unwittingly contributing to the situations, they so diligently report on. But one lesson they seem not to have learnt from history is that the more repression one unleashes on people the more reaction one gets in return from the people. The pace of that repression and the reaction from all of that, is only growing. See for yourself. The harassment, the intrigues, the lies and threats in the media, the arrests one the one hand and the restlessness of the people, the peoples’ response in the cyber-world, the protests, the call for rallies, the rallies, the forums, the road-shows and the candle light vigils, on the other are all growing. The SBs have that statistics for sure. But I do not think that they care – they think they can achieve everything with brute force and with fear.
In this age of information, fear is becoming a lesser factor. I can vouch for that with the fear I used to feel and the fear I feel now. The 53 activists of Hindraf and the 2 busloads of activists of PSM are very clear testament to this growing trend. And BTW they are mostly youngsters and that is not good demographics for the greedy elite.
So, where does that leave the SBs and the greedy elite. The end is clawing perilously close and they cannot stop it. The harder they try, the more difficult it becomes. They had better understand that the clock has started ticking for all of them. Change is all over the air. 1 year, 2 years 5 years, I do not know. But this I do know, the clock has started to tick for change. The instruments of control of the elite like the SB can only slow the clock, not stop it.
Naragan
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