ISA repeal: Our Mandela moment and thereafter

For national reconciliation to have a chance, we need to give truth a fair hearing.

By Helen Ang

The release of Nelson Mandela after a 27-year detention ushered in South Africa’s post-apartheid era where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established during his presidency.

It is hoped that Thursday’s watershed announcement on repealing the Internal Security Act will yield a similar milestone in our political landscape. And hopefully the same two keys words – ‘truth’ and ‘reconciliation’ – will be as significant for us.

Can this momentous move to sheath the ISA sword go some way in making Malaysians braver and more clear-headed in confronting self-evident truths?

Ex-ISA detainee P Uthayakumar is one of the foremost and forthright speakers of the truth today. I’ll share why I hold a deep respect for this man but first a few words on another political figure that played a recent role in carving out public space for the exploration of truth.

The Malay far right has been calling for Mohamad Sabu, better known as Mat Sabu, to be ISA-ed over his remarks on the Bukit Kepong episode. “Well over 900 police reports” were lodged against Mat Sabu for what is in essence a challenge to the Umno version of our Merdeka narrative.

Threat of police investigation is a same sort of weapon that the ISA is. And the ISA has been a blunt and brutal instrument to put the fear of government into the people. The almost one-party state is feared for its power to lock you up and throw away the key.

Umno controlling the Home Ministry not only has ISA at its disposal but the police and their lock-up facilities too. PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali suggested that the large number of police reports against Mat Sabu were mobilised by Umno through the many NGOs connected to the party.

Punishing the truthseekers

We must take our hat off to Mat Sabu for sticking to his guns on the Mat Indera contentious comment and remaining unfazed by the almost a thousand police reports.

It is through Mat Sabu standing his ground despite ‘dikepong’ (being besieged) from all sides that paved the way enabling last evening’s forum in Petaling Jaya on the contributions of the left to the
decolonialisation process.

If Mat Sabu had succumbed to pressure exerted by adversaries and allies alike, the topic would have been closed prematurely. Members of the public could not then have heard Dr Rohana Arifin’s forum presentation telling how the Bukit Kepong hagiography – the eponymous film directed by Jins Shamsuddin – goes to serve the Umno propaganda.

A retraction by Mat Sabu as Karpal Singh had demanded would have shut the window of opportunity created and later kept ajar by PAS agreeing to back up their deputy president.

Umno is the devil we know that fails to mask its coercive nature in trying to silence Mat Sabu. Turning the complaints over to police opens the door to another facet of state intimidation, especially when sedition is invoked.

DAP is an equally treacherous devil. Coming on the heels of Karpal’s insistence that Mat Sabu should apologise was the hatchet job by Tunku Abdul Aziz. The party vice chairman had piled insult upon derision upon malice in tearing into Mat Sabu.

Karpal did not bother to hide the motivation for his attack. He declared upfront that the resulting backlash from Mat Sabu offending Malay ‘sensitivities’ would be “very damaging” to Pakatan’s prospects in the general election.

A parallel motive propels the attack by Aziz, i.e. DAP’s courting of the Malay vote. In fact, DAP stabbing Mat Sabu in the back indicates that the party is preparing itself to go direct to the Malay electorate and bypassing electoral pact partners PAS and PKR as intermediaries. The DAP plan to stand its own Malay candidates is no secret.

Note that on Sept 2, when Umno firepower in the form of pliant press and party proxies was trained on Mat Sabu, DAP international secretary Liew Chin Tong signed his party’s name to a Pakatan joint statement that condemned the Utusan Malaysia reports as “irresponsible spin-mongering being perpetrated by Umno leaders and the media”.

Yet a mere five days after the opposition’s purported defence of Mat Sabu, the New Straits Times on Sept 7 published Aziz’s vicious denunciation of the populist speaker’s historical reinterpretation. Tunku Aziz, Karpal and the party they chair don’t give a toss for any intellectual truth of the matter.

Granted, Mat Sabu’s off-the-cuff observation has an adverse impact on the potential votebank and Pakatan pursuit of the Putrajaya crown. However DAP pulling the rug from under Mat Sabu’s feet signifies how for them, truth is better off denounced if it gets in the way of fishing in Malay waters.

Painful but plain truths

Mirroring the ‘kepong’ of Mat Sabu, Hindraf’s Uthayakumar has long suffered being assailed from all sides as well. Circling the wagons were Umno who chucked him into Kamunting, the Barisan indoctrination apparatus demonising him and the chest-thumping Anak Malaysians relieving Uthaya of the need for having enemies (what with ‘friends’ like them).

Umno was plain nasty in portraying Uthaya as a ‘samseng’, which is a far cry from the truth. If anything, he is someone I laud for the courage of his conviction and for following the uncompromising path that he sees clear ahead.

The character assassination of Hindraf’s leading light draws on latent stereotypes. The Indian community, because of its numbers disproportionately making up the crime-and-prison statistics, has been tarred with a broad stroke as one producing gangsters.

Instead of addressing the grievances, which includes why Indians are the most in jails, the Umno-led establishment added more injury to an already wounded segment of the population.

Just as the poor championed by Parti Sosialis Malaysia were considered a destabilizing force during Bersih 2.0, and hence the Emergency Ordinance pre-emptively applied to the PSM Six, the Hindraf masses were also deemed dangerous game-changers in the immediate aftermath of Bersih in 2007.

Hence the ISA hastily and harshly applied on the Hindraf lawyers, and Uthaya’s subsequent 500-plus days in captivity.

The treatment of Uthaya by all those complicit with the Umno agenda was deplorable. His incessant vilification by Pakatan quarters which continues yet to this very day is equally despicable.

Uthaya is a genuine voice for the have-nots, whom the haves are unfortunately unable to emphatise with. And they misjudge and they wrong him.

The Umno-aligned authorities used the sledgehammer but the venom spewed against Uthaya by Pakatan, particularly their Indian politicians who consider him a formidable rival as well as the so-called multiculturalist opposition supporters, is equally loathsome.

One vile accusation is that Uthaya is racist. It’s an allegation easily rubbished by Uthaya’s track record as counsel to Malay and Chinese victims of police brutality. He took up their cases pro bono years before any of his present armchair cyber critics even acquired a pinch of political consciousness.

Award-winning cartoonist Zunar revealed that during the Reformasi period when he was arrested for participating in street protests, it was Uthaya who fought his case.

Said Zunar: “Back in those days (1999), you seldom get lawyers willing to do so, unlike today. That’s why in terms of human rights, Uthaya has done a very good job representing every race.”

Learn to judge a person by his actions rather than be swayed by the pretty-sounding but ultimately shallow rhetoric of his detractors.

Uthaya survived a year-and-a-half under ISA and walked away with his chin held high, and on his own terms. He was the only Hindraf detainee who refused to accede to the restraining order on public appearances that was made a condition of release.

Readers may not be aware either that Uthaya grew up in Kelantan and consequently speaks our national language fluently. If he had ever wanted to pander to Malays like DAP counterfeits such as the hypocritical Hasnah Yeops are overdoing, it’d be a cakewalk for him. But he doesn’t care for such fake antics and nor has he the luxury.

Current political punditry is almost unanimous in decrying Malaysia’s increasing race polarisation.
For national reconciliation to have a chance, we need to give truth a fair hearing. Only if the compass is set true can we get our bearings right. Taking our next steps require the ability to recognise who are the truth bearers – more whom will be set free hopefully by a loosening on the ISA.