Police at Parliament
What is to done? After all that’s happened, what is to be done? The answer is self-evident. Between the government and the people, back the people.
THE riot police had arrived at Parliament, and not for the first time, on Monday, Jun 30, 2008. The purpose was to prevent a group of people from non-government organisations from entering the building or its premises.
Now, among those who campaign politically, the NGO people constitute the easiest bunch to have to deal with. Most of them, if they are not obnoxious, they are like weeds. They are easily manipulated, they are soft, they bend over readily - you need only the right words, not reason.
To have to despatch the riot police to stop the NGO people, therefore, is quite nearly a joke. But that’s only the ostensible purpose. Review again the photograph (from AFP). It is highly symbolic of what has happened to-date to government, to institutions, to the country - Malaysia is a country at the end of the ropes.
This present federal government has with malice, with impunity, without shame, without hesitation, without just cause, without decency, and without virtue has made itself an enemy of the people. It bullies without end, it kills, it thieves - and few of these are small, isolated incidences. This has become a growing pattern, culminating today in the March general elections, to things happening in court rooms, in government offices, at police stations, in Kajang, to Mageswaran, to Lina Joy, Altantuya, Anwar, and so on. Behind and alongside the executive government is the police. Symbolic in the photograph is that the police - as equal to the executive - has begun to run the country like the two are a junta. Parliament is dismissed as a sideshow, to be put down at any time the police chooses.
There is an article in AFP. It alludes to sometime which its reporter missed. And then there is a letter in Malaysiakini from Amir Hamzah. Together the two carry almost the same message.
The time has come. Seize the day.
