Why do Malays, and there are quite a few of them, persist in alluding to themselves as ‘middle class’? Is it hypocrisy? Is it a form of inverse snobbery, a relic of Mahathirism when affluence was considered a socially transmitted disease, a precursor to AIDS? Is it an attempt to avert the evil eye of envy, the way truck drivers dangle strings of limes and green chillies from the rear ends of their vehicles? Or is it a way for the relatively well-off to distinguish themselves from the uber-rich: the high-flying tycoons and the captains of industry, , and all those other super-wealthy Malays, many of whom have contributed said to be parked in the 60-odd ‘tax havens’ scattered across the world, from the Cayman Islands to the City of London?For all their ‘middle class’ pronouncements, the mythical belong to that elite Ahmad Zahid Hamidi 1% of this country which is in the enviable position of being obliged to pay personal income tax. For members of such a privileged elite to label themselves as ‘middle class’ is like a 60-year-old claiming to be ‘middle-aged’, thereby implying a projected lifespan of 120 years.
But whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, for it, the ‘middle class’ tag Ahmad Zahid Hamidi . Would ‘muddle class’ be better? Or should it be ‘medal class’? Because if for no reason other than that of determined self-deprecation, surely deserve a medal.Sociologists and other commentators often lament the lack of policing in Malaysia society, where our law enforcement agencies are too busy protecting political from real or imaginary harm to look after the safety of the so-called under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act.
The question the home minister in charge of public security, should be asking why Student activist Adam Adli
However, to make up for this inadequacy, we seem to have spawned a whole host of vigilante posses in the form of self-appointed ‘moral police’. These zealous protectors of our social values have been particularly active of late, diligently performing their voluntary duties, for which they receive no monetary recompense, wherever and whenever they sniff the merest suspicion of a cultural subversion in the offing. This could be anything and everything, from an exhibition of nudes painted by eminent artists, to a film or a book which supposedly contains less than complimentary references to a particular community, or an all-girl band which has the audacity to play rock music in public.
Indeed, what is often referred to as competitive populism in politics has found its parallel of competitive prickliness in the realm of moral and cultural policing. Each squad of this new constabulary seems to vie with all the others to see which one is more diligent in nipping moral misdemeanour in the bud.
It might well be said that in India’s much-vaunted diversity is the unity of its newly formed moral police. Thanks to the all-embracing spectrum of our rainbowMalaysia, our culture cops have no dearth of constituencies on whose behalf they can claim to take offence. The result is that we are becoming so prickly that soon we might resemble a nation of porcupines, bristling with righteous indignation at any slight, intended or otherwise, to any of our diverse sensitivities.
This, however, raises its own question: What has happened to the cultural value of tolerance that has always been the bedrock of Indic civilisation? How can moral policing square with the live-and-let-live eclecticism which we’ve always prided ourselves on?
Silly question, would say the latter-day Keystone Kops who’ve reincarnated themselves as the guardians of our cultural norms. True tolerance, they would argue, is to be tolerant even of intolerance. In fact, the more intolerance we learn to tolerate, the more tolerant we are.
And if you don’t agree with that your neighbourhood culture cop – not to be mistaken for the uncultured goon he might superficially resemble – will soon arrange to make you see some stars, perhaps even rearrange your face and set it at a better angle, and thereby have you appreciate the error of your ways. Big Brother, in the avatar of Bada Bhaiya, is watching you.
Not least because they might lead to the obvious question: how much time, effort, manpower and money is spent on providing ‘security’ to criminals? If similar, or even partially similar, ‘security’ is provided to ordinary, law-abiding citizens
So which is the ‘security lapse’ that is more shocking?Student activist Adam Adli? O BEATS-UP people by himself!r in which he participated and which will put him in jail soon?Now this minister can use his police to take care of the guy who was screwing is daughter. Just one phone call to IGP Khalid and he will go running with a team of sharp-shooters!
That’s the question the home minister, and others in charge of public security, should be asking themselves.
Newly-appointed Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Malaysians who are unhappy with the country’s political system should leave the country, stressing that loyal citizens should respect the Rule of Law.
In his first opinion piece printed in Utusan Malaysia since receiving the portfolio yesterday, Ahmad Zahid wrote that the illegal gatherings held across the country by Pakatan Rakyat was a form of escapism and the denial of the fact that it failed to take control of Putrajaya.
The Minister added that the Opposition was over-confident with the support it received from voters.
The peculiar thing is that the gangsters nurtured by this fellow Zahid, whilehe was the UMNO chief from Penanag are whacking everybody with a free hand and the PRDM are doing nothing about it . Ask Zahid why did he start tiga line who carry the traffic lights colours and whom RPK has referred in some articles. In any event he is now busy searching for countries to assimilate 51% of the Malaysian people while Noh’s answer o enviornment is to send people to the jungel. Was there not an encyclopaedia some years ago which described the likes of Zahid and Noh as people living on trees ! Looks like it was right after all.
It has always been one death too many. According to official statistics, there were 147 deaths in police custody last year. This shook the conscience of the country and deeply angered Malaysians. But nothing changed.
The recent death does not just add to the escalating number. The lurid details of the victim’s body is shocking as it points to a rising level of physical abuse and torture by police officers.
N Dharmendran’s body was covered with bruises and both his ears were stapled. A pathologist confirms he died from multiple blunt force trauma. The police have now reclassified the case as murder although they initially said Dharmendran died from breathing difficulties.
His lawyers have described it as the worst case of police brutality, since the death of Kugan Ananthan in 2009.
The deep wounds on Dharmendran’s body plus the staples with dried blood indicate he died from physical torture. The pathologist also found staples on both his legs on the ankle area.
Dharmendran’s death and the shocking wounds on his body clearly signal that the police have no qualms abusing their powers or indulging in torture despite the nationwide uproar. And this is more so as they are not accountable to anyone.
This has to stop.
The government must immediately set-up the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission or IPCMC instead of shuffling it along.
The police continue to act with impunity as they enjoy absolute power. The inertia demonstrated by the government in implementing the Independent Commission has contributed to the rising number of deaths in the hands of the police.
As the year began, three people died under police custody. And aside from deaths in police custody, police also shoot dead several people, each month, on average. Police say they were either returning fire or the people were suspected criminals. But many are shot dead just for failing to stop at police roadblocks.
Peoples’ confidence in the police has been taking a steady dip over the past few years, largely triggered by a deep-seated suspicion of the force. Their concern holds water.
We have read about newly minted Home Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, thumping his chest and vowing to act on anyone who dares to hold peaceful rallies or question the country’s electoral system.
I now ask that he bucks up and does the right thing as the minister in charge of Home Affairs by ordering and open inquiry into Dharmendran’s death and instructing the police chief to suspend all officers who were involved in interrogating the deceased until the investigation is completed.
Reclassifying the case as murder is not enough.
We have been disappointed many times with the outcome of the police investigating themselves. But as the new government has promised transparency and accountability, I urge the police not to play Houdini by trying to make crucial evidence disappear or attempt to cover up for their fellow colleagues.
BN’s shortcomings have become a huge liability to the country and its people for decades. Let’s hope that, for once, fairness and justice will prevail.
Or Dharmendran will become just another number, adding to the rising statistics.
Dont forget that he forcibly took over a building without paying rental/or purchasing it. This is the very building currently occuppied by Masterskill in Taman Kemacahaya. People were picketing because their wages were unpaid. Now of course he can used PRDM to say that it so when he beats up a guy because of personal reasons, he’s a gangster but if he were to make it a court case, people will say he’s misusing his power.. negativity will always seen as negative to people who hates.
With his off-the-cuff remark at the Jaipur Literature Festival that OBCs, SCs and STs are among the most corrupt elements in Indian society, sociologist Ashis Nandy has unwittingly created a storm in a caste cup. A number of social organisations in several states have lodged police complaints against him under the law which proscribes any form of caste-based discrimination, including the use of language deemed to be derogatory. While the Supreme Court has stayed Nandy’s arrest, it has rapped his knuckles and advised him to be more careful in future of what he says in public. On the other hand, a number of public personalities, including writers and academics, have defended Nandy’s constitutional right to freedom of speech, a right which daily is being attacked in what is seen to be India’s increasingly intolerant society.
But perhaps everyone involved — those who filed charges against Nandy, the apex court which rebuked him, and those who seek to defend his right to free speech — may have missed the real point about caste and corruption which the social commentator was trying to make, and which he later tried to explain, so far to little avail. What Nandy seemed to be saying was that corruption was in-built into Indian society as much as the caste system was. When the upper castes used their privileged position to gain social, economic or political advantage over those of a lower caste — as they had been doing over millennia — they were in effect practising a form of institutionalised corruption.
Thanks to the social churning that has taken place post-Mandal, the lower castes have got a leg-up on the social ladder. As a result, an increasing number of them are in a position — thanks to educational and job quotas — to extend patronage in exchange for financial and other forms of gratification, which formerly was the exclusive prerogative of the upper castes.
The reason that corruption may seem to be more conspicuous among the lower castes could be that as it is a relatively recent phenomenon it appears to be more prominent: in other words, the lower castes have a lot of catching up to do in this, as in all other social indices. In this sense, corruption — the great equaliser in Indian society — could be interpreted as a yardstick of social progress and upward mobility.
One of the reasons given for rising food prices is that, thanks to economic progress, those who earlier subsisted on coarse grains are now including rice, wheat, vegetables, meat and dairy products in their diet, causing the prices of all these to go up.
High food costs are part of the price we pay for nutritional democracy. So, according to the argument that Ashis Nandy might have been trying to make, is lower caste corruption the price we have to pay for the democracy of graft, where everyone — and not just the privileged castes — has access to equal opportunity for receiving bribes?
Perhaps that’s all that Ashis was trying to say: That the eggs of gold laid by Mother Ghoos are there for the grabbing equally by all citizens of our republic, irrespective of caste or creed. If that’s not equality, what is?
