reduced and recycled

I wish the world was simple, in black and white, 2 dimensional. There’s this episode in Paranoia Agent when Keiichi Ikari, a really old-fashioned detective, longs for such simple days. Of course, harking back to the past is the best way to lose sight of reality, and he does - caught in a literal 2-dimensional world which reflects, eloquently, the paper-thin superficiality of such a disabling escapism. The flip-side, I think, is having the courage and the will to face up to reality as it is.

And the reality is that Pakistan’s General Musharraf had stepped beyond his limits. In the run up to the BERSIH rally, I remember listening to the BBC at one point and I heard over the radio a lawyer pleading for international intervention. She was relating incidences of lawyers being beaten, abused and arrested for protesting Musharraf’s complete disregard for judicial independence. Several judges were placed under house arrest whilst others were summarily relieved of their duties while puppet judges subservient to the Musharraf tune were placed in power.

It made me think of how our lawyers marched to the Palace of Justice to hand over a memorandum to the Prime Minister. It made me glad I wasn’t living in Pakistan, but it made me wonder: lawyers were out on the streets in Pakistan, braving brutal retaliation - but who was standing up for them? No one, it seemed, and Pakistan’s judicial crisis passed without incident in the international community, until today that is. It’s been done before, I’m sure, but now the Commonwealth has booted out Pakistan.

Again, this isn’t all black and white, so I wonder if the move was motivated by hidden agenda. Maybe it was, but on the face of it, the move by the Commonwealth has robbed General Musharraf of any moral high ground he thought he had. But this isn’t the most important consequence of the Commonwealth’s action, to me.

To me, the booting out of Pakistan reveals ASEAN’s complete lack of moral fibre, in contrast.

Instead of allowing the UN’s Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari to come out and brief Asean leaders on the situation in Myanmar, Asean leaders agreed to disagree and strongly rejected Singapore’s proposal. What do you think Ibrahim Gambari would have said? No one will ever know, now, and an opportunity to pressure Myanmar into loosening its grip on its people has now passed. And who gains? I suppose every one in ASEAN gains. Fellow members of ASEAN who themselves have poor human rights records breathe a collective sigh of relief and it’s business as usual - because isn’t ASEAN about economic cooperation, never mind the social cost?

What a complete lack of moral fibre.

And look at Singapore. Singapore has come out tops in this whole little drama. No matter what you think, Singaporeans are pretty smart, and the one running Singapore’s foreign policy is leaps and bounds above our own Syed Hamid Albar. Does anybody believe for one moment that Singapore didn’t think ASEAN leaders would react with such unanimity and reject Gambari’s visit? I bet Lee Hsien Loong and his cadre of advisors knew. If so, then the small proposal of having Gambari address ASEAN leaders must have been an elaborate wayang kulit. Singapore comes out looking like it’s encouraging change in Myanmar’s attitude to its own people.

The West will approve.

Speaking of moral fibre, my prayers are with the leaders the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) who were arrested under whatever trumped-up charges the Police would have us believe. Not satisfied with arresting Hindraf’s legal advisor for some violation of the Sedition Act, the Police have also obtained a court order restraining Hindraf members from participating in the forthcoming rally this Sunday.

This comes in the wake of more roadblocks set up by the Police, now placing the burden of Hindraf’s rally on the public in Kuala Lumpur. I predict that this tactic will be used again and again on the pretext of ensuring no weapons or dangerous elements are allowed into the capitol. You might think I’m mad, naive or stupid, but what the Police and the government are doing is employing classic counter-insurgency methods. The people are made to feel the consequences of any guerilla action, with the goal of winning over the people, the ultimate platform and raison d’être of any insurgency.

So Kuala Lumpur will be locked down again, while the leaders of Hindraf languish in prison fighting for a cause which, frankly, I do not agree with. Legal proceedings against Elizabeth Regina for actions in the past is a sure-fire way to miss out on opportunities to remedy the damage in the present. Of course, this incredible action brought by Hindraf is just to attract attention to the plight of migrant Indians in Malaysia. I say “migrant Indians” with some emphasis, I assure you. And while I do not agree with the apparent reasons for the rally, I do support the rally if only for one reason: that it is time Indians stand up for themselves and fight for what is their’s.

Now that is moral fibre.