 When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out. From Jeff Ooi's blog When people in high places feel threatened, they use one the many tools of suppression to oppress legitimate concerns. People are no more like sheep, they think. Yes at one time during the time of our parents, they followed that particualr government which they thought was clean as depicted by the media of that time and age. We shall not blame them, nowadays there are alternative views and opinions. Toll concessions, an example simply cannot be a secret, it does not threaten any National Security. Knowing about it might make the people dump those involved in these concession awards. Not all of the people think very highly of the current regime. Corruption, crime and fairplay are high on the watch of the Malaysian people...and they are watching you. Here is Neil's comment in Jeff Ooi's blog :
The root of the matter is who decides what comes under the OSA. It's reasonable to say that if the OSA is made to protect defense matters whose compromise will affect national security, then well and fine. The principle of protecting the bigger good is safeguarded.
Now tell me what happens if the OSA is applied to protect parties who are or may be deemed in a court of law to have acted contrary to the bigger good of the rakyat, or are culpable in abuse of power. Wouldn't that mean the principle is used for one aspect and not for the other?
As dangerous as external threat to nation and society is internal threat from one's own through such aspects as corruption and abuse of power; lately you can add personal vendetta to the list on the excuse that the party was 'acting on behalf of the people' (as in the CTOS case).
You know, if it takes six years for legal recourse to come about regarding usurpation by forgery of a land title, a process which requires creating a precedent to overturn a higher court judgement (which brings up another issue on evolution of the legal process in this country), and then again, you have an AG saying he reacted because he was human, and then you have enforcement heads coming under investigation, and so on, you start to wonder who's in charge of end-to-end integrity, and more importantly its constant maintenance, of the legal process of this country, especially how it can be subverted by vested parties using an instrument such as the OSA which is meant to protect national and society interests.
Just who is the enemy of the state, nowadays? Bloggers to try to tell the truth, readers who try to analyse matters, the rakyat who suffers one matter after another day after day? Or, those who can do things right for once but seem to have lost their tongue to rebut, limbs to walk the talk about integrity, and brains to see the spiral downhill.
You don't a hammer on an ant unless you think the ant may show where the sugar has been cached. Well said Neil-edit. |
