State

Malaysia need not need to worry about North Korea. It is better that we take a look at ourselves in the mirror. Malaysia is slowly but inexorably turning into a policecontrolled state as recent events have so indicated to us. Malaysia need not parrot the argument that North Korea is trying to 'destabilise' or 'increase the tension' in Asia by carrying out its atomic test last Monday. The test has changed absolutely nothing on the Korean peninsula. The status quo has not changed and the situation on the ground has remained more stable than even a frozen glacier. But the same thing cannot be said of the situation here. The police here are getting more and more authoritarian and arbitrary in their behaviour with each passing day. They are now getting bolder and bolder in their attempts to act as accuser, prosecutor, judge, and jury and executioner all in one go. They are now even the law itself. The recent spate of arrests which specifically targeted minority and opposition figures and politicians showed that the police are trying to impose themselves as the law in this country. In other words, the country is now under the direct control of the force. The politicians are around as window dressing. People get arrested for wearing shirts of a certain colour, holding a candle or simply refusing to eat food. Malaysia is certainly a political oddity, given that a human being could get thrown behind bars simply for wearing the wrong colour or declining to eat food. Why worry about N.Korea ? N. Korea knows that it is being shoved to the back-burner because there is no benefit to anyone except the N.Koreans themselves should permanent peace or genuine reconciliation become reality on the Korean peninsula. The country knows that it needs to continue banging drums and cymbals to say, 'Hey, over here ! We are still alive'. Even if a nuclear drum or cymbal needed to be used in the process, then it had to be used. On the other hand, it benefits a lot of people to make sure that the tension in Korea is maintained but not allowed to explode. Peace and reconciliation are considered as totally undesirable subjects. And in Malaysia, it is desirable to maintain a semblance of 'democracy' and 'liberty', but genuine justice and rule of law are considered as inappropriate for the local scene. Anyone who disagreed must be straight away be dragged into police vans and into the lock-up. This is nothing less than raw intimidation being applied against people who want to stand up for basic democratic rights in a country which

claimed to practise 'democracy'. Other countries which do not profess to practise democracy usually do not arrest or lock up non-violent people in the manner seen here. But Malaysia, which 'practises democracy', allows its police full discretion on how the force could go about arresting, harassing and intimidating its own citizens, especially its minority citizens. Even non-minority citizens had to flee abroad. It is not unusual for the police here to slap multiple charges and accusations against a particular individual seen to be anti-government. How could a victim of intimidation escape such a noose, except to flee abroad. The silent segment of society must never forget what is happening now. Jot it down for the permanent record. And hold on to the Bukit Gantangs now and for the next gen elections. Clearly, the country is now turning into a police-controlled state where the people in uniform are the ones who decide who to catch and who to prosecute and what is permissible and what is not permissible. We live in the new era of the Malaysian version of Stasi. Long live the new era.