Bury the Ghost of May 13, 1969? With UMNO- I don't think so !

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"Pride is an established conviction of 

one's own paramount worth in some particular respect, 

while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, 

and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately 

coming to the same conviction oneself."

~Arthur Schopenhauer

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May 13, 1969 - it was either too far back in my memory or there was nothing significant happening in Port Dickson back then for me to remember anything (most likely the latter).
It is an event repeatedly resurrected by our UMNO/BN hoods to scare the people into submission to "gods" which walk the corridors of power, and consequently handing them power on a silver platter.

Yes- there was no other purpose for the dastardly events of May 13, (which incidentally UMNO holds as their crowning glory) other that FEAR.

While the people are willing to stop looking under their beds for ghosts which may lurk there- UMNO would not relent ... and so, they resurrect it again and again. They want it- they need it. 

Now that all PERKASA's sabre-rattling isn't working (and the people have pretty much gotten over it), they have to do something to imprint in deeper into their psyche- so this time they engage the pathetic FINAS to come up which something on the silver screen to servfe their purpose.

Just like any other political game- they will play their "Good cop, Bad cop" game; and that's where Mazlan- son of the famed Father (Dato' Harun- apparently a "central figure" in the event) comes into the picture.

"Umno veteran Datuk Mazlan Harun wants the public 

to lay to rest the ghost of a 1969 racial bloodbath 

— that could threaten the country's unity 

in the run-up to national polls due next year.

The son of the then Selangor mentri besar,

 opened up to The Malaysian Insider in an exclusive interview last week 

over reports of an incident at his father's home ......"

~ Time to bury 1969 bloodbath, says UMNO vet

I don't know Dato' Harun personally, although I did treat him once during his illness in his winter years- and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. I'm serious. However, "reading between the lines" and listening to the "unofficial versions" of May 13, gives a different picture of him- and UMNO.

So, despite all UMNO's propaganda that May 13 was a "racial" thingie, I'm inclined to believe that it was just the "politics of the capitalist sociopaths". (Whatever mask, beard, robe or skullcap they wear- most ruthless politicians are "capitalist sociopaths" anyway). 

Through and through, it was purely about power and money- whitewashed with "affirmative action" of racial privileges/supremacy, which ultimately manifested itself through 40yrs of the brain-numbing, racially divisive, apartheid policies of the NEP (New Economic Piracy). All these policies of course, came into full bloom in the era of the other central figure of May 13- none other than our beloved Proton Car Toon, Mr. Madey.

Be that as it may- not only are Malaysians willing to put it behind them and move forward, I believe that Malaysians are also willing to forgive the perpetrators of that massacre, for the sake of the future generations. So, just as Mazlan says, we all want to bury May 13 as well. 

However, I also believe that it cannot be buried in a shallow grave of lies and propaganda.
Not now, not ever.

The only way to "bury" May 13, 1969- is to declassify all documents, and have a truth & reconciliation commission. If the brutal Apartheid regime of South Africa can do for their decades of abuse- so can UMNO, for one incident.
There is no need to punish those (alive or dead) who were responsible & are willing to admit their faults- for the truth is of greater value for the nation.

Sweeping it under the carpet thru spin, silence or gag orders will only let it fester in the hearts and  minds of the young ones thru stories, lies, myths and speculation- which is what UMNO wants, so that it can hold the nation at ransom (aka blackmail).

Anyways- even if UMNO insists on playing the same old tired game of fear, I'm pretty much convinced that they wouldn't want it to happen themselves (after all, it is they who stand to lose the most with the collapse of the economy).
Moreover- I seriously doubt that my Malay brothers buy their hogwash and believe that it is the non-Malays who have (or will rob them of their money/dignity).

They too know who's playing the wayang/silat.....

NOTE:
Although it was Gerakan which had officially apologized for the conduct of their party members (Al-Mukmin, Hatta (2005). "Keranamu UMNO", p. 104. Abadi Publishing House) during the party rally, it is not known why UMNO buries this fact- and pins the blame squarely on DAP.

Here is an entry from Wikipedia:-

Incidents of violence continued to occur in the weeks after 13 May, with the targets now being not only Malay or Chinese but also Indian. It is argued that this showed that "the struggle has become more clearly than ever the Malay extremists' fight for total hegemony."^[8]

According to police figures, 196 people died^[9] and 149 were wounded. 753 cases of arson were logged and 211 vehicles were destroyed or severely damaged. Various other casualty figures have been given, with one thesis from a UC Berkeley academic, as well as Time, putting the total dead at ten times the government figure.^[8][10]

 

Conflicts in - Between the "spirit" & the 'letter"

Oddities in law

by Azmi Sharom

Brave New World (The Star)
8 August 2012

To the layman, what PKR’s Rafizi Ramli and former bank clerk Johari Mohamad did was for the greater public good when they exposed a scandal involving millions of ringgit which came from public coffers. So why prosecute them?

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IN the past two weeks a couple of legal oddities have come to light. The first is with regard to the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) and the second is with the University and University Colleges Act (UCCA).

The WPA has come into focus because of the arrest and charging of Rafizi Ramli and Johari Mohamad under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia).

The question on many people’s mind is: Why are they being charged since what they did was to expose certain banking documents that uncovered the National Feedlot Centre scandal? In other words, shouldn’t these two men be protected by the WPA?

Let’s break down the legal situation in this case.

On the face of it, Rafizi and Johari did breach the Bafia. Rafizi exposed private banking documents and this is in contravention of section 97 of Bafia, while Johari is accused of aiding him and this falls foul of section 112.

To the layman, however, what they did was not for private gain but for the greater public good, exposing a scandal which involves millions of ringgit which came from public coffers. Why then should they be punished?

Now, here is where the legal oddity comes in. If we look at section 6 of the WPA, we find that a person can make a disclosure of information and he could be protected if that disclosure is not specifically prohibited by any written law. Rafizi’s disclosure is clearly prohibited by the Bafia.

Secondly, according to section 6 of the WPA, this disclosure ought to be made to an enforcement agency, which Rafizi did not do as he made the disclosure to the press.

Therefore, it does appear that the charging of these two men does not go against the letter of the law.

Whether it goes against the spirit of the law and of recent pronouncements made by the Government that they are against corruption, is another story altogether.

I would argue the section 6 provision that a disclosure must not be specifically prohibited by any law is problematic and should be removed from the WPA.

From my understanding, even if Rafizi had gone to an enforcement agency, for example the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, he would still be unprotected as a whistle blower because the information he is disclosing to them is prohibited by the Bafia.

Yet, in this case, the uncovered information is important as it can help in the battle against corruption.

I submit that what is important is not whether the disclosure goes against any laws; what we should be focusing on is the effect of the disclosure.

That is to say, if the disclosure exposes a serious crime or evidence of corruption, then the fact that by disclosing the information the whistle blower is in breach of a law should not be a factor.

If the action of the whistle blower is for the public good, then this should be a defence against any law he may have broken.

Taking criminal law as an example: if I hit a man, then I have committed a crime. However, if I hit him because he would stab my mother if I did not, then I have a defence under the law.

With this in mind, it struck me as strange that the Attorney-General has seen it fit to prosecute Rafizi and Johari.

From my argument above, there is a shortcoming in the law, particularly the WPA.

What these two men did was in the public interest. There is no likelihood that the breach of the Bafia in this case is going to cause any serious implications.

After all, the only people who have anything to fear are the corrupt.

So, if there are concerns that foreigners won’t put their money in our banks, I would say they do not have anything to fear if they are not corrupt.

Now, to fix the WPA will take time. But surely, until that is done, the A-G can use his discretion to simply not prosecute these two men in this particular case. Does he not want to fight corruption?

The second legal oddity is a seeming contradiction in the UCCA.

The Deputy Minister for Higher Education pointed out that the amended UCCA allows university students to join political parties, yet at the same time it does not allow any party political activity on campus.

I agree with the Deputy Minister; this is a rather odd state of affairs. However, I don’t think it is the biggest issue with regard to the UCCA.

From my decades long experience with university students, joining a political party is not high on their list of priorities.

After all, what kind of political nerd are you to want to join a political party at the age of 19? The only thing you will experience from doing so is the loss of interest from the opposite sex.

No, from a political context what is more important is their general right to expression, assembly and association.

It would be churlish to say that the UCCA has not been improved by the recent amendments. For example, there is now a presumption that a student can join any group unless it is illegal or unless the university says they can’t. In the past, they could not join any organisation at all without the express permission of the university.

However, these improvements are rather shallow. Dig a little deeper and you will see that students can still be severely punished by the university for exercising their constitutional rights.

This is because the universities have disciplinary rules which do not respect the students’ constitutional rights. They all have very broad “offences” such as spoiling “the good name of the university” in their rule books.

So, if students take part in a perfectly legal demonstration for example, the university disciplinary board can still punish them for “spoiling the good name of the university”.

And this discipline board can really disrupt their lives. They can suspend or even expel a student with immediate effect.

This means that even if the student goes through the appeal process, he may have already wasted a semester or even longer.

The punishment takes effect before the appeal process can run its course.

Therefore, the university still has far too much power and seeing as it is unlikely they will temper this power with a respect for human rights and the Federal Constitution, the issue of the UCCA goes much further than whether a student can wave party political flags from his dorm window.