SILENCING THE VOICE OF DISSENTERS: Exposing the strategy of alienating individuals

 

I see a trend these days in Malaysia that tries to alienate individuals. 

        Instead of solving issues, they are more interested  to push their own agenda. They cannot tolerate voices of dissent, because their personal agenda is at stake.

        So, rakyat must be fully aware of the power of one voice. Their strategy is to alienate and smear the reputation of the individual so that people are afraid to associate with them. 

Good People Are Individual Voices

        Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther the Reformer, and many more all began with just one individual. Their voices were soon heard.

        I remember years ago, Dr Tan Chee Khoon used to be the lone voice. Known as the Mr Opposition, he was respected by even the then prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman himself. 

        Of course, they had their heated debates in parliament. But, those were the days when politicians were more gentlemanly unlike today what you see in the Malaysian parliament where, there are shouting of even obscene words that I won't reproduce here. MPs are not apes. They should allow the fellow MP to speak.

        In the 60s, they were still untainted by corruption, but today, it is money talk. 

         Years later, we also saw that Lim Kit Siang was the lone voice in parliament. There was in one particular general election, DAP was nearly wiped off. Of course, he was being heckled by his opponents in parliament, but he still stood up to be the sole voice for the people.

        It was then that Kit's voice was heard loud and clear throughout the country. Even while studying in Australia, we read the news and were aware of what was happening in the country. 

        DAP was only a small minority in parliament and every time they spoke, their voices were being drown by the shouting of people from the other camps. We used to call them hooligans. 

        Now, in Selangor State Assembly, we see the same, even from fellow MPs in the same party or coalition. That is why the Sultan of Selangor bought a painting which I hope to snap a picture with some day.

       
        But, the times when DAP was a small party are over. In Selangor, for example, Pakatan Harapan has a two-third majority. This is where power has started to get into their heads. 

        It is sad to see a few dangerous trends that are developing even with Pakatan Harapan. I will focus on this one trend for now. The other trends, I will expose later. They are no different compared to the parties that we drove out of Selangor.

Here, take a look

        In this article in Sinar Harian, the director of Selangor Forestry Department, instead of protecting the forest from being turned into quarries, tried to pin the blame and single out one individual. 

        In another article, DAP has a controversial amendment to their constitution which will effectively stifle the voices of dissenters. One of their CEC members, Ronnie Liu was willing to be the lone voice. And for this, he was immediately singled out by his own secretary general, Anthony Loke. 

        Both can be angry with me, but this is a fact that I am stating.

         In fact, I don't care who both of them are. They may have personal conflicts before, but you can notice that Loke's strategy is to try to single out Liu. If this is the only explanation that a DAP "stalwart" can give, I think I am starting to lose my confidence in this party which is supposed to be a democratic party. It's shameful!

        Where are the other dissenting voices? Gradually, like what we see in Umno, the voices of the dissenters will die down. The good people cannot survive in this kind of environment. They will leave the party. 

        And what we see in Umno today, I am not surprised to see that in some of our PH political parties if the seniors continue to remain silent and allow the younger ones to run the party. They have never gone through the experience of being lone voices in parliament like what Man Hin, Kit Siang, Karpal and Chee Khoon went through.

        Soon, you will also see some tyrants emerging when their powers are consolidated. 

        Loke calls it the "amendment to the anti-hopping law." In fact, none of us is against the anti-hopping law. What Liu and most of us observing from outside is against is the sacking of any member willing to stand up with a dissenting view.

        Finally, just look at this one last post, coming from a grassroot member who was appointed as a local councillor. You can already see the similar trend that is now becoming obvious to me. 

        Even though I showed senior members of the political party, no one has even said anything about correcting the person's remarks. I was asking why two humps before the exit gate. The humps are also built in a way that they will hit the lower deck of the car. Evidence is there and very obvious. Many of his seniors would have seen this picture.

        In the conversation, I said we want MPs who are on the ground with the people, not like Tony Pua and Elizabeth Wong, who are evasive. 

        The local councillor then went on to say that he would remove the hump if I could get 50 neighbours to support my request. 

Their Strategy will Prove to Be Wrong

        History has taught us that their strategy will prove to be wrong. I don't need to elaborate, but often, in history, we have seen individuals willing to stand up when the rest were following what we call 'herd mentality.' 

        This is a term that some of our political parties in PH have heard before, but those who never learn from history are doomed to fail. 

        Their strategy is: alienate the individual, smear his reputation using half-truths, keep others from supporting this individual, and let the dissenting voice die down. 

        If the dissenter is willing to stand up and not be shaken by such nonsense that he sees, eventually, there will be people watching and realizing that something is very wrong with the herd mentality.  

        That is how Germany turned around after Hitler was finally defeated. There were dissenters who stood the ground because they saw Nazi has become the people's religion. The Nazis had blind allegiance to their political master. Everything that Hitler said, their response was:

        Some of them such as Bonhoeffer even sacrificed his life. Of course, you have watched other movies such as Shindler's List. These were individuals who stood against Hitler.

Voice of the Senior is NOW Heard Outside Loud & Clear

        I received news that someone has spoken up. I must say bravo to this person. Allow me to share this (the abbreviation SG stands for Secretary General): 

That’s the meaning of “tyranny of the majority”.  It’s proven throughout history that majority may not be right every time.  Even in the USA democracy has been eroded n democracy has become plutocracy. 

American democracy has been undermined by the industrial military complex of lobbyists. Likewise the political elitists in both sides of the Malaysian political divide whether it’s UMNO, PAS, PKR or even our beloved DAP - all of them control  the party. I suppose PKR is the most “democratic” as the members elect the President. 

According to my UK friend who is a professor of governance n regular commentator in UK mainstream papers, BBC, ITV n even CNN - he told me our DAP method of voting was practised by trade unions in UK n has been discontinued n deemed illegal.

My friend was also an Adviser of the Labour Party which was supported by the Trade Unions. You don’t need lawyers to understand the law. All you need is a fair minded person to understand fair play n by extension a fair constitution. 

Hence, with my experience sitting in the boards n councils of world, regional n Malaysian accountancy bodies - I respectfully disagree with our SG becos in a Federal court decision there are dissenting views- does that mean these judges should be sacked too? They too are lawyers - I rest my case.

Also Read:

https://come-to-senses.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-great-public-is-interested-more-in.html