RPK in distress, and a lesson from history

Technorati tags: History, ISA, RPK, Teresa Kok, Tempe

Update @ 8:58pm: Just found out (via The People's Parliament) that Marina (as in RPK's wife) will get to meet her husband tomorrow morning at 11am. Good news, Walski thinks... Just thought he should share it with you folks.

Original Post:
Walski reads with great distress that RPK's life may be in real danger, via The People's Parliament. An excerpt from the post (emphasis by myAsylum).

“We must meet. RPK is in danger.”

We met.

“You look like shit!”, he said.

“I feel like that as well”, I replied.

“You remember when RPK was in remand at Sungai Buloh the last time and he refused to eat or drink and the prison authorities got so worried that they begged his wife to get him out?

“Well, RPK is on hunger strike again. No food and no water. The authorities know that his kidneys will not be able to take this for long too long. They are going to let this carry on in the hope that complications set in and that he will suffer organ malfunction."
(read the rest here)

No surprise, de facto Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim has stood up, true to his personality of high integrity, and questioned the arrests under the Internal Security Act. And he threatens to quit over the arrests, which he says are a blatant abuse of this infernal piece of legislature.

And he's not the only minister that's questioning the arrests. Information Minister Shabery Cheek and Human Resources Minister Dr. S. Subramaniam have also raised their concerns (see here and here, respectively, via Malaysiakini).

In the case of Teresa Kok, what's infuriating is that the real culprits for stirring up bad feelings and tense religious sentiments, namely Utusan, Khir "Tempe Man" Toyo, and others baying for blood, are left off the hook, scott free. Who are the ones that have really been behind causing anxiety of the Malay/Muslim community? Hint: read this post, (from Malaysians Say The Darndest Things - written in Bahasa Malaysia).

At the same time, however, Pakatan Rakyat should be very, very cautious during tonight's proposed rally, for which a police permit has already be granted.

Why?

Walski, for one, would not want history to repeat itself...
(beware the agents provocateur, and more, in the full post)

Tensions are high, and the people are currently living in fear, to one degree or another. 1969 saw a similar situation. Walski was, of course, too young to know what was going on back then. But there are people who do - and not the official version that UMNO would have us believe, but what really happened.

The last posting by Raja Petra Kamaruddin, just before his arrest, is a good reminder that we should heed the lessons of history, lest our actions in not taking heed bite us squarely in the ass. In the posting, which originally appeared 9 years ago, RPK recounts an interview with the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first Prime Minister.

“It was clear to me as well as the police that in the highly charged political atmosphere after the police were forced to kill a Chinese political party worker on May 4th, 1969, something was bound to happen to threaten law and order because of the resentment towards the Government by the KL Chinese on the eve of the general election. This was confirmed at this man’s funeral on the 9th May when the government faced the most hostile crowd it had ever seen.

Therefore, when the opposition parties applied for a police permit for a procession to celebrate their success in the results of the general election, I was adamant against it because the police were convinced that this would lead to trouble. I informed Tun Razak about this and he seemed to agree.

Now, without my knowledge and actually “behind my back”, there were certain political leaders in high positions who were working to force me to step down as a PM. I don’t want to go into details but if they had come to me and said so I would gladly have retired gracefully.

Unfortunately, they were apparently scheming and trying to decide on the best way to force me to resign. The occasion came when the question of the police permit was to be approved".
(source: Malaysia Today)

The permit was approved behind Tunku's back, and the rest, as they say, is history.

And what's happening today? The military has already spoken (here and here, via Malaysiakini), indicating that they, Walski guesses, are on high alert. That was last week.

At the same time, the rally to commemorate Malaysia Day, which will inevitably also an anti-ISA rally because of recent events, to be held tonight at Stadium MBPJ in Kelana Jaya, has obtained the necessary permit from the police. That is tonight.

What Walski wants to say is this: Beware the agents provocateur - and do not fall into the trap that Walski (among many others) fears may be set, trying to cause chaos during the rally, to set events in motion that may see a repeat of martial law being put in place.

It is clear that the days of BN are coming to a close, but let's do ourselves a favor and see this sorely needed change through intelligently, and not act rashly or emotionally. Most importantly, in a civilized, non-violent way.

Those who do not heed the lessons of history... well, you know the rest.