Why she is the target
Teresa Kok’s attempts to reach out to Malay Muslims has no doubt been a threat to Umno
Leslie Lau, October 4, 2008
SHE has been villified as a Chinese chauvinist and portrayed as anti-Muslim. She was detained one week under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for allegedly stirring up religious sentiments. And last week, unknown assailants threw a Molotov cocktail into the compound of her family home in Kuala Lumpur.
But ask Democratic Action Party (DAP) Member of Parliament Teresa Kok why she has become the target of a smear campaign in recent months and she will probably be hard pressed for an answer.
And those who know her insist she is anything but a chauvinist or an enemy of Islam that her detractors claim she is.
When Ms Kok was detained under the ISA, even Mr Zaid Ibrahim, who quit the Cabinet as de facto Law Minister partly in protest against the use of the law, said of her: “I know Teresa personally and I cannot see her as anti-Islam.”
While Mr Zaid was the only United Malays National Organisation (Umno) member who spoke out publicly, he was not the only one who viewed the recent ISA detentions of Ms Kok and a female journalist, who was released after18 hours, as unwarranted.
“Look, everyone who knows her (Ms Kok) knows she is not a bigot or a chauvinist. This makes the government look bad,” one MP from the Umno told Weekend Xtra.
In fact, it was some of Ms Kok’s political opponents in Parliament – from the ruling Barisan Nasional – who met with government officials in private to plead for her release. Such is Ms Kok’s popularity that when she made her first public appearance at a press conference hours after her release on Sept 19, she received a standing ovation from reporters.
It is probable that Ms Kok, who won her Seputeh parliamentary seat in Kuala Lumpur with a 36,492-majority – the biggest – in the March elections, could win with an even bigger margin if polls were held today.
To her supporters, she is a hero who has been wronged.
It was alleged that she had abused her position as an MP and a member of the Selangor state government to direct a mosque to reduce the volume of its public address system during prayer times because it was disturbing non-Muslims living nearby.
The allegation, made by former Selangor mentri besar Mohd Khir Toyo, and highlighted in the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia newspaper, was found to be untrue. Even the mosque committee came out to publicly deny the allegation. Still, she was detained by the police.
The attacks have not stopped despite her release. Utusan Malaysia has made her, in her own words, a “cover girl” since her release. After she complained about the allegedly low quality of food served during her detention, comparing it to dog food, she has been chastised repeatedly in the newspaper.
Ms Kok, known for her multi-racial stand, has been determined more than ever to flaunt it since her arrest.
Following her release, she has been attending breaking-of-fast functions almost nightly during the just-ended fasting month of Ramadan.
But even that has become the subject of attacks by Utusan Malaysia.
Last week, Ms Kok was criticised in the newspaper for “wearing a skirt to a mosque”. The article appeared to suggest that she was wearing something outrageous and that her attire caused serious discomfort among Muslims present at the function.
However, facts suggested otherwise. Ms Kok wore a long-sleeved dress which came down almost to her ankles. She also did not enter the mosque, remaining instead in its compound.
One of Ms Kok’s Malay-Muslim supporters told Weekend Xtra: “I don’t understand why she is being targetted. She is usually so sensitive to the religious obligations of Muslims it is almost ridiculous. She usually takes great pains to tell me what I can or cannot eat when we are out that I find it hard to believe she would be anti-Islam.”
Ultimately, the smear campaign could be attributed to the fact thatMs Kok and a number of leaders from the Chinese-dominated DAP have taken pains to reach out to Malay-Muslim voters.
As a member of a party who is part of three state governments – along with its Malay partners in the Parti Keadilan Rakyat and Parti Islam SeMalaysia – DAP leaders like Ms Kok have been reaching out more than ever, and successfully, to Malay voters.
This is undoubtedly a political threat to the ruling coalition led by Umno.
The attacks against Ms Kok and the attempts to portray her as a Chinese chauvinist who is anti-Islam represent a crude attempt at undermining the credibility and viability of the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, as a viable multi-racial alternative to BN.
But targetting Ms Kok, known for her congeniality as much as anything else, may well backfire.
#1 by One4All4One on Monday, 6 October 2008 - 11:28 am
The people have to know their rights and standing with regard to their relation with the government and its agencies, local municipalities / authorities.
Indeed the government is answerable to the rakyat, and not the other way round.
People have to learn to exert and demand their rights in order that they get their deserved services and attention.
Those in government service have to be told and made to realise that they are answerable to the rakyat and not the other way round. Either they perform or leave the service.
A campaign organised to educate the rakyat on these matters would be useful and long overdue.
#2 by counsel888 on Saturday, 11 October 2008 - 10:31 am
THE DILEMMA OF BEING THERESA KOK
INTRODUCTION
Theresa Kok and people like her who hold public office should always seek proper counsel on the subject of precision in preparation and publication of their statements to the public in order to avoid embarrassment to themselves and to the outcomes they like her so desperately now seeks to avoid.
If statements attributed to her in press releases were prepared or approved by her for publication and if I were a constituent of hers, I would have grave reservations about her ability to function effectively or to communicate my needs as a constituent of hers to the legislature.
The inference is drawn from her very poor ability to express herself properly in the language of her choice, English either orally or in written form. She speaks English (if that’s not stretching the imagination too far) but clearly thinks in Chinese and not even Bahasa which would in the circumstances be preferable.
Perhaps this is why she also prefers the Chinese characters so provocatively displayed often on her website, from which any polemic is excised and diversity of thought discouraged. A totalitarian mindset in skirts and covered up in a cheap wash of cosmetics? Democracy? Freedom of expression ? I think not.
THE PROBLEM WITH THERESA AND HER UNDERSTANDING OF RIGHT AND WRONG
Theresa Kok is her own biggest enemy. By implication of what she says in her press release and public comments (assuming what’s published and attributed to her as being her statements are in fact her statements), she patronisingly seeks to impugn unlawful or unfair conduct on the part of the police in their investigation of complaints and allegations leveled against her and her alleged activities.
There is a wide discretion of powers given to the police not only in Malaysia but in most other countries of the world to exercise in the course of their investigations. The police do not have to ask a suspect the types of questions the suspect would prefer the [police to ask of them. Which planet does this woman live on?
The ISA is no ordinary piece of legislation and police questioning is not designed to assist a suspect to conceal what they the police seek to elicit from them in the execution of their duties. Such fanciful privileges are not even accorded a detainee or suspect during a non ISA instituted interrogation or questioning by police anywhere.
Whether or not one likes the ISA, it remains on the statute books and a personal revulsion to the Act is insignificant to its application or to its existence until such revulsion manifests itself in a change of legislation.
As an example on the point, there is universal opposition to the death penalty. I would have assumed that such a truly draconian punitive sanction would have been a priority issue for a self confessed practicing Catholic and Chinese chauvinist MP to pursue into oblivion.
It is after all an issue concerned with the preservation of human life and human dignity which doctrinally is paramount to everything Catholic. To whom forgiveness is a close second relative.
And further statistically for good measure the Chinese remain the largest victims of the gallows in South East Asia. And even further still her openly demonstrated priorities lie squarely with the Malaysian Chinese community!!
Where convenient Theresa embarrassingly poses with a token few Malays whilst dressed uncomfortably in a baju kurong in an unconvincing attempt at absolution and exorcism of that the self inflicted stigma of her narrow race based leanings.
There is a different forum and process by which people are able to express their dissatisfaction or revulsion to the ISA. That process and forum was available for the public to act on in March 8 of 2008. The results of that event are self evident.
The ISA was not a policy issue then sufficient to change anything. With Theresa Kok’s incarceration under the Act it suddenly takes centre stage. Perhaps the message is that charity does indeed begin at home.
Who is Theresa Kok really acting for? her narcissistic self or her constituents who are narrowly aligned to her equally narrow non secular racially inspired ideologies? she has set herself up for her fall and now plays Mother Theresa and the little flower.
POLICE ACTION IN DETAINING HER AND THE ISA
Were the police acting in a high handed manner in their detention and interrogation of her? perhaps so. But were they breaking the law in doing so? I think not.
What Theresa Kok in her statement here speculates is, that in detaining her and in not conducting an investigation according to what she believes was the right way to go about it has rendered the police action against her unlawful and immoral.
Further it would appear from her statement, that she is inviting an inference that it was the Utusan Melayu’s publication on the offending subject that was the genesis of her problems leading to her detention. Pure speculation. Maybe an officer who interviewed her said so. But that’s a statement of the officer and not one of proof that UM was the complainant.
Theresa’s attempts to now sue the Utusan Melayu is reinforcement of her grand standing, self indulgent politics, devoid of any real alternative policy she has yet to convince the masses she is capable of.
TANTRUM POLITICS BY CREATING CONFLICT
Her further attempts to widen the conflict of ‘Theresa versus the rest of the world’ by drawing on a statement by MP Ahmad Ismail of Bukit Bendera and turning it into a racist controversy worthy of the proverbial “charity” that would “cover her multitude of sins” against the Malays is pathetic.
I once more urge Theresa Kok to discover the meaning of the word racist and place it for her here to absorb.
“a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.”
Ahmad Ismail’s comment in this regard at worst is perhaps a misstatement of fact or a statement misplaced in context. He referred to Chinese as squatters. I won’t go into that definition as it may hurt and lend unsolicited credibility to Ahmad’s statement.
THE TEST TO THERESA’S IDEOLOGY AND PURPOSE
If Theresa was genuinely concerned about racism she would have worked earnestly with the backing of the empire of the Vatican to;
(i) prevent Chinese exploitation and brutality against Phillipino and Indonesian maids in Malaysia (which statistically human rights orgnisations number ethnic Chinese families in Malaysia as being disproportionately bigger offenders than the other two races),
(ii) condemn and actively encourage an apology and repentance from Raja Petra Kamaruddin for blaspheming against the prophet regardless of her own faith,
(iii) condemn his vile racist comments against Malays which by any definition is racist and a vilification of an entire race without any defense, justification or moral qualification and patently illegal at international law.
(iv) campaign against Chinese exploitation of poorer and unprotected Indians who are the lowest paid employees in Chinese dominated organizations in Malaysia.
(v) campaign against the scourge of Chinese triad societies and the brutal predatory Ah Longs
(vi) campaign against the scourge of prostitution ( a profession dominated by Chinese pimps and not only in Malaysia)
(vii) campaign against the Catholic churches abuse of orphans, the poor and women and other weaker and dependant groupings within it
(viii) seek out and publicly identify pedophiles and sexual predators within the Catholic church a matter that is universal within that organization.
THERESA’S HYPCROSIY
Instead she calls for Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s release as if he were an innocent victim of justice gone wrong. A Martyr for her cause celebre, being the defamation and racial stereotyping of Malays and Muslims.
Her desperation in exploiting what Ahmad Ismail said and by her attempts at extrapolating his words into a specious argument about racism is just that. Desperation.
It beggars belief that someone in her position should cry foul whilst upholding the alley cat Hitlerian morality of one such as Raja Petra Kamaruddin. A man bereft of any morals, standards (social and professional) or credibility, hiding behind the thin veneer of respectability by calling himself a journalist.
In the current political and communally charged environment it is people like Theresa Kok and Raja Petra Kamuruddin that lend credibility to the continued need for and existence of the ISA. Their conduct supports its implementation as a tool to prevent a greater mischief being committed against the community at large by their reckless conduct and comments.
Many Malaysians unfortunately tend to forget what occurred during the blood letting of May 13 1969. To many more of a younger generation May 13th is merely academic and a reference point to the extremities of communalism. That’s dangerous.
Theresa Kok and Raja Petra Kamaruddin are birds of a feather. Generous with the lives of others in their provocation, eccentricity and their attempts at pushing the envelop to tearing point in pursuit of personal gratification and glory, attention and adulation and a mistaken belief they are doing the community a service.
What Theresa Kok and Raja Petra Kamaruddin engage in is nothing short of populist adventurism in its most vile and dangerous form.
CONCLUSION
Well there may be those who admire such politically bankrupt exploitation of racial tension either willfully or negligently by covering it with the respectability of “democracy and freedom of speech”. They then draw on the indiscretions of their opponents to justify what they do. But no one is game enough to ask the question;
“when did the indiscretions of those you despise become your moral beacon to follow?”
If a member of Parliament who practices a religion with a historical and ideological intolerance of the beliefs of others as its credo espouses it on her website, eschews a common language that could reach all constituents, but instead uses Chinese characters and English and calls herself a democrat and a freedom lover, goes hell for leather against Malays and Muslims in her unbridled and contemptuous hatred for them, she deserves more than a mere locking up for 8 days in solitary. Theresa and people like her need a re education or total banishment for the danger they are to any civil society.
It may be worth noting that this woman was actually accorded the honorarium of a Masters Degree from a university in Malaysia. On what basis and on what merit god only knows. At that level perhaps she is right. The country is corrupted and the education system in need of radical overhaul. She is evidence of both points.
Welcome to the world of partisan politics. Welcome to the world of non Catholics and welcome to diversity of opinion Theresa Kok.
The following may also be worth remembering Theresa.
There are no absolute democracies n this world. That’s a euphemism for anarchy. Your right to express your freedom ends at the tip of your neighbours nose
My Advice: If you can’t stand the heat. get out of the kitchen”.
Gopal Raj Kumar