By Kee Thuan Chye

WHAT a farce the cow-head incident is turning out to be. The handling of the case so far demonstrates clearly that all that talk about 1Malaysia is mostly cow pie.

Firstly, the police have been slow to act. They concluded their investigations last Tuesday and handed them over to the Attorney-General. Now we have to wait further for the august A-G to decide whether action will be taken. In this regard, one can’t help but be reminded that nothing has yet come out of the V.K. Lingam case – so long after the Royal Commission of Inquiry ruled that there were grounds for the A-G to take action.

Secondly, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein goes out of his way to meet with the protestors, the very people who had committed what is apparently a seditious act by bringing a cow’s head to their protest and spitting at it and kicking it. All because they didn’t want a Hindu temple to be relocated in their area of residence in Shah Alam.

Would Hishammuddin have done the same if it had been Hindus protesting against the relocation of a mosque in their housing estate? Imagine what the reaction of the authorities would have been if that had been the case.

What’s worse, after the meeting, he spouted the most diabolical doublespeak and politicospeak when he told reporters that the protestors could not be blamed as “they had no intention at all” to invoke racial sentiments or cause tension. He even said they felt victimised. He defended their illegal protest (they had no permit) by saying they kept the number of protestors to a small number.

Well, Minister, some people have been arrested for protesting in an even smaller number.

As expected, he blamed the Selangor Government, saying it had made “a poor decision” in relocating the temple. And then he made a statement that he should from now on be forever held accountable for: “In this day and age, protests should be accepted in this world, as people want their voices to be heard. If we don’t give them room to voice their opinions, they have no choice but to protest.”

Well, that’s straight from the Home Minister’s mouth, folks. Public protests are A-OK. So keep your water cannons and whatnot at home, cops.

To cap it all, Hishammuddin said this was not the first time an animal’s head had been used in a protest. He revealed that there was a time when a pig’s head, wrapped in an Umno flag, was thrown into Umno’s headquarters.

This is most disconcerting, especially coming from a Minister who is charged with ensuring peace and harmony in the country. What was he trying to imply? Yes, he was exonerating the cow-head protestors, but wasn’t he also sneakily trying to blame another community by bringing up the pig’s head? If so, isn’t that mischievous? And, surely, he must be aware that two wrongs don’t make a right. So why bring up the earlier wrong to justify the cow-head one?

All this clearly shows that there are still 2Malaysias, and that in word and deed, our national leaders affirm that. But Malaysians today are surely aware of that. When the double standards are so blatantly applied, the aggrieved parties will certainly take note.

This can’t be good for Prime Minister Najib Razak who is trying hard to win non-Malay hearts and minds with his 1Malaysia slogan (I say “slogan” because that’s just what it is so far – full of words and little action). The cow-head incident would have set his efforts back substantially. Hindraf will surely be mobilised more purposefully and Hindus will rally behind it.

What also begs the question is why contradictory signals are being sent out by the ruling party. The PM says one thing, his deputy says the opposite. In the past few months, as Najib was promoting 1Malaysia, Muhyiddin Yassin has been playing to the Malay gallery. He called Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim a traitor to the Malay race; defended an article in the Malay press calling on the Malays to stop being cowards and rise up; and on the same day that the 1Malaysia logo was publicly unveiled, he asserted that Umno would fight to the last drop of blood to protect Malay rights.

Meanwhile, race-baiting goes on almost daily in the Malay mainstream media, concerted in its aim to threaten, frighten and divide. That these media organisations are owned and controlled by Najib’s own party underscores the conundrum. The messages sent out by these media organisations and the messages he himself is sending out are totally at odds with each other. Whom are we to listen to? Whom are we to trust?

Is there a game plan behind it all? Are we the rakyat mere pawns in the game? When the game is over, will we be played out?

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up, which just won 3rd Prize in the Popular Readers’ Choice Awards. It has also been translated into Chinese.