Evil (“bullies”) in our context is not personified by singular individuals whether Mubarak Gaddafi or Saddam or any BN/UMNO politician. The writer says “contrast that with people like Ahmad Maslan, the Umno information chief who today sought to create more division in a country polarised along racial and religious lines” and the “state-sponsored demonstrators who were allowed to disturb a peaceful march by lawyers who disagreed with the Peaceful Assembly Bill.” Now why would Ahmad Maslan say (as he said) or state-sponsored demonstrators demonstrate as they did unless it is also true that they have audience or followers??? Therefore evil is, in our context, is a reference more to groups of persons and their attitudes than individual. Attitudes include not just their self interest without a damn to the rest – but also what they say and do to influence and galvanise the attitudes of their audience/followers, inherently receptive to what they say or do. This implies that the singular evil of our time and in our context is prejudice – racial and religious prejudice- amongst swathes of people receptive to racial and religious demagoguery.

///History has shown that the meek and good-hearted, guided by our belief in God, can wear the mantle of victory over the forces of evil./// – Jacob Sinnathamby

What you say soothes the soul like balm but nothing you said is supported by History that you mentioned. There are more examples in hostory of how in any single or series of engagement Evil defeats the Meek and Good hearted. In fact Evil uses the name and justification of God to perpetrate its evil deeds successfully. A lot of terrible things have done throughout history by God fearing men led by leaders of Religions. What have you got to say to that?

Our most recent example of how Evil triumphs over goodness by the Meek/Good is how what you described as “the state-sponsored thugs” disrupted successfully the laywers’ march.

The limits of the Good : how many time when confronted by thugs you can prevail on them by appeal to goodness kindness rationality etc? They will pull a knife on you, and before you can open your mouth you’re dead! The only way is that you either run with tail behind your legs or you pull a gun (if you have one) and kill them. Evil then can more often be combated successfully by reciprocal Evil only – seldom by Goodness though its romantric and hopeful to say so.

When the righteous triumphs, there is great elation, and we hear and read about it like Gandhi-ji and Nelson Mendela or when Hilter committed suicide but when the wicked rise to power and triumph men go into hiding and don’t talk about it or cite it as example. For every dictator who was removed with extreme prejudice (Nero, Mussolini, Hitler Gadaffi) there’s probably equal or more of them who lived happily ever after till ripe old age due to natural causes with no one ever talked about them. Look at the present leaders of various dictatorships (Burma, Saudi, North korea etc), and past like Attila the Hun Joseph Stalin, Bad King John of England, Mao, Khomeini Ivan IV Vasilyevich (the Terrible) and many other evil persons (as long as they did not lose in a war against their enemies who exacted revenge). Even Nearer home there’s also dictator who is enjoying relative bliss (up till now) free from harm.Here I like to think we discuss facts and not hope and its importance.

If Chinese or Indian immigrants were the excuse and cover for abuses to be perpetrated under the banner of race etc then equally – one will never know here – if this country had no Chinese or Indian immigrants, and the Malays constitute over 90 pct of the population (the rest being Indonesians or Cambodians of muslim descent), it is also possible that Malaysian Spring need not have to occur (much less earlier) as there might possibly be far less abuses by elites due to the lack of a convenient cover/pretext.