Jamal released, an ugly crisis avoided

While many Singaporeans spent their weekends complaining about the irritating haze and the missed opportunities to go out there to have their fun, the minorities in Malaysia heaved a sigh of relief. The harrowing experience of May 13 almost descended on them and many feared that they would end up as carnage on the streets bathed with blood, and their homes and shops razed to the ground like before. It was fear everywhere that prompted the MCA chief to call on Najib to put a stop to the Saturday’s second Red Shirt Rally in Chinatown. And in desperation, the Chinese Ambassador was invited to visit Chinatown to make a statement that what the Red Shirts were planning was unacceptable.

The Police acted and arrested Jamal, the UMNO NGO head who was associated with the Sep 16 rally and the planned Saturday rally into Chinatown. With Jamal out of the picture, and with increasing pressure and international spotlight on the grave acts waiting to happen, reasons and wisdom took over and the rally was called off. It was unimaginable should the Red Shirts be let lose to do what they intended to do in Chinatown and to the ethnic Chinese community. How the situation could escalate to such a level in modern and supposedly moderate Malaysia only showed that beneath the façade of calm, all is not well. A little provocation and instigation and the primordial instinct of mob behaviour would surface. In the 21^st Century, the thought of political leaders tapping on racial hostility and to exploit it to create mob violence for personal interests is scary and unforgiveable.

The Malaysian Chinese from now on would appreciate better the presence of a powerful China to fall back on to avoid being massacred freely like in the past. Those were the days when China was hapless and could only watch in vain, too weak to do anything, and many ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia were easy meat to be slaughtered with impunity by the natives. Hopefully those days would never happen again because of a powerful China that could intervene to prevent further bloodshed, but more as a result of enlightenment, civilisation and progress among the people in the region, to move away from the old tribal ways when life was short and brutal.

Countries and societies should be governed by the rule of law, not raw naked primitive power. Malaysia is still in transformation, from bad to good and some from good to bad. The power brokers in Malaysia are changing sides. The forces of progress have degenerated while the forces of extremism have turned moderates. In the midst of trouble times, a beckon of light appears from a forgotten royalty that was ostracized by the politicians for the very same reasons the politicians are guilty of today. And the royalties have returned to be a force of moderation, modernization and wisdom, to put the politicians in their rightful place, not to abuse the power bestowed on them by the rakyat. A badly behaved political fiefdom would now have to reckon with the royalties to stand up for the rakyat, to assume their rightful place as rulers and protectors of the rakyat, and to put the usurpers back to where they are.

An unusual calm has returned to Malaysia, but life is still far from normal. There could still be fireworks when Najib returns from the UN. Or would he be retained by the Americans for his vices and remove the source of all the problems during this critical time?