Of dictators and hands that shake the jar

EXACTLY 35 years ago today, my colleagues and I were celebrating, not so much with joy but more with huge relief.

It was the day when, after almost 150 days of suspension, The Star staff were back at work. On March 26, the newspaper hit the streets again, with a headline that screamed “WE’RE BACK”.

The return was a hit, financially.

The Star grew in circulation numbers and profitability. The money was great and the staff got bonuses. But it all came with a price. Press freedom was curtailed; there were things we could not publish.

Several top journalists quit – or were forced to quit – and left to work in other countries.

The government had a lot of control over what was printed. Criticism was frowned upon, and could lead to trouble.

Censorship – and self-censorship for the sake of survival – was the order of the day.

Some of it remains to this day, albeit to a lesser degree. We have changed, we have progressed, but we will never go back to the days of the early 80s.

So, there is rich irony when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the man behind that great crackdown of 1987, cries that the current government is “dictatorial”.

If it wasn’t so ironic, his lament would be hilarious.

He was in charge on Oct 27, 1987, when almost 120 people were thrown into jail without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA). Five newspapers were also closed; some never recovered from the blow.

Dr Mahathir has since denied ordering the crackdown, saying it was a police decision. However, the fact remains that he was both Prime Minister and Home Minister, the man in charge of police. He had taken over the portfolio from Tun Musa Hitam a year earlier.

Blast from the past: Page 1 of The Star after restarting publication in the wake of Ops Lalang.

I was among those who lost their jobs for five months in Ops Lalang and returned in March of 1988, only tamer.

Since Dr Mahathir stepped down in 2003, there has been much progress.

The ISA, for one, was repealed in 2012 and replaced with Sosma, which remains harsh but may be something that’s needed at a time when the world fears terrorism and there are those in the country who would happily cause strife for their own ends.

University students are about to be given more freedom to speak on campuses.

It was Dr Mahathir as Education Minister who had the University and University Colleges Act amended in 1975 to give the state more control over universities, both on students and academics.

Monopolies are being broken, teachers are about to have their workload reduced so they can concentrate on teaching, and the days of children being forced to eat away from canteens during Ramadan will be no more.

The country is becoming more Malaysian instead of being race-centric.

Unsurprisingly, Dr Mahathir’s claim that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is a dictator came after a Malay-only rally was called off.

“This government is against any form of criticism, they even take action against Opposition parties. The government is a dictatorship. People cannot speak up or criticise the government,” Dr Mahathir wrote.

He could well have been talking about himself – those were words others have used on him.

And last I heard, the rally was actually called off because the organisers did not get a venue to host it.

Personally, I believe everyone should have a right to gather and speak, but it should not be at the detriment of peace in society and not be about inflammatory racist and religious rhetoric.

Like Anwar said, there needs to be an end to racism and religious bigotry in the country.

Malaysia has always been a model of a cosmopolitan society where all races have lived and worked with each other – until Dr Mahathir’s cry of the Malay Dilemma.

I would say the 70s were halcyon days. Those were days when Muslims, Hindus, Christians and others had no problem visiting each other’s home or even places of worship.

I played with friends in the Perak Road mosque in Penang, not far from P. Ramlee’s home, and partook of mutton there after goats were slaughtered for Hari Raya Haji (Hari Raya Aidiladha to many now).

I also taught in a church in Jalan Sungai Pinang, a stone’s throw away, and most of the students were Indian Muslims. All of them remain Muslims, and I remain a Hindu, despite our days in the church. I guess our faiths were neither weak nor fallible.

Over the years, politicians have contrived to tear us apart; but with the many new policies, we are taking baby steps to being a harmonious society again.

A rally to shout about racial supremacy and the rights of one race is not something that should be encouraged.

That would be, as Mark Twain once said, “shaking the jar”.

The great author said that if you put 100 red ants and 100 black ants in a jar, nothing would happen. If you shook the jar, the ants would start ferociously attacking each other, thinking the “other” is the enemy.

The real enemy, though, is the hand that shook the jar.

Malaysians are of many colours and yet live in peace. There is no “other”. We don’t need anyone to shake that jar.