IT has been a real rough Ramadan, hasn’t it? The weather has been excruciatingly hot, the haze is upon us, albeit from the north this time, and doctors are telling everyone to stay hydrated.
Yet, Muslims have stayed steadfast in their fast, abstaining from drinks and food all through it.
I saw this firsthand on the first weekend of Ramadan.
I was in Penang for my annual Queen Street Ramadan bazaar delights and decided to watch a women’s football team in training as well – and was left awestruck.
A 37-year-old mum-of-two trained under the blazing morning sun for two hours, and still stuck to her fast. It was 11am when training ended, yet she said she would only have a drink in the evening.
It was all the more impressive because I almost fainted from just watching them train. I needed isotonic drinks to get my head together again before I could drive home.
It isn’t just the weather that has been stiflingly hot. The political temperature has been feverish too this Ramadan, what with so many former prime ministers running around.
One is planning to sue the sitting prime minister while another is facing lawsuits from the current PM, his deputy and a former finance minister too.
Oh, and he has some serious corruption charges to face as well.
Yet another former prime minister is claiming the unity government is disunited and predicting a quick end to the current administration.
The reason? There are those in the government who are against a pardon for yet another former prime minister, who is now serving a 12-year jail sentence for corruption.
It’s all a bit convoluted, really.
Umno wants PM No. 6 Datuk Seri Najib Razak pardoned in a hurry, but DAP, the old enemy turned ally, is not keen. And PM No. 9 Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob is predicting the irreparable rift.
Meanwhile, PM10 Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim – the current one – is right in the middle of it all, along with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, in the Pardons Board.
Whether or not Najib walks, Anwar is already showing kindness to convicts.
He has just announced the release of at least 1,000 prisoners, giving them a “licensed release”.
It’s like leave from prison, but strangely enough, it also seems like parole.
The release of such a large number of prisoners during a festive season is quite unprecedented.
Anwar’s announcement came just a week after US-based blogger M. Bakri Musa, writing for a portal, challenged him to leave a legacy by pardoning 99 prisoners, something he said had never been done before.
“A Ramadan pardon would have a tremendous positive impact on the prisoners, prison system, and society. It gives them hope, a sparse and precious commodity in a prison,” the blogger said.
Bakri is wrong on one count. It has been done before, although not on such a large scale. In 2019, two prisoners from Kajang were given two weeks’ leave to be with their families for Raya.
In 2015, Sabah freed 70 prisoners before Raya.
For many, it is not a big surprise. Anwar is obviously a man who can empathise with prisoners. He knows what it is like, especially for the non-hardcore prisoners.
It used to be that obnly “blue suits” – for the colour of the jumpsuits they had to wear – were eligible for release. These were usually offenders who had served half their sentences and had been rehabilitated.
Now, it seems to be open to all light offenders.
With our prisons overflowing, it might seem like a good idea to release these prisoners. At least, it is magnanimous. But is it the right thing to do?
As far as we can see, they are being freed, not given a short leave from prison. They only need to go back on the day of their scheduled release to get the paperwork done.
Police personnel worked day and night to arrest these people and build cases against them, prosecutors worked hard to get convictions, and judges and magistrates decided that they should be jailed.
So, should the system cock a snook at all these law enforcement people and let the convicts walk free before they have served their sentence?
Yes, these prisoners will be monitored and there will be checks to ensure they behave. They may even be able to work, with officers keeping tabs on them.
But isn’t there another way? What if they were made to serve the rest of their terms doing community service?
They could do stuff like sweep our roads, cut our public grass or collect our rubbish while being supervised by local council officers.
Or we could build minimum security prisons from which they could go to work. Family visits could be easily arranged and the inmates could give up part of their salaries as “rent”.
Imagine, if we build minimum security prisons near farms, estates and plantations, we could have a ready workforce for these employers. The prisoners could work their way back into society while the employers could get tax rebates. That would be killing two birds with one stone.
Of course, we need to keep the killers, rapists and high-level thieves in maximum security prisons.
I believe it would be doable. Minimum security prisons would be little more than gated- and-guarded flats with a ready labour force, much like the many low-cost flats now packed with Bangladeshi and Myanmar workers.
The prisoners will not be treated as convicts but as part of a workforce that could replace, at least partly, the burgeoning foreign labour force in the country.
They will be serving time, yet they will be relatively free. And we can do it throughout the year, not just for festive seasons.
What’s more, we could also rid ourselves of the multimillion- ringgit corruption involved in the hiring of foreign workers.
Why not, indeed? Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, everyone.
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