Teoh Beng Hock's death

I believe that anyone who read the newspaper for the past few days will be aware of Teoh Beng Hock's death. I have something to say but know that whatever I say in this post are all my personal opinions. You may disagree and put up an argument in the comments section, which I gladly welcome you to do so.

Before I begin I would like to categorise my views directed towards MACC and Pakatan Rakyat.

For MACC, I think it's apparent that they are biased. They chose to investigate on Pakatan's trivial cases instead of investigating cases like the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) Scandal or the RM24 million Khir Toyo's palace. Moreover those that were arrested last week were all from Pakatan. Despite that, due to the very fact that Teoh Beng Hock's mysterious death of falling off from the MACC building, MACC has much to answer for, and I doubt that they can nor should run away from their responsibility.

As for Teoh Beng Hock's death, sorry to say yet I must, he died a victim but not a hero, thus he deserves to be pitied but not honoured. However, what I saw is that, he was greatly honoured by all Pakatan members especially DAP (since he's a DAP member) as if he's a spartan hero of some sort. I know that he's the first one that died in the MACC building after he was taken into MACC for 'investigation', bla bla bla. The conclusion is, he died, and he's innocent (well that's what everyone says, I have no idea). But come to think of it, how many people died innocently over the years. Who will seek justice for them? Nobody other than their family and friends probably. The fact that Teoh Beng Hock's death is such a shocking news is because it has been politicised by Pakatan, since he is a DAP member.

I am not against Pakatan's action to pressure the government. And true, no pressure, no actions taken. But I think they went overboard.

Alright I'm gonna quote my conversation (in Facebook, funny huh) with a friend doing LLB in University of Nottingham, UK regarding this issue, since what I'm gonna write here is pretty much similar to what I said there. Here we go :

Darwin Tan : got fed up with politics.

Khar-Yue Phoon : Why?

Darwin Tan : cause of the MACC case got politicised.

Khar-Yue Phoon : Yeah loh. It's UMNO's fault for that.

Darwin Tan : not really. both parties got their own faults in it.

Khar-Yue Phoon : I like your well-balanced and diplomatic answer.

But we both know deep down inside who the real culprit is for politicising this incident. For starters, take a read at what UMNO owned dailies (Utusan, Berita Mingguan, MM) had to say. Juxtapose that with MI or Mkini's articles.

The difference cannot be any more clearer.

Darwin Tan : Utusan is a joke so u can screw that aside. If you r talking about the whole picture, then yes, UMNO started it somehow by commencing the 'arrest'. But what I look upon is that the death of that guy is sad, but what makes it more tragic is that his death itself is politicised by Pakatan, and I got sicked of it.

Khar-Yue Phoon : Perhaps there is a negative connotation attached to the word 'politicise'.

Politicisation normally brings about a negative impact, as evident in UMNO dailies who associate MACC critics as racists and anti-Malay.

However, it is worth noting that not all politicisation is bad. This is apparent in Pakatan's attempt to publicise Teoh's death in the hopes of strengthening civil rights; raising awareness of the abuse of powers of government and promoting accountability and transparency. To me, I cannot see any wrong in that. After all, Teoh should not die for nothing. If he did, it would be even sadder for Malaysians.

But yeah, I agree with you whole-heartedly that UMNO owned dailies are a joke! HAHAHA

Darwin Tan : No, what I meant was, pressure must be given, else no actions will be taken. But they went overboard. Now the newspaper is publishing things regarding his death for days. DAP cares, politicians care, BH's family cares, some people care but not many of them. To most, it's just a nobody died falling off from the MACC building. People will get bored of the case after some time. And it is really sad that it costs death to actually raise awareness amongst the people. The key question is, does Pakatan do all these purely for justice, or there are hidden political agendas at the back? Man I hate political parties.

Khar-Yue Phoon : That is the beauty of a civilised democracy.

IF Pakatan has hidden political agendas and the Rakyat saw through that, rest assured that they will voted OUT of their political office in the next general elections.

A practical example would be the recent by-election in Manek Urai. Despite PAS being the victor, the margin of votes between them and UMNO was very small. The internal bickering within PAS was causing frustrated voters to choose UMNO instead.

Like I said, all is fair and square.

Darwin Tan : The thing is, their political agenda coincidentally goes the same way as BH's death. It's a good chance for publicity by shouting "Justice for Beng Hock", to reveal the truth of the death and at the same time persuading the people to vote for them to take over the government.

I am not saying that it is wrong. This is politics after all. There is no right or wrong. But the fact that they have agendas behind a funeral scene and stuff just makes me sick.

Btw, there is no way pakatan getting voted off at the moment. Pick one between Najib and Anwar, you know which to pick isn't it. And we all know how corrupted BN is, is there a better choice than Pakatan at the moment?

That's all for the debate in Facebook, and we continued our talk in MSN. Anyway I've highlighted our points in the conversation in bold.

In summary, I agree that they should pressure the government to establish a Royal Commission of Investigation to investigate the matter for everyone's sake, but the fact that they come up with demonstrations and all sorts of banner and activities to condemn MACC show that they have overacted.

I agree with one of my other friend that, "There is a time to grieve, but never forget that governance is the top priority." It might appear that everyone cares about Teoh Beng Hock's death, but in truth majority of those are his family, DAP and Pakatan supporters. A big part of the society merely looks at it as a new phenomenon in Malaysia, nothing more. To gain the votes of the minority that seeks justice for Teoh Beng Hock's death, they can go on with more demonstrations and press conferences. But to win the hearts of all Malaysians, they will need to stabilise their governance, ensuring that their constituencies prosper and strengthening the alliance between DAP, PAS & PKR other than seeking vengeance and justice. It's all about balance.

May justice prevails and may our country prospers under the right hands.

The delay...

Sorry for the delay. I've been quite busy lately....and also....lazy. lol. Ok this time I'm gonna talk about my personal life and work for the past few weeks. I'm gonna write in kinda informal English this time. So for those who are not interested or those who are not open to criticism, you may skip this post. :)

Well basically I've joined the DAP internship programme. What they do is they place each of us under a MP or ADUN (state assembly man) and we'll be following them around. I'm attached under Serdang MP, Teo Nie Ching. Sadly, my boss (MP) went oversea this week and things were pretty boring recently.

I've been to the Parliament for quite a number of times, and I actually sat in the special observer room which is right behind the MPs (not the public gallery). And I've noticed how uncivilised MPs can be, how they actually transform a Parliament into a Pasar Borong (market). The thing is that these uncivilised MPs are not only from BN, but as well as from Pakatan (kind of a shame if you ask me).

There was this occasion whereby they are debating on a merging of ministries which includes some sort of mini-budget. I've read through the Order Paper (a paper listing out the questions and Bills to be debated that day along with contents) and it's pretty much ordinary. Yet somehow they can drag the debate from the issue itself until Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) Scandal, and of cos, by Lim Kit Siang mainly.

I admit, I don't think the chinese will fare as we are now without him. And what he says is true most of the time, with evidences. And I like his style, calm and steady, he got 'gangbanged' by 2 to 3 BN MPs and he can still smile and fend them off. But if you take a 3rd person perspective and view the occasion, it's quite awkward to see an issue been dragged off so far and irrelevant to the issue at hand. It just doesn't sound right, to me.

*But of course, Parliament is the best place to 'make noise' since the medias are watching it live in the Parliament. So, i'm 'neutral' with his action that day.*

There's something else that I've noticed. The speakers are outright biased. When BN MPs are making hell lots of noise and shouting like some savage beasts, the speaker did nothing about it. Meanwhile, when the Pakatan MPs said something slightly offensive, they are ordered to 'tarik-balik' (take back) their words. And not to mention, Tony Pua's case (suspended from Parliament for no apparent reason) was totally outrageous. You can check his case in his blog. (http://tonypua.blogspot.com)

I've also noticed that the BN MPs are keen to disagree with anything the opposition got to say, be it right or wrong, necessary or unnecessary. There was this time, they were debating about the DNA Bill. And I had the bill notes, something like parliamentary speech notes. And I think it is necessary for them to amend the bill. (It was proposed by my boss I think, but I am not taking sides now) Despite the necessity of it, they just reject the amendments, which I think they don't even know nor care what did my boss talk about.

Of course, you might refute me by saying that I am drawing inference from specific cases. But well, I won't deny that, but based on what I've seen so far, that seems to be the case.