Malaysia need not need to worry about North Korea.

It is
better that we take a look at ourselves in the mirror.

Malaysia is slowly but inexorably turning into a police-

controlled state as recent events have so indicated to
us.

Malaysia need not parrot the argument that North Korea is

trying to 'destabilise' or 'increase the tension' in Asia
by carrying out its atomic test last Monday. The test has
changed absolutely nothing on the Korean peninsula. The
status quo has not changed and the situation on the ground
has remained more stable than even a frozen glacier.

But the same thing cannot be said of the situation here.

The police here are getting more and more authoritarian and
arbitrary in their behaviour with each passing day.

They are now getting bolder and bolder in their attempts to

act as accuser, prosecutor, judge, and jury and executioner
all in one go. They are now even the law itself.

The recent spate of arrests which specifically targeted

minority and opposition figures and politicians showed
that the police are trying to impose themselves as the
law in this country. In other words, the country is now
under the direct control of the force. The politicians
are around as window dressing.

People get arrested for wearing shirts of a certain colour,

holding a candle or simply refusing to eat food. Malaysia
is certainly a political oddity, given that a human being
could get thrown behind bars simply for wearing the wrong
colour or declining to eat food. Why worry about N.Korea ?

N. Korea knows that it is being shoved to the back-burner

because there is no benefit to anyone except the N.Koreans
themselves should permanent peace or genuine reconciliation
become reality on the Korean peninsula. The country knows
that it needs to continue banging drums and cymbals to say,
'Hey, over here ! We are still alive'. Even if a nuclear
drum or cymbal needed to be used in the process, then it
had to be used.

On the other hand, it benefits a lot of people to make sure

that the tension in Korea is maintained but not allowed to
explode. Peace and reconciliation are considered as totally
undesirable subjects.

And in Malaysia, it is desirable to maintain a semblance of

'democracy' and 'liberty', but genuine justice and rule of
law are considered as inappropriate for the local scene.

Anyone who disagreed must be straight away be dragged into

police vans and into the lock-up. This is nothing less than
raw intimidation being applied against people who want to
stand up for basic democratic rights in a country which
claimed to practise 'democracy'. Other countries which do
not profess to practise democracy usually do not arrest or
lock up non-violent people in the manner seen here.

But Malaysia, which 'practises democracy', allows its police

full discretion on how the force could go about arresting,
harassing and intimidating its own citizens, especially its
minority citizens. Even non-minority citizens had to flee
abroad. It is not unusual for the police here to slap multiple
charges and accusations against a particular individual seen
to be anti-government. How could a victim of intimidation
escape such a noose, except to flee abroad.

The silent segment of society must never forget what is hap-

pening now. Jot it down for the permanent record. And hold
on to the Bukit Gantangs now and for the next gen elections.

Clearly, the country is now turning into a police-controlled

state where the people in uniform are the ones who decide
who to catch and who to prosecute and what is permissible
and what is not permissible. We live in the new era of the
Malaysian version of Stasi. Long live the new era.