by Tunku Abdul Aziz
mysinchew.com
Whenever I think of my friend Karpal Singh, I am reminded of my great headmaster, the late Dr. Frank J. Rawcliffe who taught us the importance of being consistent, even if meant sometimes upsetting some people.
You may say what you want about Karpal’s manner, his magisterial pronouncements often delivered with a great roar full of fiery passion, but you cannot accuse him of being inconsistent in the position he has taken over the years on matters involving both personal and public ethical principles.
While Karpal clearly recognises that there are, in politics, no permanent friends or foes, he believes devoutly in the importance of “permanent principles.”
Unprincipled politics as we have seen in Malaysia can very quickly degenerate into unmitigated disasters. The unsavoury Perak affair is a case in point.
I believe in, and will fight for, my right to say what I like within the law. I naturally accept willingly the accompanying responsibility that such rights impose on me.
I should expect to be free from threats of violence for my views, and I was, therefore, shocked to see on TV a disgraceful act of intolerance by a group of UMNO youth, and for a second or two I thought I was watching a familiar scene from a 1935 newsreel showing the storm troopers of the Third Reich pouncing on a hapless Jew in a wheel chair.
On this occasion, it was in the hallowed grounds of the national parliament, no less that the brave Malay warriors chose to flex their muscle. The only difference was that UMNO’s storm troopers were not wearing the dreaded brown shirts of their German counterparts of days gone by.
For UMNO youth, this was not their maiden foray into ugly confrontations against those whose ideas they find disagreeable. And naturally, as we have come to expect from these street wise gentlemen, they claimed they were blameless for the undignified affront visited on an honourable citizen and parliamentarian for speaking out in the chamber of the house.
They have every right to disagree with Karpal’s sentiments, but no one has the right to demand an apology except the speaker of the house or those on the government benches.
He expressed his views without fear or favour in the course of his duty. That is the essence of Karpal the man and politician. I would have been disappointed if he had apologised.
Since the Perak affair began, many of us have questioned the wisdom of the Sultan of Perak’s decision against dissolving the state assembly.
I am, like many of you, not trained in law but I am reasonably educated with a modicum of common sense. I do not believe I am going against any known law of the land by suggesting that the Sultan should have called for fresh elections which are what the people of Perak want judging from the sentiments on the ground.
I believe the Sultan of Perak will be the first to admit that like all the rest of us he is not infallible. Lest I be accused of treason or derhaka against a Malay ruler, let me say here and now that I am by inclination a royalist, but not a blind one.
My loyalty, however, is to my own raja, the Sultan of Kedah, and that loyalty, however, is not unqualified. He has to earn it by acting in the best interests of his subjects. That to me is every ruler’s sole raison d’etre.
The French have another word, noblesse oblige, which is translated as those who enjoy the advantage of wealth and power have an obligation to protect those who do not have these advantages.
In this enlightened age, the only appeal to a person’s respect and loyalty that is likely to mean anything at all must be based on reason. It is no longer appropriate to invoke “lese majesty” as a form of legal sanction to secure the loyalty and affection of the people.
There has recently been a great deal of talk about social contract or compact in the context of the special rights of the Malays. I am not aware that any such contract exists, but I know that there is in universal terms an unwritten social compact between the government and the governed, and between the ruler and the ruled.
In effect, what this stipulates is that it is the duty of the government or the ruler to ensure that the will of the people must be allowed full rein under the constitution to exercise their rights. In return, the people agree among themselves to conduct their affairs in ways that benefit the community as a whole.
In a nutshell, we cannot have a prosperous and harmonious society by acting outside the constitutional parameters, and this injunction applies to both the ruler and the ruled.
It requires adjustments all round, and it is good to see that some rulers in performing their constitutional duties have tried to understand the mood of the people outside of the palace gate.
We the people of this country look up to our rulers to stand by us as we seek justice, when other avenues seem impenetrable. It is not too much to ask not to be let down in return for our devotion and loyalty to “king and country.”