By Augustine Anthony
Rural folks have many land problems. The safest way to find lasting and meaningful solutions to their problems is to first eliminate all the politicians, bureaucrats and even the office boys who behave like lords of the lands, lording over many of these rural folks who lack confidence to confront them.
Those who had abused the existing laws, particularly the land acquisition legislations with utter disregard for the welfare of the affected people must never forget that their tryst with insidious tyranny has a half life that will soon end.
I say this with confidence not because of the many stirring speeches of great leaders and orators but inspired by the display of resilience by ordinary village folks who are now awakening to a belief system that they can stand up for their rights even as they journey to free themselves from a state of mind that had been shackled by a long train of abuses and usurpations.
One such inspiration is Hassan Mat Yaacob, a padi farmer who refuses to take ‘no for an answer’ to reclaim what was legitimately his.
This padi farmer had only one possession in his life. His padi field. It was cultivated with “padi tabur”. He had the original land title to prove ownership of the padi field. Unknown to him a new land title was issued to a third party even though the original land title is still in valid existence. Soon this “new land owner” prevented Hassan from cultivating padi in his own land.
Hassan believed in the system within the government so much that he thought that it will resolve his weighty problem and bring justice to him but little did he realize that it is this very system that will cause grave injustice to him.
Hassan had lost his land and his one source of income. He confronts the “new land owner” who in turn taunts him because the “new land owner” is well connected. He meets up with the employees of the land office and they ridicule him that he is a kampung man who does not understand law. He makes a police report because someone had “stolen” his land but the department does little or nothing to determine the possible culprits who are responsible for the predicament of Hassan.
Hassan complains to the Anti Corruption Agency (now MACC) but they too display inaction. He thinks his elected representative will help but he is too busy with other matters. Hassan is such a simple man and without the slightest show of anger, says that he can only see the elected representative during election time.
Hassan had lost his land but not hope.
Rural folks are such simple people. Some of them think that meeting the Menteri Besar is like dropping by at the neighbors’ orchard. With this mindset, Hassan goes to the Menteri Besar’s office and personally meets up with the Menteri Besar and pleads for help but the door slams hard on his face.
Next he dares himself to meet the Prime Minister but could only reach as far as the then Biro Pengaduan Awam (Public Complaints Bureau) with no positive outcome. His hopes are near destroyed. Heartbroken it finally hits Hassan that the system within the public sector had failed him miserably.
While this is only a simplified account of his struggle, only Hassan and a few others know how many strange places and how many strange stairs and lifts and corridors this poor farmer had to pass through just to reclaim what was legitimately his. How many lonely nights and how many anxious days, all were his and his alone to shoulder.
Fresh out of the betrayal that he had suffered in the hands of the public sector, he now looks for other avenues with his critically asphyxiated hope. He looks to the private sector now. He had by now heard of the “noble” profession called the legal profession.
But here lies the problem with the legal profession.
It was the 1990’s and a boom time for the private sector including the legal profession. This noble profession was fast turning into a money making ‘business’. Employees from the public sector and a good number of people from other professions including retirees were lured by the sweet songs in the streets that there is plenty of money to be made in the legal profession.
Ridiculous land acquisitions that displaced farmers, fishermen, plantation workers and poor rural folks who lived and toiled in these lands and that were subsequently replaced with luxury hotels, private gated communities, villas and golf courses required lawyers among others to do the job.
The country has turn into a corporation. Profit driven and all else secondary or irrelevant. It is now a Malaysia Incorporated. People who stood in the way of profit driven entities were trampled in this glorious stampede for a photo finish to Vision 2020.
The country was preparing for glory with a perfect vision in 2020. Every man in the street had a vision, so the saying goes. From the tallest building to the longest national flag ( you can even see one concrete flag along the road to Batu Ferringhi), to growing padi on roof tops that would cost 50 sen a grain, to bringing Masai warriors to act as cover for the barren lands carved out from our depleted forests, all things were possible in Malaysia.
Thus, the birth of the catchword, Malaysia Boleh! or the Boleh land.
Hassan Mat Yaacob an innocent rural farmer was caught in this quagmire.
A bitter and heart broken Hassan now readied himself to take on the very system he had trusted all his life. He is now prepared to battle the government in court.
Hassan now turns to lawyers for help. But it requires money, sometimes it takes a lot of money to engage a lawyer. Even if people like Hassan are ready with whatever money that they have to fight on, they need to overcome the next hurdle. The hurdle of whether the lawyer is part of the very system, where he is dependent on the government and quasi government bodies, banks, insurance companies and a whole lot of entities with government interests for the lawyer’s personal survival. Hassan had experienced a good number of lawyers declining to act for him on the basis of conflict of interests.
Do not antagonize the guys who control the system or you will not have enough to maintain your lifestyle, such is the warning.
An insidious tyranny veneered as a guided democracy is now cleverly in place. Its various tentacles of power are ever ready to immobilize unacceptable dissent.
Having crossed the hurdle of engaging a lawyer, Hassan is now in court to take on the government and its well entrenched system that suffocates many ordinary people like him.
Now here lies a strange and interesting twist to the system of governance that had seen much condemnation as being unfriendly and corrupt to the point of its near collapse.
Within this system there are still people who are honest, courageous and dedicated in service to the nation. With a system that is still scattered with good people, there is redemption.
Those witnesses, men in service within the system who took the stand in court and spoke the truth, the witness who courageously announced his faith in Islam and boldly uttered that Islam teaches him to speak against oppression and help the oppressed in a brotherhood, the senior federal counsel who proudly addressed the court that he is in court not to win at all costs but to ascertain the truth, the brave judge who stayed true to his oath of office and pronounced a judgment against the government, are part of this system too.
Hassan has won!
News travelled fast in places where rural folks lived that Hassan had beaten the mighty system in its own killing field. His hope that flickered in all the dark days had now spread across the rural land as a beacon of light bringing optimistic tidings that the end is near for the insidious tyranny masked by sly smile of those thick faced people within the system of governance.
It is this once flickering hope of many people like Hassan that is now the fire that burns in the younger and incisive generation that is demanding change in our decaying system of governance.
Seasons come and go, people live and die but hope lives on in Malaysia and ordinary people like Hassan and the good souls within the system of governance bear testimony that the chain of hope will forever be unbroken and that this nation will one day see the coming of better times.
(NB: In the year 2006 I wrote an article titled “Freedom in Midheaven” seeing Malaysia in the future and spoke of Sdr Lim Guan Eng, Tunku Abdul Aziz, and the Seenivasagam Brothers etc. It was published in The Malaysian Lawyers at Yahoo Group Forum. Some harbored hope while others ridiculed it by saying there is no hope in this country. Then, the 12th General Election in March 2008, the new Chief Minister of Penang and the many changes that are taking place now).