The FITNA video: Why Wilder is RIGHT and ALL Muslims are WRONG

Mr Wilder's DEFAMATORY (Fitna, that's the correct meaning of the word, borrowed from the Arabic into Malay) video, above, is a collection of still pictures and movies which can be found publicly available elsewhere, combined with real, actual, factually correct snippets of text from the Quran.

Like all truly polemical works, the worst possible selections from Muslim scripture have been made and taken out of context to "prove" Mr Wilder's point: that Islam is a religion to be viewed with great suspicion if not fear and outright hostility as its core values are the opposite of any modern Western-style (not necessarily just Western) liberal (and often not-so-liberal) democracy. In fact, it could be argued that the video is not defamatory at all, as it is a fair opinion to arrive at, based on facts which have been disclosed together with the allegedly defamatory opinion. "Fair comment on matter of public importance" and its variations are of course valid defences to allegations of defamation. But I am going off on a real tangent here; there is of course no real "defamation" as the term is understood in law, since no particular individual person still alive has been targeted, just Muslims as a community, and we all know that defamation of an entire community is not legally actionable in "defamation" as such, as opposed to defamation against known individuals. The proper course of action could be sedition, or violation of other specific statutory prohibitions on hate speech, but not defamation as such.

Back to Mr Wilder: My worry here is that the video has been met with calls like that of Mahathir, who haven't even bothered to reply to Mr Wilder point for point and more importantly, have not really stepped forward to denounce the abuses showcased in Mr Wilder's video. As Douglas Farah has pointed out, those abuses pictured really happened - nothing was doctored - and the Quranic verses, they DO exist, Mr Wilder didn't actually lie, he simply took those aspects of the truth that best fitted in with his views of Islam. Mahathir hasn't even bothered to step right out and take concrete action to call for the active, actual, legal and physical suppression of those who perpetrate the abuses shown in the video in the name of Islam, he's simply called for a boycott as if Mr Wilders has fabricated a complete lie, which of course he has not.

The furthest Mahathir has gone is to say that “They will continue to do this until we show to them Islam is a good religion, that we are not violent people, that we don’t tell lies to people...but this must be shown in practice by the Muslim community,” - but of course, talk is cheap. He's been moving for the Prime Minister to resign, will he put the same kind of energy towards punishing people such as the "Muslims" pictured in Wilder's video?

1st Priority: Reign in the Civil Servants

... and moving on from Election Day, the first priority of our Opposition State governments and the now very substantial Opposition bloc in the Federal Parliament, is to REIGN IN the Civil Service - with particular emphasis on the POLICE who must be brought to task, reformed, re-engineered, re-trained and otherwise re-organised to reduce the country's crime rate.

Corrupt and inefficient officers interested only in bullying HINDRAF lawyers and booking cars with Singapore licence plates in the hope of earning a fast buck must be punished - in clear, certain and painful terms.

Forensics training, and the mastery of other types of basic evidence gathering, retention and delivery for the purposes of successful prosecution must be the order of the day. No more reliance only on informers, anonymous "tip-offs", and the extraction of doubtful confessions under torture.

Makkal Ossai, Makkal Shakti!!

Lawman

What Happens When You Try to Kill All the Lawyers

The impossible has happened - the BN has lost its two-thirds majority for the first time since 1969, and the Opposition controls 5 states and all Parliamentary seats for the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (which is not a State).

The DAP, PAS and Keadilan will, operating as a loose coalition, form the State Governments of Penang, Kedah, Perak, and Selangor. In addition, PAS will rule Kelantan with a much stronger majority than it obtained in the last election in 2004.

As President Musharraf discovered much to his dismay when he decided to Kill All the Lawyers - figuratively speaking - Abdullah Badawi's BN has realised, too late, what happens in any functioning society which wants to maintain at least a semblance of democracy: when you find yourself trying to put down (well, at least ignore or denigrate) street protests mounted by lawyers, you are at the deep end of the pool and will drown in the next election.

A tip for politicians in future elections: be careful how you treat the professional class. You start dumping them in jail, it's a good leading indicator that you will fare poorly at the next (honest) polls.

For a better idea of what I'm talking about, go here and here.

And of course, Mr Shakespeare's famous line about Killing All the Lawyers, which when read in context was actually a Major Compliment to the Legal Profession, can be found here (Act IV, Scene 2, Henry VI Part 2).

One compliment to the ruling party though; the Malaysian elections were by and large, free and fair, and allegations and fears of rigging were basically unfounded, going by all currently available evidence.

Unfortunately, as Musharraf discovered in Pakistan, if you rig the vote you lose the elections no matter what the official outcome may be, and if you don't rig the vote then you lose the elections fair and square - either way, you lose.

Like I said, don't put the lawyers down, or you are looking at losing the next polls.

Now, some will say the BN hasn't actually lost the polls, at least not in the way that Musharraf was wiped out in Pakistan. Musharraf wasn't actually up for election; his party lost big and lost all control of Pakistan whereas Badawi WAS up for election, and the BN managed to retain all of East Malaysia and the southern and eastern regions of Peninsular Malaysia. But I say the BN very obviously lost in the sense that despite having gerrymandered election seats over many years in its favour, lopsided media coverage, the devotion of massive resources to a PR campaign, and the detention without trial of its most extreme recent critics (Manoharan & company, of HINDRAF), the BN received an absolute whopping in states it had considered reasonably safe - Selangor, Perak, Kedah - and in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, previously divided between Opposition and BN but as of yesterday TOTALLY Opposition (bar 1 seat). AND the BN lost Penang, was wiped out in Kelantan, AND lost its 2/3 majority - the holy grail of Opposition politicians. The Barisan Nasional has NEVER been beaten so badly since Independence. In Malaysian terms, it counts as a certain defeat.

For the first time in all recorded history, we have 5 Opposition Menteris Besar - one each from Keadilan and the DAP, and 3 from PAS. My congratulations to them all. I just hope they don't waste the chance to Just Change It!



and, for good measure: MAKKAL SHAKTI!!!

- Lawman -