human rights & hollow government aspirations

Quite frequently, somewhere in the world, a government does something against human rights, and this causes outrage everywhere. The west often looks at the rest of the world as if it were the guardian of the higher status of “Human Rights Abider”.

Apart from their own heavy past, which I need not regurgitate here, I want to mention modern time fiddling with human rights, and the manipulative statements made by American and European governments.

Way before 911 [in the 60’s], it felt like a galaxy away, Malaysia’s government had issues with immigration, and allegedly, with political opposition. So they came up with the “Internal Security Act”. It didn’t really make it in the headlines again until the late 90’s when it was harshly criticized because it enabled authorities to arrest anyone with little evidence and for any period of time.

As for the political abuse claim, it was reinforced by the fact that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was indeed arrested under dubious circumstances, thanks to this act.

The West and Malaysia’s then Prime Minister Mahatir hated each other, because he admittedly never minced his words when it came to Europe or America.

But the fact is, most Western countries that were most accusatory of Malaysia now have their own “Internal Security Act”. America has the Patriot Act, and the UK has the Anti Terrorism Act.

It’s been proven that these acts have been misused too. In America, plainly innocent civilians are wrongly arrested and have to undergo harrowing experiences instead of nice trips in and out of “the land of the free”. Even famous people like singer Yusuf Islam a.k.a Cat Stevens was arrested!

In the UK, no doubt that people’s privacy, like yours and mine are under risk, but even worse, thanks to special agreements, people who have made no offenses to British law may be arrested and if requested, deported to the US. I must recognize however that it’s not been as bad as cross-Atlantic.

So frankly, for me, any human rights claim coming from a Western government sounds very hollow. Of course we have made a lot of progress, but Britain and the US are still very hypocritical.

Now let’s be clear. I do agree that terrorism cannot be fought by regular means since it is an irregular opponent. But when things like justice and equality get tampered with, or abused of, the whole “freedom” thing goes down the pipe. These acts should be used with extreme restraint, or at least with minimal impact to day to day lives of innocent civilians.

Otherwise this just isolates the government and currently, the Muslim world. They become two opposed and irreconcilable poles.

I can’t say that it’s entirely due to the ISA, but in Malaysia, the political fallout of the abuse of justice was the rise of an Islamist party called PAS which for a while at least, won over some northern states in Malaysia and imposed harmful Shariah laws. I say harmful because this party is attempting to arabize Malaysians who are otherwise open and kind people with their very own rich culture and identity. Whether it’s about arabizing or westernizing, beautiful cultures should resist such change.
The ISA is probably however, the reason for which Malaysia is the only large South East Asian country still free from terrorism.

But anyway. What does this mean for the West? It means Islamist elements are also likely to be bolstered by this. It means youths who would normally at least partially embrace western culture, as they should if they want to blend in, will instead seek relief from the isolation through extreme Islamism.

Please feel free to comment on this.

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