ISA and the Massive Traffic Jam

The ISA have served us well in the early stages of our country’s development. It was used basically against suspected communists, terrorists and those directly involved in subversive activities. Occasionally, it was used against politicians. Operation Lalang was the most infamous where both BN and opposition leaders were detained over the issue when non-Mandarin speaking teachers were posted to Chinese schools as headmasters.

In a multiracial country like ours, racial relationship at its best can be described as fragile. We pride ourselves of having excellent racial harmony and with it political and social stability. Except for May 13, the peace and stability in the country becomes the pre-requisite for the country’s development. Under the 1 Malaysia, the Prime Minister talks not only about mutual respect, but there is also a need of mutual acceptance. We are Malaysians but we preserve our ethnic identity. The non-Malays seems to reject assimilation. In most of the Asian countries, through the process of gradual assimilation, most of the Chinese have lost their ethnic identity.

When ISA was used to detain a young reporter, it stirs a lot of emotional outburst that ISA was abused. Since then, some Malaysians seems to have strong feeling that the ISA should be abolished, that it is an outdated law where the potential of abuse is huge. Obviously, the ISA cannot remain without review. The government has promised that the ISA is now under review. There is a need to have a mechanism in place so that the right to detain under ISA cannot be vested on one person. There should be checks and balances. There is a need for greater transparency when ISA is used. The people need to be told why ISA was used and not other preventive laws which are available within the country.

The ISA demonstration serves no positive purpose. The only purpose it has is to create massive traffic jam and inconveniences around KL city. Many people were stuck in the jam for 3 hours just to move from point A to point B in KL city. I am also given to understand that the Masjid Jamek LRT station stopped its operation due to the demonstration that lasted for more than 2 hours. Apart from that, many traders and businessmen lost a lot of good opportunities because the demonstration drives away many clients. I also noticed that since the demonstration area is a tourist spot, there were many tourists who got caught in the demonstration and were mistaken as protestors. As a result, it left a very bad impression among the tourists that Malaysia is an unsafe country and further discourage them from visiting Malaysia.

Hence, PM Najib’s suggestion to allow public gatherings to be held in stadiums to voice out their dissatisfaction rather than street demonstration is a good suggestion and the opposition should pick up this idea. Since there are 4 PR controlled states, they could put their state stadiums into good use rather than letting the protestors running wild on the street to create unnecessary havoc.

When Najib became the Prime Minister in April this year, he has pledged that the ISA would be reviewed and everyone knows that the ISA is being reviewed. There is no valid reason for any ISA demonstration. I always believe that peaceful discussion is anytime better than to resort to street demonstration with the potential to become violent. With the ISA being reviewed, I hope that the rakyat remains calm and not jump into conclusions.