Editorial
While Najib Razak may deserve the fate that has befallen him, Malaysians would do well to let justice take its course.
An explosion of delusion and naivety appears to have afflicted a large section of the population over the past 48 hours. It is the same kind that greeted the downfall of the Barisan Nasional government in 2018.
Then, many celebrated the victory as a personal triumph, as if what had happened was a revolution of epic proportions and that from that moment on, every aspect of our lives would only get better.
But the months that followed were a wake-up call for many chest-thumping politicians and their followers to the reality of politics and governance, as not a single meaningful reform was achieved.
This time around, we see many among us surrendering to an orgy of gloating and cheering over the misfortunes of Najib Razak – deserving as he is of the situation that he must now endure as he ponders his fate without the comforts of family and freedom.
Some of these gloaters are politicians who, just a year ago, were secretly approaching Najib and his like-minded court cluster friends in the hope of bringing down the government in the midst of the pandemic.
But when it became apparent that Najib had no chance of escaping the charges against him, he was conveniently treated as a leper.
There are also a handful of narcissistic politicians and self-styled activists who have no qualms about crediting themselves with 1MDB exposures without the slightest acknowledgement of the massive work done by the officers of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
The post-jailing frenzy also went up a notch with a campaign for a petition – online, of course, for such is the mark of "warriorhood and struggle" these days – calling on the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to deny Najib a pardon.
At best, the petition sounds like an insult to the Agong's intelligence, with claims that Malaysians have had to live with "indignity" due to the 1MDB scandal, and that keeping Najib in jail would "help us to uplift our heads high once again".
Is that all it takes to undermine our pride in this nation? Other countries have experienced worse scandals and oppression but that is no reason for their citizens to bow their heads in shame.
We don't even have to get into the argument about the Agong's constitutional right to exercise his power in the way he sees fit. It is plain ignorance to expect him to perform his duty based on the digital numbers of an online petition.
Let us be real. Najib's incarceration was not the endgame for the fight against corruption, just like putting someone behind bars for sodomy will not wipe out homosexuality from the face of the earth.
It would do Malaysians good to stop the ugly gloating and let the law take its course like any civilised justice system should.
It would be even better if politicians, whose survival depends on the public believing that they are whiter than white, keep their mouths shut and let justice take its course.
Abdar Rahman Koya is CEO and editor of MalaysiaNow
Gloating ? Nah... Everybody knows the industrial scale of Malaysia's corrupt institutions.
ReplyDeleteBut Najib's incarceration is nevertheless a small victory which we should celebrate.
Actually , a number of politicians and activists CAN claim credit for keeping the issue of 1MDB and SRC alive in the dark days of 2014 - May 8 2018, when Malaysia's official structures were intent on denying and suppressing the fact that there was ANY wrong doing or crime committed around 1MDB and SRC.
ReplyDeleteJust some poor but recoverable business decisions was Najib and his entire administration's story line.
The Edge Daily had its newspaper operating license cancelled for publishing the "unauthorised" version of 1MDB theft of public funds.
Many people who spoke up were arrested and/or had their careers destroyed.
Najib as a convicted prisoner is a small consolation for what the country went through.
Unfortunately, UMNO has not learnt its lesson, and is hell-bent on denying anything was wrong with 1MDB, it was mere selective prosecution.