The VALIANT

Tuesday 25 December 2007

MERRY CHRISTMAS! EVERYONE

"...Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10,11

Believe! This is the week of Christmas — and it is so important that we believe God and receive Christ.

When the angel Gabriel spoke to the virgin Mary over 2,000 years ago and said she would have a Son even though she was a virgin, she did not doubt — she believed. She said “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Mary believed God — and she received God’s promise, the Christ child.

When you celebrate Christmas this year, focus on Christ — the wonderful son of God who came to earth to be our Savior. Believe in Him as the Son of God; receive Him in to your heart if you have not done so already. And let’s pray that:
  • Millions of people across the whole world will believe in God and in Jesus Christ as the Son of God
  • People everywhere will receive Christ as their Savior and Lord
  • Your own friends and family will all welcome Christ as their personal Savior

When Christ came to be born on earth, people had a simple choice — would they believe in Him as Savior?

Would they receive Him into their lives?

Would they welcome Him?

Our choice is the same today.

Let us celebrate the birth of Christ into the world — and into our hearts. Merry Christmas!

Please pray for all the people who are lonely this Christmas.

For many people, Christmas is a time of great joy.

Other people may be alone, and afraid, and not have anyone to spend the holidays with.

Please pray that others would come around them and show them love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thursday 13 December 2007

Kit Siang and Karpal Singh condemn Hindraf ISA 5 arrest

Malaysia Starts a Harsh Crackdown

Asia Sentinel, 13 December 2007
Government officials use the Internal Security Act against ethnic Indian protesters

Malaysia used its harsh Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, against five leaders of Malaysia’s Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, which organized a raucous demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on November 25. It was the first time the law is believed to have been used since 2001.

The five were reported to be Hindraf legal adviser P. Uthayakumar, M. Manoharan, R. Kenghadharan, V. Ganabatirau and T. Vasanthakumar — prominent members of the group, which organized the mass anti-discrimination rally by as many as 30,000 ethnic Indians which turned violent, with protesters battling police with motorcycle helmets. One officer was injured. Subsequently 31 members of the march were charged with sedition and attempted murder.

The use of the ISA is the latest turn of the wheel in a growing crackdown on protests that have periodically paralyzed the Malaysian capital for more than month. Police Chief Musa Hassan warned on Dec. 11 that more ethnic Indians would be arrested and charged for their involvement in anti-government protests. Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader of the opposition Parti Keadilan (Justice), and other organizations had vowed to lead protest marches in the capital cities of all of Malaysia’s 13 states over the next month.

The warnings by police and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself have so far had little effect. On Monday, protesters attempted to deliver a memorandum to parliament, demanding that the country’s elections chief not be given an additional term in advance of elections that are believed to be scheduled for sometime next year. Police attempts to block the protests once again paralyzed traffic across the city as officials stood by with water cannons but did not use them. De facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was warned when he arrived in Kuala Lumpur from a visit to Cairo that he had been placed on a watch list.

The ISA has been criticized repeatedly by both international and domestic human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, the Malaysian Bar Council, and the Malaysian Human Rights Commission on grounds that it violates fundamental international standards. Enacted in the early 1960s by the British colonial government during a national state of emergency to put down a communist insurrection, it allows for detention of any person the police deem to be a threat for up to 60 days.

Detainees are denied access to legal counsel. Police can act on suspicion that an individual “has acted or is about to act or is likely to act in any manner prejudicial to the security of Malaysia or any part thereof or to maintenance of essential services therein or to the economic life thereof.” The law allows the Minister of Home Affairs to extend detention for up to two years without trial or submission of evidence. The detention order can be renewed indefinitely. Some 100 people currently are detained under the law, according to the AFP wire service, most of them Islamic militants.

The protests are a growing concern for Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who has repeatedly warned that street demonstrations would not be tolerated, only to have the protests take place anyhow. The first was on Nov. 10, when as many as 30,000 people marched in defiance of a ban on November 10 to present a petition on election grievances to the palace of Malaysia’s hereditary king.

On Nov. 27, Abdullah Badawi warned that the ISA could come into play if the protesters didn’t stop, saying that he would refuse to allow the country’s safety to be jeopardized. The government has been criticized by the US Department of States for the security crackdown, and a wide range of human rights organizations have also protested the action.

On Wednesday, the four major opposition parties and 17 domestic non-goveernment organizations issued a statement that they are “are especially troubled by the racial and religious antagonism that now pervades Malaysian society,” adding that they deplored the heavy-handed actions of the authorities in the series of arrests that took place earlier this week.

In a speech Monday organized by Khazana Nasional, the government investment arm, Abdullah Badawi sought to address charges that he is weak. “I can be nice,” he told the 700-odd political and corporate leaders and others. “Being nice is your character and you cannot change. But being nice does not mean one is weak.”

The prime minister, who also serves as Internal Security Minister, also repeated that he is ready to resort to the country’s harsh Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial indefinitely, saying he would not “feel guilty or sad” if he is forced to sign detention orders if the reasons are justified.


Wednesday 17 October 2007

‘Politics of Fear’

UMNO Youth illegal demonstration in front of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall

NO HOLDS BARRED (Archives)
by Raja Petra Kamarudin, 20 August 2000

Umno Youth confronted the Chinese about the demands the Chinese had made, a long time ago, during the Tenth General Election. Why, after almost a year, does Umno Youth dig this issue up? Why did they not confront the Chinese then, at the time the demands were made, back in 1999? Is it because they needed the Chinese votes then but no longer need it now?

Maybe it did take Umno Youth almost a year to realise what the Chinese demands were, or to pluck up the courage to stage an illegal demonstration in front of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. I was told it was a boisterous demonstration complete with four-letter words -- and I am not talking about the Umno word (which is also a four-letter word) but of the ‘F’ type. Some people were roughed up and one journalist-photographer was assaulted.But that’s not the issue.

The Chinese tried to pacify the Umno Youth demonstrators and explain what the demands were all about, but Umno Youth would hear nothing of it. Taking a very confrontational stand, Umno Youth told the Chinese they refuse to listen to any explanation and insisted that the Chinese apologise. Again, the Chinese tried to explain the issue but Umno Youth shouted them down and would not allow them to. Umno Youth only wanted an apology and nothing less.

Umno Youth was very abusive and vulgar in their treatment of the Chinese. Clearly their intention was to spark an incident but the Chinese knew better than to engage Umno Youth in a boxing match. The Chinese knew, either way, they would come out the loser.

Umno Youth has given the Chinese a week to apologise and warned the Chinese that they run the risk of angering the Malays if they do not. This, in turn, raises a greater risk of racial tension, possibly followed by a racial conflict. In short, if you don’t play ball, there may be another May 13 looming over the horizon.

Yesterday, the Chinese announced that they will not apologise, as there is nothing to apologise for. Furthermore, the issue is ‘dead’ and had already been previously clarified to everyone’s satisfaction.

Both sides will not back down so it is now a stalemate.

This was a major booboo for Umno Youth. They have thrown the challenge and the Chinese have stood firm. What will Umno Youth do next? If Umno Youth keeps quiet it will lose face so will it now start a racial conflict as promised?

Anyway, what Umno Youth is going to do is not important as it is no longer significant in Malaysian politics. Maybe when Anwar Ibrahim was the Umno Youth leader people took notice.

Since then Umno Youth is seen as merely Mahathir’s tool to provoke issues whenever Umno proper cannot be seen to be behind it. What is more interesting in this whole issue is that Barisan Alternatif (BA) is going to make history and change the way the many races in this land live with each other.

Yesterday, PAS, DAP, PRM and keADILan had a ‘roundtable conference’ in Kuala Lumpur. The conference had nothing to do with the Umno Youth threat. It was to plan the opposition’s strategies for the future. I must admit it was a fantastic conference and if they implement all the plans adopted it is going to make the opposition coalition a very credible alternative to the ruling government. But that is a story for another time.

At this conference, the youth members from the four Barisan Alternatif parties pledged to stand united in the face of Umno Youth’s threat. And they will be issuing a media statement to that effect in a day or two.

Pemuda BA (and three out of the four BA Youth leaders are Malays mind you) is going to tell Umno Youth that the Malays will stand united in defence of the Chinese. If Umno Youth tries to harm the Chinese they will first have to cross the line of Malays. The Malays in BA will stand between Umno Youth and the Chinese.

“Let the Umno Youth Malays kill the BA Youth Malays first before they can touch the Chinese,” said one Malay from keADILan.

“The Malays will stand between Umno Youth and the Chinese,” said another Malay from PAS.

“It is time we stop talking about Malays and Chinese and start talking as Malaysians,” said the DAP chap.

“PRM will take the initiative of drafting the press release to tell Umno Youth that Pemuda BA is guaranteeing the safety of the Chinese,” said the PRM Youth leader.

I felt a tear in my eyes. Umno Youth may not realise it but they have just made history. Their threat to start another race riot if the Chinese do not apologise has brought the Malays forward. The Malays are now standing in defence of their Chinese comrades. The Malays are prepared to face their fellow Malays in protecting innocent Chinese lives.

What really moved the crowd was when Dr Hatta Ramli of PAS got onto the stage and announced to the assembly of Malays, Chinese and Indians that Umno Youth would have to “step over our dead bodies first before they can harm the Chinese” (“langkah mayat kami dulu”).

The hall reverberated with applause. I felt like crying. My wife is, after all, Chinese, though of Siamese descent. 43 years of independence and, finally, Malaysians have learnt to set aside racial differences and stand up for one another.

Yesterday we stopped being Malays and Chinese and emerged as Malaysians. What a great Merdeka Day celebration this 31 August is going to be.

Umno Youth had better be warned. Nearly half the voters voted for the opposition the last general election. It is also said that more than 70% of these people are Malays, as the Chinese had been intimidated into voting for the ruling government.

Maybe Umno Youth is trying to win back Malay support by showing how aggressive they are and that they will take no shit from the Chinese. But this move has backfired badly, just as Dr Mahathir’s move to put Anwar in jail for 15 years has.

Umno Youth has not won back the Malays. They have only forced the Malays to come out in defence of the Chinese. And, to make matters worse, Umno Youth is probably going to now lose the support of the Chinese, which they had in the first place.

The Chinese were scared the last election. They were scared because they thought they were on their own. Now that they know the opposition Malays in BA will not let any harm come to them there is no longer any reason to be scared of Umno.

Umno Youth had better be warned. The Malays in BA are not just paying lip service. They mean what they say. The Malays in BA are determined that race riots are a thing of the past. The Malays in BA will take the punches first before a single Chinese hair can be harmed. The Malays in BA are not ‘talk only’ like Umno Youth but are ‘battle seasoned’ through years of Reformasi. And there are more BA Malays than there are Umno Youth members.

If at all any good has come out of the Reformasi movement it is that Reformasi has successfully set aside race and elevated justice as the rallying call. Umno is all about ‘Malay rights and privileges’. Reformasi is about justice for Anwar and justice for all Malaysians.

Sunday 23 September 2007

JAPAN: Justice for former comfort women

“Comfort women” and the denial of justice. Still seeking reparations after 60 years.

Background

In war zones all over the world crimes of sexual violence are and have been committed against women. For centuries, wartime rape was perceived as an inevitable consequence of war. Even today victims are denied redress: there is widespread impunity for these crimes where perpetrators go unpunished and victims are denied any form of reparation. Sexual violence in the form of rape is used as a weapon of war – it is used deliberately to demoralize and destroy the opposition and is used to provide ‘entertainment’ and ‘fuel’ for soldiers as part of the very machinery of war.

"Comfort women" is a term used to refer euphemistically to young women from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, South and North Korea, Japan, Indonesia, the Netherlands and other Japanese-occupied countries or regions who were forced or otherwise recruited into sexual slavery by Japanese troops before and during the Second World War.

Perhaps the most compelling example of the crime of sexual slavery and the denial of justice to victims was the system of institutionalized sexual slavery used by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during World War II. The women forced into sexual slavery were euphemistically known as “comfort women”. “Comfort stations” are known to have existed in China, Taiwan, Borneo, Philippines, many of the Pacific Islands, Singapore, Malaya, Burma and Indonesia. Testimonies and evidence gathered reveals that these facilities were not staffed with voluntary workers, rather, they were places where women were enslaved against their will and were repeatedly raped, tortured and brutalised for months or years on end, exclusively for the benefit of the Japanese military. Women were obtained, in the majority of cases, by way of abduction or deception. The number of victims involved is estimated to be up to 200,000. The vast majority of victims were under the age of twenty and some girls were as young as twelve.

AI’s Concerns

Amnesty International’s (AI) project campaigning for justice for the former “comfort women” started on 10 August 2005 with AI’s participation in demonstrations in solidarity with the “comfort women”. A report highlighting the plight of the “comfort women” and all legal issues around their long quest for justice was published at the end of October 2005 at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) conference which was held in Bangkok. Two survivors of the “comfort women” system – one from the Philippines and one from South Korea – attended the launch of the report and gave incredibly moving accounts of the violations they suffered.

AI has launched a project, Japan: Justice for “Comfort Women” which will run for two years. It represents the first substantial work done by Amnesty International (AI) on the “comfort women” issue, and the first piece of work on Japan for the SVAW campaign.

The month of August signifies the year representing the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. Despite the fact that the war ended many years ago, Amnesty International is concerned that over 60 years on, so-called “comfort women” are still awaiting justice. Up to 200,000 women and girls were forced to become “comfort women” by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during World War II. Survivors of this system of sexual slavery, which Amnesty International believes amounts to crimes against humanity under the laws applicable at the time, are still awaiting full reparations; they are now very elderly and many have died without seeing justice.

AI SVAW campaign website - http://www.amnesty.org/actforwomen

What we are asking you to doWe are asking all individual members and supporters to print, sign and send the sample letter provided below to the Foreign Minister of Malaysia and CC a copy to The Prime Minister.

For further information please contact the AI Malaysia office at Tel: 03-79552680/ Fax: 03-79552682 or email


This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Model Letter

Dear Minister

I’m writing to you in the year representing the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. Despite the fact that the war ended many years ago, Amnesty International is concerned that over 60 years on, so-called “comfort women” are still awaiting justice. Up to 200,000 women and girls were forced to become “comfort women” by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during World War II. Survivors of this system of sexual slavery, which Amnesty International believes amounts to crimes against humanity under the laws applicable at the time. I implore you to encourage the government of Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility for the crimes committed against these women.

In the 1930s and during World War II many women of differing origins including Malaysians, mostly under 20 and some as young as 12 years old, were sexually enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Army in the territories they controlled. In addition to forced sexual acts, some of these women were subjected to other abuses that included beatings and stabbings. Once the war ended, the surviving comfort women were freed, but many survivors felt ashamed and never spoke of what had happened to them until the 1990s when one by one they began to speak out about the crimes committed against them and still seeking full reparations and justice.

It is now 2007 and many of them have already died fighting for justice, after enduring the trauma of sexual slavery and subsequent lifelong hardship. Their wishes for justice are simple: the acknowledgment by the Japanese government and the Japanese Diet (Parliament) of the crimes committed against them by the Japanese military and the continued education of future generations of this historical fact so as to prevent such atrocities in the future.

The Malaysian government should urge the government of Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility for the crimes committed against the comfort women, which is the first step in making sure that such atrocities do not happen again. Malaysia can play an important part in helping to heal and restore the dignity of these survivors.

As a supporter of basic human rights, I urge you to help gain official recognition for the surviving comfort women and to take a stand that sexual slavery and violence against women are no less grave during times of war, and that such atrocities amount to crimes against humanity and cannot be condoned no matter when or where they take place.


Sincerely,


..............................
Name:
Location:

Important Addresses

YAB Dato' Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi
Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Security
Prime Minister's Office Malaysia
Perdana Putra Building,
Federal Government Administrative Centre,
62502 PUTRAJAYA Malaysia.
Tel : + 60 3 8888 6000
Fax : + 60 3 8888 3444



Datuk Seri Syed Hamid B Syed Jaafar Albar
Menteri Luar Negeri Malaysia, Kementerian Luar Negeri
Wisma Putra, No. 1 Jalan Wisma Putra
Presint 2, 62602 PUTRAJAYA
Tel : +603 – 88874000
Fax : +603 - 88891717+603 – 88892816

Restrictive Laws Continue to Undermine Human Rights

Malaysia: 50 years after Merdeka

For the last 50 years, voices within Malaysia have expressed concern that a legislative and administrative structure was emerging which posed a grave threat to the rights and liberties safeguarded in the Malaysian Constitution and under international human rights law.

There has been an incremental development of an array of preventive detention laws and other restrictive laws of which were inherited from the British former colonial government, which have allowed the authorities to deny, or place unjustified restrictions upon, the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. These laws have affected many Malaysians and it has created an intimidating effect on political life and the development of civil society in Malaysia.

Current developments also show how institutions of the state, including the Royal Malaysia Police, the Attorney General’s Chambers and the Judiciary appear at times to have come under the improper influence of the Executive, and to have failed to robustly defend constitutional principles and to uphold respect for human rights. Amnesty International is raising these concerns once again as the nation celebrates its 50th Anniversary and calls for reforms to improve the human rights situation in the country.

The Constitution

Malaysia’s Merdeka (Freedom) Constitution, promulgated at Independence in 1957, reflected fundamental human rights and political liberties enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Amnesty International is concerned that these constitutional safeguards have not been realized, that the checks and balances within constitutional government have weakened, and that human rights and fundamental liberties in Malaysia have been undermined.

Part II of the Constitution, entitled ‘Fundamental Liberties’, include the right to life and the right to liberty of the person (including habeas corpus); equality under the law and freedom from discrimination; freedom of movement; freedom of speech, assembly and association; and freedom of religion. Articles pertaining to freedom from discrimination (Article 8) and freedom of speech, assembly and association (Article 10), in particular, contain a number of qualifying clauses empowering parliament to legislate any restriction to freedom of expression, association and assembly that it ‘deems necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of the Federation...public order or morality’.

These clauses have allowed the fundamental principles of the Malaysian Constitution to be comprehensively undermined and, through legislation, for the balance of power between the separate branches of government to shift sharply towards the Executive.

The Emergency proclamations

Since independence, five states of emergency have been declared under Article 150 of the Federal Constitution including during the Indonesia-Malaysia Konfrontasi(17) (Confrontation) in 1964, and after the racial riots of 1969. As of 2007, 4 out of the 5 proclamations are still in force and yet to be annulled by Parliament.

In 1960 the authorities amended Article 149 to expand the definition of subversion, and to remove the one-year time limit on such Emergency Ordinances by providing that they could continue indefinitely, unless both Houses of Parliament passed laws revoking them. Article 149 of the original 1957 Constitution allowed for parliament, in the event of serious subversion or organised violence, to pass laws that were repugnant to the fundamental rights safeguarded elsewhere in the Constitution.

In 1960, Article 150 was also amended to allow Proclamations of Emergency, and any Ordinances issued under them, to continue indefinitely unless both Houses of Parliament annulled them. Article 150 of the original Constitution empowered the Executive to exercise extraordinary powers if a State of Emergency was proclaimed - but only for periods of two months at a time. By reason of the proclamation of emergency, numerous legislations were enacted and are still in force, including the Emergency (Essential Powers) Act, 1964 (30/64), today known as the Emergency (Essential Powers) Act 1979 and the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969.

The Emergency (Essential Powers) Act 1979, states that as long as the Proclamation of Emergency remains in force, all regulations made under the Emergency (Essential Powers) Act, 1964 shall be in force and shall have effect as if they have been made under this Act.

Due to the 1979 Act, many regulations containing wide arbitrary powers were enacted by the Executive including the Essential (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat) Regulations 1966 and the Essential (Clearance Of Squatters) Regulations, 1969. Both this laws contain unaccountable arbitrary law enforcement functions and powers that have provided for abuse of powers and human rights violations. The clear example of the wide powers of RELA that allows arrest without warrant on reasonable belief of vague category of people simply termed as a terrorist, undesirable person, illegal immigrant goes to undermine a person’s freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. The 1969 Squatter regulation is another example of abuse of power where the state has invoked this regulation to allow for the summary disposal of squatters hence undermining procedural justice and judicial scrutiny as well as their economic, social and cultural rights. These examples clearly establish the arbitrary law enforcement culture in Malaysia as if we are still living under a state of emergency and in a state of war.

The Preventive Detention Legislations

The Internal Security Act (ISA) remains the core of the permanent, arbitrary powers to detain without trial available to the Executive. As with other restrictive laws in Malaysia, the ISA, through a series of amendments, has incrementally extended Executive powers, while stripping away the judicial safeguards designed to protect against their abuse. As such the ISA is contrary to fundamental principles of international law, including the right to liberty of the person, to freedom from arbitrary arrest, to be informed of the reasons for arrest, to the presumption of innocence, and to a fair and open trial in a court of law.

Beyond the violation of basic rights experienced by particular individuals, the ISA has had a wider, intimidating effect on civil society, and a marked influence on the nature of political participation and accountability in Malaysia. The ISA has been used to suppress peaceful political, academic and social activities, and legitimate constructive criticism by NGOs and other social pressure groups. It limits the political space for important debates on issues of economic policy, corruption and other social challenges.

Beyond the ISA, there are a number of other laws which provide for ‘preventive’ detention without trial in Malaysia, including The Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969 (EPOPCO), The Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Act 1985, and The Restricted Residence Act 1933. The existence of a body of “emergency” laws in Malaysia circumvents critical human rights safeguards enshrined in the Malaysian Constitution and international human rights law. They have facilitated patterns of human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment, and promoted a climate of impunity and arbitrariness including the ability to deprive a person of his or her liberty indefinitely without trial solely for ‘preventive’ reasons, and to prohibit meetings, ban publications and exclude books and periodicals.

Malaysia has also adopted a body of legislation, some from the colonial government, which places unjustified restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights and allows for government officials to violate human rights. These include the following:

The Sedition Act 1948

The Sedition Act places wide limitations on freedom of expression - especially regarding sensitive political subjects. The original Act, adopted by the colonial government in 1948, was directed against offences such as inciting disaffection against the government, inciting contempt for the administration of justice and provoking discontent among the people. The law also gives a wide definition to the expression ‘seditious tendency’. The Act has been used extensively to prosecute opposition parliamentarians and other social commentators.

The Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA)

The Printing Presses Ordinance of 1948, introduced by the colonial authorities at the beginning of the Emergency, required all newspapers and printing presses to obtain a licence, to be renewed annually. The Ordinance was revised as the Printing Presses Act in 1971 to additionally provide for powers to revoke the licenses of newspapers that aggravated national sensitivities or were detrimental to national development goals.

The wider effects of the Act upon freedom of expression, the media and the development of civil society in Malaysia have been far reaching. Authorities continue to intimidate writers, associations and publishing companies towards self-censorship and restrict the expression and circulation dissenting opinions against NGOs and other social commentators.

The Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1972

The Official Secrets Act (OSA) of 1972, based on the British OSA of 1911, was also seen to impose wide, largely unjustified restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, and on the examination and discussion of public interest issues by the political opposition. By curbing access to public information and information relating to the public interest the electorate’s right to know was curtailed and the means to uphold public accountability weakened.

The definition of an ‘official secret’, which covered virtually all government documents, was too wide, and subject to classification or declassification at the discretion of Ministers have a profoundly intimidatory effect on freedom of expression. The OSA has been applied in many cases which do not involve ‘foreign agents’ or alleged spying and impose threat on media, politicians and civil society.

The Societies Act 1966

The Societies Act of 1966 consolidated the various existing ordinances that regulated and restricted the formation and activities of societies, clubs, organisations, associations and political parties in Malaysia. Restrictions were tightened through amendments to the Act in 1981 when the category of a ‘political’ society, subject to specific restrictions, was introduced. A ‘political’ society was defined as any group or body that sought to influence in any manner the policies or activities of the Government of Malaysia, or of the Government of any State, or of any local authority’. Once designated ‘political’ a society’s membership was effectively restricted: under previous legislation, members of certain professions, including university lecturers, are not allowed to take part in political activity, and would therefore be prevented from joining a political society.

The Societies Act provides the Executive with the means to block or impede the formation of any organisation, which it considers to be undesirable. The Act’s intimidating effect, along with the onerous bureaucratic requirements of the Registrar who can delay any decision indefinitely without explanation, has had a negative impact on the development of independent civil society.

Amnesty International remains concerned that the Societies Act can be used to deny the rights of individuals and groups to associate freely and to express their opinions of government activity. The effect of the Act is further compounded by restrictions on the right to have recourse to the courts when the Executive branch of government misuses its discretionary powers in registering societies.

The Universities and University Colleges Act 1971

The Universities and University Colleges Act (UCCA) was enacted in 1971 primarily to provide an administrative basis for the establishment of new universities. However, in 1975, the government introduced a range of amendments imposing stringent restrictions on students’ rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression. Many students and academic staffs have fall victim from this act over their legitimate political activities.

The Police Act 1967

The Police Act of 1967 that was enacted to replace the 1952 Police Ordinance and the 1963 Royal Malaysia Police Act placed restrictions, tightened through amendments in 1987, on every citizen’s constitutional right to assemble peaceably. Under the Act all public assemblies of three or more persons require a police permit and the police officer may refuse if he believed the three persons were in fact representing an organisation and that the officer should be satisfied that the organisation was registered or ‘otherwise recognised under any law. Police officers were also empowered to stop any unlicensed meeting as an unlawful assembly, to arrest without warrant participants, and to use force if participants ignore orders to disperse.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Amnesty International therefore in conjunction with Malaysia’s 50th Anniversary calls upon the Yang Di-Pertuan Agung to revoke all existing Proclamations of Emergency in Malaysia.

Amnesty International is concerned that the Malaysian Constitution, as currently amended, does not provide adequate safeguards for the protection of the human rights it enshrines. The organisation recommends that all necessary measures are taken to ensure:

That provisions relating to human rights in the Constitution are strengthened, and that all limitations on rights which negate the right itself and do not conform to international standards, are removed;

The absolute protection of certain rights at all times, including the right not to be deprived of life arbitrarily, freedom from torture and ill-treatment, and guarantees of fair trial;

That any limitations on rights are subject to specific criteria, including what is proportionate, legal and legitimate under national and international law, and should be subject to the scrutiny of the courts.

Amnesty International is also concerned that a body of emergency legislation, which places, unjustified restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. Amnesty International therefore calls for all preventive detention legislations to be repealed. We also call for all emergency laws specifically the Emergency (Essential Powers) Act 1979 and all Regulations and Rules made there under be repealed.

Amnesty International is concerned about other legislation that allow for government officials to violate human rights relating to the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, association and assembly. The organisation urges that such restrictive laws, including the Sedition Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Societies Act, the Universities and Universities Colleges Act, the Police Act and the Penal Code be reviewed with a view to reform. The organisation believes that clauses that may lead to violations of human rights should be removed, or amended to ensure that vague or ambiguous language does not lead to human rights violations. Reforms should also include the right to challenge administrative decisions made under a number of these laws, including before a court of law.

We urge the government to make these changes in the spirit of Merdeka.

Josef Roy Benedict
Executive Director
Amnesty International Malaysia

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Musa: Have No Fear of Others


by: Suganthi Suparmaniam
New Straits Times

The discussion of racial issues today reflects the openness of the government and the people’s maturity and does not indicate a breaking down of ties. Former deputy prime minister Tun Musa Hitam said voices of concern warning that the country was facing a racial crisis were, therefore, baseless.

He was saddened that there were such alarmist views amid the celebration of 50 years of independence.

Musa said these views gave the impression that the historical bond between the races was being tested.

“It appears to give the impression that this country is facing a racial split. There are also indications that politics of fear like that before May 13, 1969 are starting to make their presence felt,” he said in his speech after receiving a honorary Doctor of Political Science degree from Universiti Malaya yesterday.

The doctorate was presented by UM Chancellor Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak at the university’s 46th convocation.

The award was aimed at recognising Musa’s contributions to national and international politics.

Another recipient of a honorary doctorate was former chief justice of India and jurist, Justice P.N. Bhagwati, who was conferred a Honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Musa later told reporters that people needed to be reminded of the dangerous trend of the politics of fear or "I am sure that without being aware of it and not knowing about it, we will destroy ourselves or ‘self-destruct’".

He said Malaysians should be thankful for the nation’s multicultural and multiracial character which was a blessing from God to be used constructively.

"But in our determination to criticise and find fault, we should do so on the basis of the spirit of nationalism which means that we are all Malaysians and proud of it," he said.

Musa, 73, graduated from UM in 1958 with a Bachelor’s degree in administration.

On another note, Musa advised older leaders to give way to the younger generation.

"You must always look for talent among the younger generation. You will only appreciate them if you mix with them. I would like to see younger people taking over," he said.

He said whenever someone younger was suggested for specific posts, 60-year-olds were chosen. He said those in their 40s or even 30s should be given preference.

"After all, that is how I got started. Even (former prime minister) Tun Abdul Razak and (former deputy prime minister) Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman started early," he said.

On the fear among some that they would lose their identity if they mixed with people of other races, he said such fears were unfounded.

"I am obsessed with the socialisation of the young of various races. We will not lose our identity or religion by mixing with each other," he said.

On honorary doctorates, he said he had politely declined many as he felt he did not deserve them.

"But when UM offered the award, I just could not decline as I am a graduate of UM. "I accept this award with pride and sentiment," he said.

Thursday 30 August 2007

The Politics Of Fear


“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” Tacitus

Introduction

The scare campaign is one of the most powerful weapons of modern politics. From the yellow peril and anti-Semitism to McCarthyism, law-and-order and interest rates, the right-wing has always been able to use the politics of fear to great effect. Why are people so vulnerable to this kind of politics at the moment, and why do certain scares at certain times resonate more than others, seemingly indifferent to questions of probability?

Identifying and mobilising against threats is by no means the exclusive preserve of the Right however. While the left identifies dangers in the existing forms of subordination and mobilises against them, the Right uses the politics of fear to reinforce existing forms of subordination and accentuate feelings of vulnerability. At the moment, the politics of fear is in the ascendancy.

A response to the politics of fear has to flow from an understanding of the ethical terrain and generalised anxiety pattern of any given society.

There are a thousand-and-one dangers facing people every day, and anyone who tried to respond to them all would be paralysed. Human beings are, if anything, somewhat over-intrepid — we drive cars, eat fatty food, marry and have children — all very risky activities. In general people accept with equanimity those risks which constitute an integral part of their normal, chosen life-style; people also normally ignore far-flung risks like Ross River Fever or meteor impacts. The threats to which people pay attention and which stimulate them to political action and blaming, depends above all on their ethical standpoint and related moral sentiments and interests. Of course, the likelihood of a threat and its impact are subject to calculation, but how we evaluate unusual threats has little to do with probabilities. Understanding how public figures connect with these fears requires a kind of political-ethical semiology.

To say that a person’s conception of the Good constitutes their ethics is a tautology; a person’s conception of risk is nothing but the inverse side of their conception of the Good. Risk therefore, like the Good, raises all the questions of justice, freedom, recognition and the meaning of life. Mobilising around justified fears is just as central to the building of a social movement as is mobilising around a positive ideal. It is hard to imagine how the Left could mobilise without warning against certain dangers, such as the loss of job security, the run-down of public education, and so on.

In the same way that visions of Utopia function as regulative ideals in the here and now, prophecies of catastrophe or dystopia also communicate most forcefully ethical standpoints that actually bear little relation to how imminent they may be. Likewise, an outcry about some far-flung danger signals moral outrage, expressing a moral sentiment in the same way that the celebration of some unlikely opportunity or rare achievement communicates a vision of the good life. Some scares turn out to be unfounded while others prove to be real, just as many threats go unremarked until it is too late — the point is: what makes people take a threat seriously?

With this preamble, let us begin with a review of some of the basics of the ethics of risk and harm.

Justice and the distribution of risk

Equality, in the Jacobin sense of the word, as the radical demand of distributive justice which characterises the primitive cry of the oppressed in times of revolutionary upheaval, is not a demand which has a lot of purchase in the West, in countries like Australia, today. But the demand for equality of opportunity still has however considerable resonance. Consequently, the idea that no-one should be unduly exposed to risk, just as the idea that everyone should have the same life-opportunity, constitutes a basic demand which people take to be fair. However, equality of opportunity and equality of exposure to harm remain fairly abstract demands just so long as the community maintains a “safety net” ensuring that no section of society is subjected to such a degree of harm that their capacity to participate in social life is disabled.

So for example, in Australia it is widely agreed that all people should have access to hospital emergency wards and that road safety and factory pollutant standards should be applied globally, and not discriminately. In a society where there is little exposure to risk, exposure to excessive risk appears as an injustice in the same way as poverty appears as injustice in a society of generalised affluence.

Nevertheless, people are exposed to risk unequally, and this does not always generate claims of injustice and moral outrage. Building workers, soldiers, police and many other occupational groups, young people, males, women of child-bearing age, are all exposed to higher risks than others, but do not as a result generally claim that they are victims of injustice. Still, risk can be unfairly distributed. Three factors determine exposure to risk as unjust: desert, participation and exploitation.

A group of people will object to exposure to a risk as unjust where they perceive that they have done nothing to deserve it or because those who do deserve it escape exposure. So for example, people living in the outback accept with equanimity the risks associated with being remote from medical assistance and other services, but if they are chosen as the site for a chemical dump, they rightly object to this as an injustice even if they are told that the risks of contamination are low.

Secondly, a group of people will object to exposure to a risk as unjust where they have not participated in deciding on the risk, or because those who have made the risky decision, are escaping exposure. Building workers expect their employers to follow safety procedures and certainly not to economise on safety, but they do not expect to work in as safe an environment as their colleagues in the drawing office. They have after all chosen to work on scaffolding with heavy machinery.

Finally, a risk is particularly objectionable if it is imposed by someone who profits by exposing others to the risk — exploitation.

Ultimately, the principle axis of injustice in the distribution of risk is the question of having a voice in the distribution of risk in society. People are tolerant of risks they choose themselves on the basis of reasonable information, but risks imposed on them without consultation are an injustice.

Those without an equal voice in society will be exposed to excessive, unwanted and exploitative harm and risk however. Justice demands not so much the elimination of risk or its equal distribution, as the capacity of subjects to choose their own level of exposure to risk by equal participation in the social determination of risk allocation.

It should be noted also that risk and harm are not only factors in distributive justice, but also a component of the politics of recognition. Images of heroic diggers at Gallipoli, brave pioneers taming the outback, disabled people and gays overcoming prejudice and adversity, firefighters and risk-taking entrepreneurs — all these images testify to the fact that the claim to have taken risks and overcome harm are integral components of emergent subjectivity and claims for recognition.

Further, it should be noted that the level of risk-seeking and risk-aversion is normative — the lifestyle of dominant cultural groups sets a standard for others whose lifestyle would normally be associated with a different level of risk-taking.

Those who expose themselves to too much risk are urged to play safe or be dubbed social deviants, while those who are exposed to manifestly less risk than the social norm could seek more risk, exaggerate the relative riskiness of their own life-style, or adopt a stance of moral superiority. Agreement about what is risky and what is not, is also normative and regulatory, and essential for social integration and cooperation.

Finally, a sharp divide between rich and poor creates a divide in attitude to risk: it is rational for the poor to be interested in low-probability/high-reward practices and relatively indifferent to risks; the better off are rational to be averse to low-probability disasters and relatively uninterested in gambles. While poker machines are placed in the Western suburbs, insurance salesmen ply their trade in the leafy suburbs.

Ulrich Beck described the situation for an affluent society thus: the social positions and conflicts of a ‘wealth-distributing’ society begin to be joined by those of a ‘risk-distributing’ society.” [Risk Society, 1986]

None of these considerations tell us anything however, about which risks people will pay attention to and who they will blame, let alone how contemporary society differs from that of earlier generations in what we blame.

The Semiotics of Anxiety

As noted above, what a person or an institution perceives as a threat, and moreover one that needs to be politically responded to, is an expression of their ethical standpoint. Advertising a threat is usually an expression of moral outrage. That the danger in question is remote is really neither here nor there. Of course a threat can be exaggerated, even invented entirely. The danger of any one of us dying from a terrorist attack is minute by comparison with the danger of dying as a result of malaria, a far greater problem on a world scale, and one as amenable to human intervention as terrorism. Yet it is terrorism which mobilises people’s anxieties, is the subject of intense political debate and makes people change their travel arrangements. And while many of us on the Left are prepared to minimise the danger of terrorism, aren’t we quick to point out the increased danger generated by George Bush and John Howard’s war in Iraq?

This writer could identify aspects of my own life-style more dangerous to my longevity than the collapse of capitalism, Howard’s support for the US War in Iraq, the over-prescription of antibiotics or the use of 4-wheel drive vehicles, but I will confess to having warned of the dangers of the latter four practices while continuing to tolerate much greater risks. Why? Because I find the latter practices either morally outrageous or at least repugnant to my own values and ethics.

In broadcasting the dangers of this or that practice we say “You shouldn’t do that!” and we make the point as forcefully as we can by underlining the way in which a given activity threatens us. Not only that, we are antipathetic to all the practices of a group of people or institution which we abhor, we are disgusted by them and we fear them.

When you choose your institutions and social practices, you choose your goods and your choose your harms and risks. Those risks which are associated with the good life are in that sense “good risks.” If we go to war in a just cause, we do not complain of the threat from enemy retaliation, we minimise it in fact. On the other hand, for the Nature-lover everything symbolic of urban modernity is ugly and dangerous.

Over and above the considerations of justice mentioned above (equality, deserts, participation and exploitation), the factors which predispose us towards belief in the threat posed by an activity or group are self-interest, self-justification, stigmatisation and transferred shame.

Self-interest (frequent-flyers who agitate for improvement to airlines safety while ignoring highway-safety) and self-justification (newspapers who complain of dangers to free speech but are indifferent to dangers to privacy) speak for themselves, and these motives are often transparent in a world where self-interest and self-justification are taken as given. It is stigmatisation and transferred shame which are less obvious and more powerful.

Who causes the greatest danger to our children on their way to school: men who download pornography from the internet or traffic jams caused by parents chauffering their kids to and from school? Who creates the greater risk of terrorist infiltration: refugees in leaky boats or well-dressed businessmen arriving by plane? Who creates litter in our streets: manufacturers of fast food or undisciplined youth? Which poses the greater risk to the health of our children: smallpox vaccination or smallpox? Who caused the AIDS epidemic: promiscuous homosexuals or scientists experimenting with monkey blood products in Africa? Who poses the greatest danger: outpatients of the mental health service or trigger-happy police?

The answers to all these questions are not calculations of statistical probability but expressions of moral disapproval. A scare is launched as an expression of moral outrage, and contested on an ethical basis, in just the same way as a vision of a conflict-free community or an economic rationalist economy are counterposed as expressions, not of economic efficiency, but of ethical conviction. The most powerful form of such expressions is the stigmatisation of a hated group and their lifestyle. It attempts to accentuate the shame attached to the activity under attack and cause people to withdraw from it. (Pride is the negative of shame and the fostering of pride is the most direct response of a stigmatised group.)

Barry Glassner points to the alternative moral scenario, which, if it can be sustained, is a powerful descriptor of the scare-as-moral-outrage: transferred shame. According to Glassner. a group or institution may exaggerate a threat to cover up or substitute for a wrong it has itself done to someone, implicating others in the misery affecting victims of their own action or neglect.

In this scenario, the decline of the public school system is put down, not to the steady transfer of funds from public education into the private system, but rather to parental neglect, disruptive pupils or lazy and politically motivated teachers. Likewise, problem gambling, alcohol abuse, “welfare addiction,” trade unionism, and a host of other sins of poverty are the preferred scapegoats for poverty, rather than excessive capital accumulation.

Under this approach, outrages about poor treatment of residents by nursing-home staff resonate with people who may be feeling the pangs of guilt about having abandoned their own aged parents.

Once again, the underlying emotion which is motivating politics here is shame, but now in the form of displaced shame about one’s own neglect or selfishness. Thomas Scheff, the US pragmatist social psychologist, has claimed that shame is the social emotion par excellence. He says that shame is a primary emotion signalling danger to a social bond, causing us to avoid behaviours which endanger social ties in just the way fear causes us to avoid behaviours which endanger the body. Though such emotions as shame and fear normally operate only for a brief interval, he describes a “shame/anger trap” in which shame and anger alternately trigger one another so as to maintain an intensity of emotion over a protracted period of time. These observations lend weight to Glassner’s speculation about the role of shame in scare campaigns.

How To ...

In Culture of Fear. Why Americans are Afraid of the wrong things, Barry Glassner uses newspaper and video cuttings collected over the past two decades to describe scare campaigns mounted in the US. Drawing on Glassner’s observations we can say that a scare campaign will succeed if it is presented to the public with dramatic skill and is:

  • aligned with a relevant moral sentiment (as above),

  • backed by a recognized, relevant authority,

  • given a human face, be it a sympathetic victim or a heinous perpetrator.
If it is not possible to actually give the scare a human face, an image of the relevant activity connecting as closely as possible with personal experience is used. The most powerful image possible combines all the above with both the threatening activity and its result in a single visual field, and if possible the image needs to be intrinsically dramatic.

In her history of hysteria, Elaine Showalter shows how a syndrome is developed by collaboration between a genuinely suffering patient and a caring therapist; eventually, the experiences the patient describes fit into a pattern that the doctor can put a name to; this may include the doctor inducing symptoms in the patient.

Initially, a charismatic and authoritative specialist presents a sympathetic and impressive patient who becomes a prototype for the illness. The specialist puts a name to the “disease” and specifies its causes, drawing on the range of admissible explanations that the culture provides at the time, explanations which cast the prototype patient as a victim of a socially-recognised cause.

This story is then reproduced and propagated by the medical profession, picked up by the media, playwrights, novelists, journalists, etc., and the image of the prototype patient and their story is brought before the imagination of masses of people. People suffering some form of distress then recognise themselves in the prototype, who shows them that after all there is a legitimate explanation for their suffering and are “recruited,” and present themselves to the local doctor with the prototypical symptoms, and an epidemic is under way.

Showalter thus identifies the following elements required for a new epidemic:

  • a sympathetic and impressive prototype patient;

  • charismatic, expert who names the syndrome and defines a culturally valid cause;

  • large numbers of suffering or anxious people who recognise themselves in the prototype.
It should be noted that the above elements are equally valid for a genuine new disease (like AIDS) as for a bogus condition (like recovered memory), and in either case, the suffering is very real; what marks the epidemic, is the concentration of generalised anxiety and possibly diverse forms of suffering around a single syndrome and a single, socially validated cause.

These same elements can be expressed in the terms of C.S. Peirce’s semiotics: the prototype patient is referred to as an icon; the name of the syndrome, “replicated” (to use Peirce’s term) by the expert authority, is called a symbol; the numbers of people identified as sufferers are called an index. According to Peirce:
“The value of an icon consists in its exhibiting the features of a state of things regarded as if it were purely imaginary. The value of an index is that it assures us of positive fact. The value of a symbol is that it serves to make thought and conduct rational and enables us to predict the future. ... the most perfect of signs are those in which the iconic, indicative, and symbolic characters are blended as equally as possible.” [Collected Papers of CS Peirce, §4.448]

The Finnish psychologist, Anja Koski-Jännes, has used this idea to understand how people can are cured of addiction by cathartic experiences which achieve this coincidence of icon, symbol and index. It seems that this idea encapsulates the process whereby radically new ideas and behaviours can enter the psyche.

This is the semiology of fear. If the message is not properly decoded, the effectiveness of a well-constructed scare campaign can be bewildering: “How can people believe that!?” The willing recipient may believe it, but they are also very “attached” to that belief.

Scares can be dispelled by sufficiently sustained, skilful and resolute action however. The sceptic who wants to debunk a scare campaign has to pay attention to the following:

  • making the implicit moral/ethical message explicit, and providing an alternative moral reading of the phenomenon;

  • exposing the authority as bogus, self-interested, untrustworthy, and preferably involved in a cover-up of the real cause for concern;

  • transforming the perception of the “human face” — (“that nurse was actually the ambassador’s daughter,” “actually the Iraqis treated me very well”) and if possible finding a better, countervailing “human face”;

  • using a superior, informed, disinterested and trusted authority to rationally critique the alleged facts point by point.
While the trajectory of fear-epidemics that we have described is relevant to public discourse, it should be remembered that expert discourse is subject to rules of evidence and criteria of objectivity. Of course, expert discourses are also arenas of struggle, and are also tied up in culturally determined paradigms (like the current fad for viral or genetic causes for everything); a scare may or not be plausible, and that battle has to be fought out within the expert discourse.

Mythology and Archetypes

What is also crucial is what Mary Douglas calls “availability” and Showalter calls “intertextuality,” to refer to the collaborative production of prototypes and legitimate explanations for evil, by the whole culture.

To be successful a scare campaign must draw on a repertoire of mythological archetypes, some national, some primal. National myths frequently allude to stories of national guilt: in America, the young black man and the government cover-up; in Britain, the Conspiracy; in Australia, strangers arriving by boat. And everywhere and eternally, the violent youth, the ungrateful daughter and the dangerous foreigner.

Literature and art collaborate with expert discourse to dress these archetypes in modern clothing, and the ancient bogeys are now joined by the invisible poisons and viruses produced by modern industry and sexual predators, the archetypes of modern mythology.

Geoffrey Pearson draws on Gilbert Ryle’s aphorism that “a myth is ... the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.” The law-and-order scare, he says, wrongly locates lawlessness within a mistaken idiom of moral decay, whereas it ought to be located within an idiom of continuity. Likewise, Gulf War Syndrome would be placed alongside “shell shock” and “battle fatigue,” rather than AIDS and Watergate. This puts the alarming phenomena in a new perspective.

However, the most difficult problem is always the underlying moral sentiments and interests which predispose people to believe certain kinds of scares which align with their moral sentiments and specific insecurities. This can only be dealt with by changing social practices and the whole ethos.

Risk and Blame

The above considerations help to explain why people single out one thing rather than another as a focus of fear and anger, but who or what will they blame? Attribution of blame reflects the distribution of social responsibility which is nothing but ethical; alternatively, responsibility can be removed from humanity altogether and located under the heading of nature or luck.

The attribution of natural and personal disasters to human misbehaviour is as old as the human species, and invariably expresses moral disapproval of the blamed behaviour, ascribing bushfires to “green tape” or floods to agribusiness.

On the other hand, when we are pre-disposed to minimise a threat, we look to natural causes, accidents and victim-blaming. Who gets blamed for malformed babies: genetics, bad luck, the mother’s smoking habit, pollution or the paediatrician?

As remarked above, ascribing harms to Nature or chance is a declaration that there is no-one to blame. Very often, victim-blaming, saying that someone’s misfortune was a result of their own misadventure, has the same effect. Especially the first of these attitudes is not socially approved nowadays. The nature/culture divide has been moved back a long way, and even while genetics and biochemistry are being increasingly ascribed as the cause of every kind of misfortune or deviance, this is far from meaning that the problem concerned is beyond human intervention; on the contrary, the identification of a biochemical cause is a step in the “medicalisation” of the problem, and its subsumption under pharmaceutical description. Generally speaking, in modernity, we don’t believe in accidents. The British Medical Journal of June 2001 declared “accident” to be unscientific. If something happened, someone is responsible.

Refusal to believe in accidents of nature — blaming paediatric doctors for sick babies, governments for not anticipating a natural disaster — can be traced to several sources.

Firstly, the blaming disposition denotes a post-Keynesian society in which conflict is normalised, as the conflict-avoiding options of nature and bad luck are systematically avoided.

Secondly, it reflects what Beck calls “reflexive society” inasmuch as human activity is seen as the producer of all goods and harms in a world far removed from Nature, and scientific scepticism is turned on science itself.

Thirdly, there is widespread suspicion not only of science, but of the professions, government, bureaucracies, all those institutions charged with keeping us safe, and we are very ready to point the finger at incompetent doctors, corrupt councils, short-sighted governments, etc., etc., preferring to deregulate and privatise responsibility rather than trusting authority.

Finally, I believe that blame-laying is a direct outcome of the ubiquity of the market relation. There is a conviction that anything, including long life and security, can be purchased or provided as a service; any accident is therefore the result of some kind of swindle or professional incompetence.

People have always believed that misfortune was the wages of sin. Nowadays, virtue is earning enough to buy what you want on the market, so it is hard for someone who has earnt an honest living, paid their taxes and purchased professional services to believe that their misfortune is not some kind of swindle, in just the same way that university students now increasingly believe that having paid for their degree they ought to be given it, whatever their exam results.

This trend underlies the move towards the privatisation of public responsibility and the increasingly litigious nature of public life. Institutions have two possible approaches to protect their agents and decision-makers from blame:
closing ranks and covering up, protecting individuals and wearing the heat at institutional level, or
delegation of responsibility downwards to individuals.

The latter response is normal in Australia and the US today, although Britain has a long tradition of secrecy and institutional solidarity. With individuals finding themselves exposed to risk without institutional support, they must increasingly defend themselves by purchasing insurance, thus further exacerbating fragmentation and the move to privatisation of risk.

Deregulation has the same effect: lacking sanctions to enforce compliance, institutions increasingly rely on market mechanisms, thereby divesting themselves of direct responsibility. Risk thereby becomes commodified and every risk has a price. Someone is always responsible, preferably a corporate body with insurance.

The Media

Every scare campaign comes to us through the media. It is very tempting therefore to blame the media, especially television, for the culture of fear we live in. Barry Glassner argues that although the means of public communication have a great role to play in transmitting scare campaigns, they are equally instrumental in debunking scares. The media is an arena of struggle over risk as much as any other institution or any other part of society. Consequently it would be wrong to single out the media (as a whole) in blame for scare campaigns — different social forces are at work within it. Of course, through professional self-interest and that of their owners, certain media aid certain scare campaigns and not others, but this is true of all the institutions of modern society.

Every lobby group promotes own scare campaign.

In his analysis of modern American life, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam ascribes 30% of the loss of sociability over the past 40 years to the ubiquity of television. He shows that people who have access to the world only through the TV (or otherwise through a restricted channel), are more likely to be afraid of something than are people who are practically exposed to the relevant risk and are consequently familiar with it.

Society is overall much more tolerant of difference than a generation ago, in large part due to the proliferation of mass media, but some people have little exposure to some other kinds of people, other than through TV, and consequently are vulnerable to scare campaigns about issues which actually rarely affect them.

Before attempting to summarise the politics of fear as we see it today, we need to review the development of public enmity and the frightened subject over the recent past.

The Modern History of Fear

In For Ethical Politics (Heidelberg Press, 2003), I traced the evolution of the radical subject; here I want to briefly sketch the evolution of the dark side of modern subjectivity, our bogeys.

After the Nazi witch-hunts of the 1930s, the most extensive and oppressive scare campaign of our times was the anti-communist witch-hunt of the decade or two after the end of the Second World War. The War and the period of reconstruction which followed had created among other things a social environment strongly communitarian and conformist in character. McCarthyism operated within that environment and its bogey was cast as a threat to the whole community, a communist takeover; this scare campaign had a powerful effect of reinforcing conformity.

On the other side, the major campaign of the Left was the Peace Movement, whose principle objects were the prospect of nuclear war, particularly a war launched by the US on the Soviet Union, and later on Cuba and Vietnam. Nothing I have learnt since causes me to doubt that the Left was fully justified in warning of the danger of nuclear war, but it is notable that we chose to mobilise support for our cause by raising the danger of annihilation. The Communists within the Peace Movement operated under deep cover, often indistinguishable from church groups. Despite the intensity with which the two great blocs fought one another, internal conflict was discouraged on both sides, each holding up the leading figures and icons of the other side as threats to the entire community.

Neither anti-communism nor the threat of nuclear war have much purchase today, though I doubt that the danger of communist take-over is any less today than it was in 1951, nor the real danger of nuclear holocaust any less.
Once the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement got going, these bogeys receded; the period of conformism passed over to an increasing celebration of diversity, but also increased intensity of interpersonal conflict. This was a very optimistic period, and one dedicated to the unmasking of age-old fears, changing the practices of everyday life at an unprecedented rate. Neither side needed bogeys when the enemy confronted them every day.

The Environmental Movement which began after the post-war boom had ended warned of a range of global catastrophes, while the ultra-left socialist groups of the period warned of the economic collapse of capitalism. Two of the writers whose work I have drawn on here — Ulrich Beck and Mary Douglas — wrote from the standpoint of this period, each taking opposite subject positions: Beck seeking to rationalise the new prominence of the prospect of global disaster as a new stage in the development of capitalism, the other assisting industry in responding to the success of the environmental movement in shutting down the nuclear power industry in the U.S..

According to Douglas, the prospect of catastrophe is the characteristic threat treasured by voluntary organisations. The image of the factory as polluter expresses, in her view, the ethic of those who are disgusted by industrialisation. One does not have to go any of the way with Douglas in her conclusions to accept the basic premise that the long list of environmental catastrophes raised by the Green movement (in my view fully justified whether exaggerated or not) express an ethos which finds industrial capitalism disgusting. For the socialist sects and the environmental movement, transformation of the world was the condition for personal liberation.

Defending the environment not only held voluntary movements together, but facilitated participation in a movement far greater than anyone’s mailing list. The great recruiting power of the Green movement, is that allows people to connect the danger to the natural environment with hum-drum practices like recycling, selective eating, cycling, etc., etc. Nature is the “Big Other” which shows us how we must live in order to protect her.

“Reflexive society” and “Risk Society”

Ulrich Beck and Mary Douglas initiated the modern literature on risk.

Beck highlighted the threat of catastrophe posed by human activity, the impact of private activity on the public, scepticism in relation to science. What Anthony Giddens calls “manufactured risk” and the consciousness of incalculable riskiness in every avenue of human activity, marks a new stage in the development of capitalism, “reflexive society” or “risk society.”

Douglas said that the prominence of social movements created an ethical conflict over the management of risk. In a way, these two writers expressed the two sides in a conflict which has now been surpassed. The risks identified by the social movements have largely been institutionalised, despite being still far from resolved.

Despite Douglas’s subject position in that debate, in support of the polluters, her observations about the ethical and moral content of disputes over risks stand today as an important contribution.

Fear and Pessimism

The stagflation of the early 1970s, the US defeat in Vietnam and Watergate marked the end of this period of optimism. Optimism (according to Eric Uslaner) is the underlining prerequisite for trust and the disposition towards sociability. On this analysis, this period marked the transition to a different ethic marked by a turn away from collective notions of security. The deeply pessimistic ethos of the current times is the major barrier to rolling back the culture of fear.

We live in a society where children are chauffeurred to and from school where they may be monitored on CCTV, where every can of food carries warning labels and every evening current affairs program gives consumers new dangers to avoid. While the medical, paedophilia and crime scares of recent times are not new inventions, (even the practice of inventing new diseases for the purpose of marketing pharmaceutical products has a history) these are bogeys of a different kind.

We live in a society in which social ties have been reduced to the minimum, the average household size is about 2.5 persons, and almost all personal and collective relationships have been replaced by relations of purchase and sale. We are an atomised and fragmented society and the threats we fear are threats to the individual and close-family. What is more, the dangers we fear further weaken social ties, as we prefer to buy something to protect us rather than live with risk or lead healthier lives, stay indoors rather than venture out, even working from home to avoid workplace stress, commute from outer suburbs in one-person vehicles rather than live where we work. All our responses to the fears, magnified by our isolation and loneliness actually increase our isolation and fragmentation. They reinforce and justify the ethos of which they are a part.

Generalised Anxiety

While Giddens and Beck make no claim that the world is more dangerous today, a claim which would be unsustainable, there is widespread agreement that we live in a period of heightened “generalised anxiety.”

The outstanding question in relation to Beck’s work is whether the changes he points to are the cause of “generalised anxiety.” Does the changed structure of risk identified by Beck make the citizens of the “reflexive society” more prone to uncertainty about everything; does growing up under the threat of nuclear war and global warming make us inclined to see danger at every turn?

Frederic Jameson is credited with observing that “it has now become easier to imagine the end of the earth and of nature than the end of capitalism,” and this rings true. However, it seems to me that this more to do with past disappointments and the triumph of individualism than the fear of future catastrophes. I know of no evidence for insecurity to become generalised in the mind as a result of uncertainty about the planet.

You are suffering from a variety of troubling symptoms of unknown cause; you visit the doctor and he gives you a name for the condition; even before medicine is prescribed you are feeling relieved, and the placebo the doctor gives may effect a cure. For the person suffering from anxiety, the naming of a fear is a relief.

We do live in a period of generalised anxiety. That generation of decision-makers in the West, professional people born after the end of the War, have never known real fear, as a generation. The older generation experienced fascism, depression and war; there were the mass migrations, especially after the war, but today’s 40-50 year olds have never faced such substantial threats.

However, young people growing up today face a different kind of uncertainty: they have to “write their own biography.” Uncertainty prevails not only over job security but what kind of a job is possible, not only over whether one’s family will survive intact, but what is a family. It is at this level of everyday life that we find the basis for “ontological anxiety.”

The period of “micro-economic reform” and globalisation which followed the Reagan-Thatcher years has seen the integration of risk into the market. Life is no more “dangerous” than in the past, but the fragmentation of personal relationships and privatisation of risk has indeed generated cause for anxiety.

It is this ubiquitous commodification, under the neo-liberal agenda which grew out of the period of “micro-economic reform” which is driving the growth of generalised anxiety, and is in turn reinforced by this same generalised anxiety.

Geoffrey Pearson, in his history of law-and-order scares, claims that it has been the periods in which the process of democratisation has taken big steps forward that anxiety has infected the “respectable people.”

Uncertainty about personal relationships, ethical and moral norms, the continuity of family and employment has increased, alongside scepticism towards science and all forms of authority.

The problem with Beck’s concept of “risk society” as the underlying basis for this anxiety is two-fold: firstly, it fails to identify the kinds of threat dominate the consciousness of people today; and secondly, if Beck is right, then things can only get worse, as society becomes more and more “reflexive.” However, if we accept that it is the lack of an ethical alternative to the destruction by the market of traditional relations and social responsibility, then it is possible to see that the society of generalised anxiety can be overcome.

John Howard, scaremonger extraordinaire

Despite the lack of any national vision, John Howard has just won his fourth Australian federal election, an achievement mainly due to his being a master electoral tactician. The phrase “wedge politics” was invented especially for him, he plays the “dog whistle” like an maestro, and he is scaremonger extraordinaire.

Children overboard

In the wake of 9/11 and his refusal of entry to refugees rescued by the Tampa, John Howard was well-placed to wipe out the ALP lead in the polls. On the 6th of October 2001, 223 refugees aboard a leaky boat entered Australian waters. The Australian Navy fired cannon and machine guns across its bows and began to tow it back towards Indonesia. On 8th October, the boat sank, and Howrd dissolved Parliament for an election to be held on 10 November, claiming at the same time that refugees had thrown their own children overboard in order to force the Australian Navy to pick them up, and people who threw their children overboard in order to gain entry to Australia were not welcome in this country. This was eventually proven to be a simple lie. The photograph purporting to show a child abandoned in the water was a fake and blurry video purporting to show them being thrown overboard showed nothing of the kind.

That is the story.

From the day it was released, the ALP had lost the election; their only choice was to retreat or take the moral high ground; they chose the former and lost the election, disgraced before their own supporters.

Who would believe that a mother would throw their own children into the sea as a gambit to get rescued? Well, it turned out that either many people were disposed to believe it, or even if they did not really believe it, they were prepared to tell themselves that it was true, because it justified a policy of abandoning refugees from Afghanistan (which we were bombing at the time) and Iraq (which we were blockading at the time), and even letting them drown, which was the fate of the next group that tried.

These moves sent a message to people that Howard understood people’s fears about their economic future and their safety and was prepared to dump dirty foreigners in the sea and then lie about it to protect them. Nothing the Labor Party could say could do anything but reinforce people in the belief that it was Howard who really put their interests first. Howard would even lie for them. The image of Asiatics arriving on Australian shores by boat and swamping us is a very old one; the big black arrow on the map coming “down” from China was used by Menzies in the 1960s for example. It is a primordial, white-settler fear, combining the guilt about ourselves arriving by boat and stealing the land from the Australian Aborigines with the fear that there are more of those Asians than us.

Howard only had to press the button, and the picture of a child in a life-jacket and the blurry video was enough to set off the shame/anger trap.

Dog whistles

A dog whistle sounds above the range of human hearing, but dogs can hear it. The term refers to the ability to avoid non-PC language, while sending a very non-PC signal to the bigoted listener. Howard is very good at it. The dog whistle is very much to do with the use of moral and ethical sentiments which connect up with beliefs which cannot be sustained by rational argument. Every time a conservative politician talks about “the family,” everyone knows they are talking about promiscuous sex and homosexuality.

Interest rates

The central tactic of Howard in the 2004 election was to claim that if Labor were elected, then interest rates would go up. This was refuted the very next day, not only by every economic commentator, even the conservative ones, but even the Governor of the Reserve Bank went on record refuting it, and interestingly many of Howard’s constituency, such as retirees, actually benefit from high interest rates. This allegation was backed up by TV ads about Latham’s time as Mayor of Liverpool, implementing City Beautiful town planning and micro-economic reform in accordance with the fashions of the time. This job was contrasted with managing “Australia’s $8b economy.”

Nothing the ALP could do seemed to shake this criticism, enough “swinging voters” hung on to the idea that Labor could not manage the economy to keep the nails firmly in the ALP coffin. This prejudice, that the Labour Party cannot run an economy, allied with the idea that the national economy is “just like a business” rests on longstanding conceptions of the Labor Party as the party of the trade unions (something Latham plans to change) and therefore of base level employees. Conventional wisdom holds that workers should work and managers should manage the business. The image of the bumbling Labor Councillor compared with the suave CEO, connected up with personal experience and convinced many that the workers should not be running the national business. Interest rates are of course going to go up — the fear is justified, and household debt is at an all-time high. It was only necessary to connect up this justified fear with deep social prejudices to lay it on the Labor Party.

Conclusion

The key point to be grasped about scare campaigns is that they are either self-serving, or an expression of moral outrage or a shame/anger trap. They cannot be taken at face value.

Nothing that we have said above about the social construction of threats, and the ethical basis for the perception of threats, takes away from the fact that a threat may be objectively real or not, with a potentially greater or lesser impact on people’s lives. Most of the threats we have discussed above are real. But, to use Barry Glassner’s phrase, on the whole, people are afraid of the wrong things; the politics of fear is reinforcing the existing power structure and aggravating the feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness which are the major blockage to progressive politics today. The politics of fear is itself building up the greatest threats to the majority of people’s lives. It is a danger that the Left must mobilise against.

If social movements need an external threat, it is equally true that external threats call for a social movement. How else can people be alerted to new, real dangers? The point is whether or not people pay attention to a threat and change their activity accordingly, and where they place blame. Unless there is some social predisposition to believe in a threat it is unlikely to generate a response. What disgusts and frightens us depends, and depends above all, on our moral and ethical beliefs. These ethical beliefs are not as subject to change as opinions about matters of fact or theory, but they are subject to change. The moral prejudices underlying vulnerability to scare campaigns are challenged when we set abut debunking scare campaigns, even though they are the last the change.

Scare campaigns can be debunked, even if, as Anthony Giddens has said, there is never any way, in advance, of avoiding the charge of scaremongering or cover-up — other than, we must add, building a society in which people are genuinely architects of their own destiny. Each scare campaign can be met one-at-a-time with rational and objective critique and vigorous counter-measures; but the underlying conditions of anxiety and vulnerability require an ethical response.

The Left has to develop a rival ethics to that of the market, a guide as to how people should lead their lives, a way of understanding the meaning in their lives and what deserves to be feared and what does not. Crucial to this is the building of social solidarity.

To the extent that people see themselves, together with others, as architects of their own destiny, risk comes in the same package as gain and is not a matter of injustice. This means that the Left has to develop and popularise an emancipatory ethical practice by means of which people can define themselves, irrespective of the punishments and rewards offered by the market, and distinguish real from imagined enemies.



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