COMMENT I want to add my opinion to those few speaking up against the use of the Sedition Act and the illegal assembly provisions of the Police Act against the Shah Alam cow-head protesters.

It is important to do this because the issue of punishing the uncivil acts of the protesters - threatening violence plus displaying and attacking a severed cow's head in protest against the relocation of a Hindu temple - has brought up the ambivalence some Malaysians feel about the repressive laws favoured by the Barisan Nasional government.

It also raises the question of whether punishment alone is sufficient to achieve justice and progressive transformation in Malaysia.

NONE The desire to see justice meted out upon the protesters may sway some offended Malaysians into endorsing the decision of the Attorney-General to prosecute them for sedition and illegal assembly.

But these same Malaysians may oppose the use of such laws against Hindraf, Bersih, the anti-ISA movement, and the 1BlackMalaysia movement.

Human rights supporters in Malaysia have generally opposed the Sedition Act and illegal assembly provisions because they impinge on what we consider to be fundamental liberties to be enjoyed by all. These are freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

To be consistent with our principles, we are obliged to oppose the use of these acts/provisions on anybody, no matter what views they espouse.

Going over the limit

To avoid lending legitimacy to the BN's abuse of these laws and their acceptability within Malaysian society, we are also obliged to oppose them.

But, the cow-head protesters went where democracy or anti-ISA protesters would never go.

They threatened violence and enacted violence by proxy upon a symbol of Hinduism.

They sought to stoke up ethno-religious antagonism and, more likely than not, contribute to the political destabilisation of Selangor.

I can defend their freedom to assemble, but I cannot defend their actions after doing so. I strongly condemn them.

Legal sanctions exist in the Penal Code and elsewhere for prosecuting them without further legitimising the repressive laws the BN uses to quash dissent in our country.

Although the wording in Section 298 and 298A of the Penal Code is open to abuse, they are not as sweeping as the Sedition Act nor as indiscriminate as the illegal assembly provisions in the Police Act.

BN weakens democracy

But are legal punishments sufficient to resolve this problem?
Malaysians are fond of resorting to the law in order to resolve social contention.

The BN government is fond of using the law to quash dissent or weaken democracy.

But society and social change are not shaped by law alone. There was also a drastic failure of political leadership following the cow-head protest.

hishammuddin hussein home ministry 140409 hishammuddin deputies Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (left centre) was grossly negligent in not condemning the protesters in the strongest possible terms.

Whatever dismay that may have been voiced by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak or Umno Youth Head Khairy Jamaluddin was rendered impotent by Hishammuddin's exclusive meeting with the protesters followed by his mealy-mouthed defence of them.

This failure of political leadership underlined for many the suspicion of complicity between the agenda of the cow-head protesters and Umno to seize back control of Selangor.

And this points to a deeper fault in Malaysia. The cow-head protest was unfortunately hardly an aberration.

Sinister cultivation of hegemony

It is a direct product of a political project that has spent decades cultivating ethnicity and religion as markers of antagonistic difference among Malaysians in order to boost the hegemony of ethnic-based parties.

The social fractures this political project has wreaked cannot be undone by laws alone, and certainly not with laws under a compromised judiciary.

A less punitive path, one that relies upon civil and non-violent methods, will be difficult to pursue, but pursue it we must if we are to avoid further problems.

There is a role here for ordinary Malaysians to engage with each other civilly rather than through the terms set by political warlords. Dialogue and transformation through dialogue - when the conditions are right - and leadership by example may be good tools to complement a project to entrench respect for the democratic process of orderly and peaceful changes in government, won through free and fair elections.

Many of the political problems we have faced in the last year have been due to Umno-BN's stubborn refusal to respect the legitimate result of democratic process.

An effort in regard to civilised action was made the other Friday when a multi-cultural civil society delegation visited the kuil in Section 19 in a demonstration of solidarity.

It was an attempt to show that this issue could not be reduced to or misperceived as one of inter-ethnic or inter-religious antagonism.

Hishammuddin Hussein is infamous for earlier misappropriating the keris as a symbol of violent ethnic dominance.

He has followed this by misappropriating Gandhi after meeting the cow-head protesters. An eye for an eye makes everybody blind, he cautioned.

Let's reclaim Gandhi from his clutches. Punitive laws have been the forté of our repressive government. We should not use unjust laws to punish uncivil acts.

One challenge for Malaysians that arises from the cow-head case is whether we can be women and men who love justice more than vengeance and be able to distinguish between the two.

YIN SHAO LOONG is a political scientist and a board member of Amnesty International Malaysia.