An American writer hurt national sensitivities barely a week after 9/11 when her country was still reeling from the tragedy. In an article in The New Yorker (the magazine hit the stands Sept 17, 2001), Susan Sontag began:

"The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilise the public."

What sent America into an uproar was her following paragraph:

Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word 'cowardly' is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."

Sontag's concluding paragraph to her 9/11 reflection could just as well be applied to the Namewee situation. She wrote: "Politics, the politics of a democracy which entails disagreement, which promotes candour has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen."

As you can imagine, Sontag touched a lot of raw nerves. But was she truthful? Malaysians will tend to endorse her observations on Uncle Sam. Will we also share her plea "not to be stupid together" and to embrace the politics of democracy premised on "disagreement" and "candour"?

It took a lot to go against the grain where she did and especially when she did, and she was way ahead of the curve. Such lone voices mean so much more because they rise above the hubbub.

While everyone knows JK Rowling, how many in Malaysia have heard of Susan Sontag? She had swum against the tide of Western public opinion when she very early called for military intervention in Bosnia to defend its Muslims against Serb aggression. She lived months in Sarajevo during the siege as a protest.

Innocuous writing like 'Harry Potter' is embraced because it is inoffensive and pleases all. Over the next week leading up to National Day, you will be subjected to an earful of ear candy ('yang sedap telinga'), from the BN candy shop. Innocuous reporting on the sweet stuff and inoffensive political advertorials are swallowed because Malaysians prefer what pleases them blind patriotism. Not what challenges critical, responsible citizenship.

If we were a country willing to open our ears to voices like Sontag, we would be a country able to grant Namewee the privilege of offending.

The origin of 'Z Sunday'

Sontag's writing was introduced to me years before Sept 11 by Dr Wong Soak Koon, whose own social commentary has appeared in the Aliran Monthly. Time magazine describes Sontag as having come "to symbolise the writer and thinker in many variations; as analyst, rhapsodist and roving eye, as public scold and portable conscience".

In an essay 'Approaching Artaud' (1973), Sontag remarks that 'One of the author's most ancient roles is to call the community to account for its hypocrisies and bad faith '

Of the many sins of the Barisan Nasional, it the BN's rank hypocrisy and mala fide that rankle me most. As you can guess, Sontag's description of the writer's task resonated.

This column 'Z Sunday' is named after Susan Sontag. Sunday in German is Sonntag. Z is short for Suzie, which is the diminutive of Susan.

The 'Sunday' in my otherwise (if I hadn't explained) inexplicable column name has nothing to do with the Christian Sabbath. I've had to clarify before that I'm not Christian because Malaysians are so conditioned to approach issues from the race and religion perspective.

Malay newspapers reflect this race-religion skew to a frightening degree. Wee Meng Chee complained that the Malay media instigated the hostility against him. Indeed Malay newspapers arrogate themselves auxiliary moral police when they cover Azhar Mansor, M Revathi (Siti Fatimah to them) and others inimical to their mental straitjacket.

Wee also complained of harassment by the Malay reporter who interviewed him. He said he was berated by the reporter for explaining he had no religion, which to the reporter clearly explained why Wee was of the sort of character that could (allegedly) insult Islam.

Free minds that roam

The Malay mind in Malaysia, due to its strict conditioning by received ideas, finds it inconceivable that anyone should fail to believe. Frankly, it's not the reporter's job to sit in moral judgment. As a Chinese, Wee committed no crime in not belonging to any faith unlike his Malay fellow citizen who could be packed off to prison.

The prevalent prejudice against freethinking is grossly unfair. Being irreligious hardly connotes immorality as is supposed by Malays and other Malaysians of faith.

There are many moral, famous figures who confess to be not religious men at all. Among atheists and agnostics are Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill, George Santayana, Albert Camus, Immanuel Kant, Spinoza, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Carl Sagan, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alexis de Tocqueville, Maxim Gorky and it is popularly said Charles Darwin.
I will note that those who had quarrelled with the Church were considered atheist in their day although some were spiritual (deist).

Similar to Malays in Malaysia, the early Western philosophers were constrained from directly avowing their unbelief, and the Western world had its own practice of 'takfir' ('kafir-mengkafir') as well, e.g. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson were accused as infidels by contemporaneous Christians.

Karl Marx is the atheist who tried to change the world. Abraham Lincoln has been read as having issues with how Christianity was practised; American Southerners though devout Christians saw nothing wrong with the slave trade.

The common thread running through the list of illustrious names above is that they explored, developed and pushed ideas contrary to the spirit of their times. They fought to expand the boundaries of thought. They offended a whole lot of people.

Rousseau questioned the assumption that majority will is always correct. Mill is of the belief that controversial opinions had to enjoy the same opportunity for communication as those of the consensus. "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is an aphorism attributed to Voltaire.

Pawn of the politicians

Here in Malaysia one party has the right to say whatever it wants; those it viciously bullies are threatened with death for speaking up. This party fanned the Namewee fire.

Umno is like the Russian doll; the parent party begot Wanita Umno, begot Pemuda Umno, begot Puteri Umno, begot Putera Umno I won't be surprised when one day it branches out to tweens and tots. And all these spreading wings are free to flap as much and as noisily as they like.

Respect begets respect. Respect compelled at the point of a keris is worthless.

On a scale of one to 10, how offensively does Wee's unflattering comments on Islamic practices rate? At what number six? seven-and-a-half? does it merit the threats to kill his family and burn down his home? Why is public criticism being heaped on the 24-year-old and not on the homicidal threats against him?!

Did the crowd that went ballistic (before Wee's rap was translated) even understand a bit of Mandarin and Hokkien?

Reactions like the split verdict on Lina Joy is again polarised along race and religion lines. Wee's regrettable hurting of Muslim feelings allowed Umno to creep within sniper range.

Others with more experience of the world (translate: caution of Umno's perfidy) than Wee have carefully adopted the middle path. Why is the sky blue? According to one way, the sky is blue because "it is the colour God wants it be". The second way says the sky is blue because of an optical phenomenon, the wavelength dependence of Rayleigh scattering.

There is a third way that promotes peaceful co-existence. This wise accommodation was suggested by 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, Eric Cornell: "The religious explanation has been supplemented but not supplanted by advances in scientific knowledge. We now may, if we care to, think of Rayleigh scattering as the method God has chosen to implement his colour scheme."

Pledge allegiance to Truth

In Islamic states, the will of the majority imposes 'the first way' (I'm using this phrase analogously). Here it is by means of coercion and intimidation. Umno's war cry is to "spank monkeys" trooping along the second way.

Hishammuddin Hussein predictably keris-rattled: "Umno Youth warns that freedom has its limits and we will not tolerate those who touch on the issue of national stability, harmony, cultural values and the personality of national leaders."

Umno exploits and manipulates religion to impose intolerance and to shelter 'the personality of its national leaders'. It exploits and manipulates religion to create a host of 'No Go' areas so that its national leaders can seek a last refuge under the umbrella.

It is the sort of intolerance that once demanded an apology from Dr Lim Teck Ghee for offending Malays with statistics.

The BN's 'taiko' subjected webmaster Raja Petra Kamarudin to more or less the same accusations insulting Islam and the Agong. In Wee's case, substitute national emblems for king.

To Umno's charges against him, Raja Petra rejoined "See you in Hell" and challenged his accuser to pistols at dawn, man-to-man. Wee's shotgun apology mediated by the MCA bore the unmistakable hallmark of the impotent Malaysian-Chinese party.

If there are many ways to skin a cat (or spank a monkey), the respective fight and flight responses of Raja Petra and MCA illustrates that some cats are big cats, in other words roaring lions, and some cats are house cats, in other words neutered tabbies.

Namewee has been turned into a cautionary tale for the Chinese on the unacceptable risks of offending the status quo. But it is unacceptable that there is no democratic space for second ways to find expression. Civil society has to see to it that the laws are not wielded as Umno's totalitarian tools.

Now is the time for Malaysians to remove the blinkers, the gag, the handcuffs and all the cords that bind us. Show some spine. Let's have just as much respect for Truth and Candour as we do flag and national anthem.