LETTER | The slippery slope of state power

LETTER | On Saturday, Feb 24, one of my colleagues from GegarAmerika, Harmit Singh, was detained in the back of a police vehicle before our protest.

He was violently pushed to the ground and handcuffed for walking to join other members of our committee in front of the US Embassy before the protest.

Palestine has long been the “safest issue” to protest in Malaysia. We claim to be a nation that stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people; one of the few nations in the world that has consistently refused to acknowledge the Zionist entity of Israel; the vast majority of Malaysians stand on the right side of history on this issue.

Yet, we cannot even approach the embassy of the country that is behind the atrocities in Palestine. We are told that the embassy is “upset” when our placards directly target them. We have to grovel for permission to give them a memorandum calling out their crimes.

Why? Why is a peaceful protest, armed only with banners, placards, and flags, not allowed to stand on a public road in front of the embassy of a genocide-funding nation? Why is a symbol of Western imperialism protected by our authorities more than our right to protest, than our right to assembly, our right to freedom of speech and expression?

When we are unable to protest a safe issue, how will we ever be able to protest others?

This is a critical moment in the history of our nation, when the powers that be hold our voices in their hands, and are squeezing them silent.

Of late, there has been a rapid descent into the fringes of fascism, a censoring of our collective voice, a crackdown on our speech.

The colonialists practiced a divide-and-conquer strategy when they ruled here, a strategy we are still reeling from, a strategy we did not heal from, but entrenched further.

The colonialists left our lands but they did not leave our minds. They were merely replaced by another.

We are still a colonised people, whose freedoms are tossed to us in bite-sized pieces, morsels we are expected to be grateful for, while more and more of our rights, our riches, and our home is eroded.

Did we ever truly gain independence? Have we ever been free?

We are still shackled. But by new masters now.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.