Friday, October 3, 2008
TRULY, YBs, THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT
Open letter to the politicians who have pledged to cross over to Pakatan Rakyat
Farida Jivamalar Ibrahim | October 2, 2008
Dear Yang Berkhidmats,
I know you have your own reasons for holding back but I ask you to search your hearts and your conscience.
Ask yourselves whether there is justice in this land.
Ask yourselves whether BN is a people’s government or a government that oppresses its own people.
Ask yourselves where BN will take this country to in the next one year, the next six months.
The way it is going – allowing the Ahmad Ismails, the Molotov-cocktail culprit and other law-breaking individuals to go free but incarcerating RPK, Hindraf and others who speak up for a better Malaysia – it is clear we have little hope for better change.
Ask yourselves how you can get this regime to repent and make good and go beyond paying lip-service to the tenet of ‘Maaf Zahir dan Batin’.
Ask yourselves, if it was your father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife, offspring, relative or friend, would you not be outraged that the fairness of a trial is denied them?
If you are honest with yourselves, you would have to say without a shadow of a doubt that BN has already brought Malaysia to the edge of a precipice and it will take very, very little to push this country over and into the abyss of final destruction below.
YBs, never again may we have the chance to escape the dictatorship of the unjust.
Never again may we be able to wrest this country away from the stranglehold of the corrupt, the bigoted, the self-serving, the wicked and the ones whose hearts have turned to stone.
Never again may we be able to protect ourselves from those who seek revenge but not righteousness, who take so much for themselves but serve little.
None of us has any right to let this situation continue. We have a responsibility to our children and children’s children to hand over to them a nation whose government will not divide and rule, will not pollute minds and destroy identities, and will not reduce people to helpless individuals who think they can do nothing without government help.
Buying into BN propaganda and believing the MSM lies have been detrimental. What Malays and all others need is an untainted education that teaches values, that teaches an abiding respect and acceptance of one another in a land that has so much to offer but whose future is being hijacked.
Truly, YBs, the ball is in your court.
None of us can get you to come out of the shadows. Not Anwar. Not Pakatan Rakyat. Not RPK. Not Marina. Not Hindraf . Not any of the bloggers. And not civil society. No, not even God for God doesn’t use force but gives all men free will.
It is not betrayal to cross over for your very own party has betrayed the cause for which you entered politics.
Your party has betrayed the trust and goodwill of the people of Malaysia. Billions that belong to the rakyat have gone astray. The rights of indigenous people have been whittled away. Corporations have siphoned off the land of the poor.
How did it come about that so much of Malaysia belongs to so few?
It has taken me a long while to come to this position of accepting crossovers because all along I have decried such moves as acts of convenience without consultation and the consent of constituents.
But I realise now that if the motive is right and noble, not for self but for society, a responsible constituency should stand by you and forgive that you acted first and asked for consent later.
YBs, I appeal to that finest part of you. Let your highest thoughts, your noblest efforts be to uphold justice and for the betterment of all Malaysians.
The abolishing of the ISA and the release of RPK and 63 other detainees - this has become the pivotal point at this moment in our history.
This nation will either go down because the detainees are in OR this nation will rise up because the detainees are out.
For us to have the one and not the other, we have to have you on our side now.
So YBs, please, step forward and show yourselves.
Cross over for the release of the detainees. Cross over so that sanity and sanctity will return again to Parliament, so that the Federal Constitution will regain its rightful position, and so that we shall live in peace again.
[Click HERE for complete & unabridged version of this impassioned plea.]