There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
– Shakespeare’s Hamlet
CUP (Cruel Unusual Punishment) is a psychological necessity, reliable companion, and faithful ally to those running, undermining, and ruining affairs of state. Primarily caused by stinking thinking, it permeates through every nook and cranny of government often requiring the Chatham House Rule. Contagious to the core.
In America, executions by hanging and the (electric) chair were replaced by lethal injection, which before being administered, requires an antiseptic swab cleaning of the area where the needle is to be inserted into the arm of the recipient of a non-CUP punishment to prevent infection that may be fatal!
CUP represents the substitute for intellectual domination which in Malaysia is a destructive, done and a dusted deal no thanks to our ignorant and arrogant persuasions in education, controlled and operated by well-connected incompetents showcasing questionable credentials.
Cruel unusual punishment occurs whenever elected government deliberately disobeys the supreme law of the land. It instead favours extreme policies. The public gaze in shock, awe, confusion, and rage, simultaneously, depending on vocal emissions of semi-qualified and/or semi-conscious leaders.
Parliament listened recently to one of its members make outrageous claims that certain politicians were blood relations of the former Malayan guerrilla leader Chin Peng, the proxy of triple agent Lai Teck. Release of weapons of mass distractions is the lot of Parliament.
The accuser stood by her bizarre claims like she was giving voice and force to an unknown government edict. Nobody reminded this public servant of the savant Khalil Gibran’s advice in The Prophet: “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
Are the actual blood relations of the anti-colonialist from Sitiawan, Perak, similarly hounded?
CUP is calculated to scale the walls of decency, morality and dignity as the inevitable monopoly of government. Law and justice become collateral damage. Forcing one specific religious belief upon a heterogenous society enjoying freedom of religion is an unstoppable and uncontrollable constitutional outrage.
CUP bedevils the smashing of beer bottles in public as a symbol of non-religious tolerance; brandishing toy guns as a mark of support for a foreign war; questioning Christmas carols; the banning of concerts and books; the shutting down of comedy clubs; and the control of the freedom of expression. Democracy blinked.
CUP conceives, writes, produces and directs political conspiracies with a willing host of third-rate actors. Three governments came and went between February 2020 and 2022. GE-15 parachuted in a coalition government. The Covid pandemic aided and abetted the conspiracy.
PAS won 49 parliamentary seats in GE-15 as the top seat winner despite the odds predicted by self-proclaimed political soothsayers, naysayers, and pundits of uncertainty. Optics show the mentoring of PAS as a dedicated purveyor of CUP.
PAS vexes the Madani government, but is the only party that publicly, vociferously and vehemently claims freedom of religion as a constitutional right. The rakyat miss this crucial point. Look at the absence of billboards erected by Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Taoists, etc.
Harold Laski, on parliamentary democracy: “Men who are to live together peacefully must be able to argue together peacefully,” in an obvious reference to the role of the Opposition. The minority has its say while the majority has its way. An awakened leader will create an oasis of peace, partnership, and prosperity instead of wallowing in an ocean of uncertainty in a leaking vessel.
CUP is a veritable toastmaster in Parliament where errant lawmakers and/or law-breakers jostle, hustle and vie for vocal prominence. More sergeants-at-arms are required in Parliament to escort the bad hats out. Uncontrollable parliamentary privileges transform as CUP unloaded upon the tax-payers.
Taxation is another avatar of CUP. US Senator Arlen Specter: “A flat tax would be an enormous step forward.” The science of taxation is a medieval art of torture that defies the age of artificial intelligence. Sinister motives determine, decide and control the printing of currency and the necessity for taxation.
The absence of the legitimate expectation of honest services by government, and its promises, assurances and guarantees for equality, and equity, exemplifies cruel unusual punishment upon taxpayers increasing cortisol and adrenaline secretions that encourage private for-profit hospitals.
CUP goes amok and plays havoc with laws, facts, reason, purpose, truth, justice, morality, decency and dignity in a massive bowl of rojak jurisprudence. Common law traditions are cast in political concrete faithfully producing jejune jurisprudence. The rule of law has morphed into the law of rules.
CUP found expression in the English Bill of Rights 1689, and it blossomed into the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution 1791. We must offer it refuge in the Malaysian Federal Constitution for veiled government-sponsored CUP to be outlawed as a mortal national sin.
Cruel unusual punishment basks in the glory of weak if not non-enforcement of the mandates of the Federal Constitution. Politicians use the supreme law of the land to press home a point but hardly use it as a hammer to drive home the nails of necessity.
No more stinking thinking. To be, or not to be, should no longer vex the public. The arrows and slingshots of outrageous fortune must benefit all Malaysians. That must be the primary aim, principal objective, and ultimate goal of Madani – acronym – Moderation attainable despite arrogant national institutions.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
