don’t let vengeance rule the day

as a follow up to my post yesterday, here’s an interesting letter from a ‘senior citizen’ in malaysiakini that speaks my thoughts. my comments are in italic.
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LETTERS: Don’t let vengeance rule the day
Senior Citizen 2:59pm Mon May 24th, 2004

Like many of your readers, I am aghast and horrified that an Indonesian maid
has been so badly abused. I am equally horrified that some of our fellow
citizens can also abuse and rape young children, some of them to the extent
that death has occurred.

But what is really alarming to me, and I’m sure to many in this country as
well as foreigners, is the desire for vengeance that is being openly aired,
by of all people, those in the government. The roadside hawker behaving like
that I can understand; but ministers?

indeed. as i respond to joe in my previous post in comments, the ministers and i are different. they are ministers in the government, i’m just a small fry public.

One minister said the photograph of the accused and her husband should be
splashed in the newspapers. Is she saying that the accused should be tried
by the media? Another said the accused should be given the same treatment!
Is she suggesting that the accused should be abused in prison?

good. good questions for me to add to my previous post.

The former de facto minister of law boldly said the accused is already
guilty – no need to prove it. The basic law axiom that you are innocent
until proved guilty does not hold here – he boldly declared to the world.

what horrors!

I hope he has not lost his intellect after leaving his portfolio. Perhaps
this is the ‘New Culture’ emanating from his new ministry that he is trying
to instill in Malaysia and Malaysians.

It is time to call a halt, before these calls for vengeance get out of hand.
Let us not deteriorate to the level of the American behaviour at the Abu
Ghraib prison.

that’s what i had been saying all the while too. (not here, not this topic, i mean other time, other place). if we shouted for blood on the woman, like burn her! beat her! or even ptui at her (as some readers of jeff’s blog did), tear her to pieces! etc, etc same kind of torture on her!, then we are no better than her. no doubt what she did was very wrong… and if we call for vengeance on her, aren’t we doing wrong too?

We are a cultured people and governed by the rule of law, no matter how
provoked we are. Everyone gets a fair deal irrespective of colour, creed or
religion. Our image has taken a beating because of the utterances of our
ministers.

indeed. just imagine such remarks coming from your ministers, the one you voted for.

It is time for our prime minister to step in and rein in his ministers
before everything becomes too messy.

will he? who knows he might join in these 2 ministers to make some silly remarks too. or maybe he won’t but will he step in to ‘teach’ his ministers? i don’t think so. remember when pak lah appointed his new cabinet, we all waited with bated breath for him to drop the fat lady but he didn’t. we also waited for pak lah to haul her up for corruption charges but he didn’t. so do you think he will chide her (and yatim) for this matter?