One 'right' doesn't erase 17 months of 'wrong'

I did mention somewhere before that I wasn't going to blog about politics, but the way things are in Bolehland, it's too hard to resist. So I take that back.

Here's a scenario for you to kickstart your imagination, especially if you are someone sitting on your high horse in the Government. Imagine a father with a bunch of rowdy young kids, say about 5 to 10 years old. One day the father tells his kids they're going to stay home and eat, but then all the kids band together and rebel against their father, saying they want to go and eat overpriced McDonald's instead. The kids continue making a ruckus and refuses to listen to their father, so to punish them the father throws them all into the basement. And doesn't let them out. The kids' friends beg the father to let his children out, but he doesn't budge. The neighbours and everyone who hears about it protests against the father act of locking away his children, but he still doesn't do anything. The kids are stuck in that basement until, let's say 17 months later. Then the father decides to finally let them out to freedom and see all their friends again. And then the father smugly declares, "See! I've let them out! That's shows that I'm not cruel!".

Here, you have a case where a group of people fighting for a cause (in this case, a bunch of kids fighting to eat overpriced junk) are kept locked away for standing up for their different opinion, albeit in a loud, noisy and annoying manner, but in no way being a real threat to anyone. Anyone with half a brain would know that in the case above, the father should be charged with wrongful imprisonment and abuse... even if he had released them later. At the most, that would lighten his sentence (Any lawyers out there, please let me if I'm wrong!).

So today as I was having my dinner while reading the weekend's Star newspaper and saw on the page 14, the headlines "PM: Release of ISA detainees shows Govt isn't cruel", I had a hard tough keeping my half chewed mouthful of food from spewing back onto my plate.

After some waffle about how the new PM has signed some papers to release the detainees, he is quoted as saying "I think this goes to show that it's not true that the Government is carrying out a cruel and repressive policy as claimed by the Opposition, and that we have tried to stifle individual freedom." Another article on the same page also quotes the equally infamous Samy Vellu as saying the Government showed concern and humility in releasing them.

In another comment, the PM also says "Please. what do you want? Even if we release them, we are (seen) to be wrong."

Err, yeah, because locking them up in the first place was wrong. Keeping them locked up for 17 months and causing the families of the detainees suffering was more wrong. So just coz' you decided to do ONE 'right' doesn't erase the the 17 months of wrong wrong wrong. It's like wiping the butt of a dog who pooped all over the house doesn't change the fact that it had pooped all over the house.

Mr. PM, this is your mess to clean, so if you wanna 'try' and clean it, please do so without spouting fuffly nonsense in the hopes that Malaysians will be incompetent enough to believe you.

One 'right' doesn't erase 17 months of 'wrong'