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DEWAN DISPATCHES: The Tiger bites the bullet

by: Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT, May 21, 2008

Wherever he goes, whatever he says and whoever he defends, or condemns, the world – state assembly, parliament, court of law, street demonstration – is his stage for political and human rights’ activism, a high moral ground of tough outrage covered in a sheen of rough and tumble experience. Actually, it’s a basic disposition for any outspoken and controversial Opposition politician in the Malaysian realm. There are several like him out there but for today’s outing, he’ll do.

Now at 68 and for almost 40 years, Karpal Singh, still perhaps the feared Tiger of Jelutong, now simply the Tiger of his domain, has been there many times, done it all repeatedly – suspensions for dissenting against a higher authority (judges, House Speakers, Prime Ministers), detention (the ISA in 1987’s Operasi Lalang), deflecting angry flak from all sides (his latest anti-monarchy salvo hyperventilated and supercharged his enemies into lodging two dozen police reports). So it’s safe to regard that adversity is Karpal’s forte, fighting adversity his reason for being.

Except for that live 9mm bullet that was hand-delivered to his law firm in Pudu Lama at 12.30pm on Tuesday but obviously meant for him. The accompanying threatening note was just as hateful and evil – Don't try to question the special rights of the Malay people. Don't try to question the Malay rulers' powers. If you don't stop, this bullet will be lodged in your forehead. Remember, Bengali, don't forget. This is your first warning.

That was worrisome. And the Tiger admitted that he feared for his life though it wasn’t the first time he received a live bullet as a stark, reactionary retaliation to his disputatious political stance. In 1981, he received a bullet meant for an M-16, delivered to his house in Penang.

With Karpal, life imitates art but in living up to his reputation as the most fearsome defender of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the victimised and anyone with a foreseeable date with the hangman, Karpal – while literally being threatened with grievous harm after that bullet incident – will now, figuratively, bite the bullet. He is already living in pain after that dreadful traffic accident in 2005 which confined him to a wheelchair and left a permanent ache on his right arm. He now bites the bullet in many ways than one, enduring pain with a formidable fortitude.

We have read about it many times before, the philosophy to that timeless phrase: to accept the consequences of a hard choice was a recurring definition and in Karpal’s case, the ability to hold manifold sets of political and legal beliefs with good grounds and sound reasoning, even if you disagree with him. In a more literal meaning, Karpal is like a soldier clenching a bullet in his teeth while enduring the pure, unspeakable pain of surgery on his wounds without the bliss of anaesthesia. How many period movies have we viewed where the protagonist burns a knife red-hot and stabs it into a wound, pain, howl and all?

So it was gratifying to witness today the bipartisan Parliamentary Human Rights Caucus get together to condemn Karpal’s bullet death threat. Caucus chairman Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz (BN-Padang Renggas) summed it well: “The act is despicable and not the Malaysian way of settling any dispute. If there is any unhappiness against Karpal, we have proper channels in the system to deal with it. No amount of words can justify the death threat.”

Opposition leader Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (PKR-Permatang Pauh), DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng (DAP-Bagan) and Karpal's son, Gobind Singh Deo (DAP-Puchong) echoed Nazri’s disgust. The DAP may be a lot of things but violence is not one of them, as Lim would philosophise. "We believe in the ballot, not the bullet," was Lim’s succinct sound byte, urging police to provide sufficient security for Karpal and nab the bullet giver.

Police have already recorded statements from Karpal and his staff but according to Gobind, no security detail has been set up as yet. “We have not asked for any. My father is always with someone at all times," he said.

"We want the police to investigate and take action,” Umno Youth chief Datuk Hishamuddin Hussein. “Although there were racial sentiments in Karpal's remarks, we do not condone death threats. Of course, Umno Youth are with the Malay Rulers, but we do not support anyone who sends bullets."

But credit Karpal for steely resilience, not just from death threats, which may be just that: a threat, but also from other equally disdainful threat – fellow MPs’ tactless and tasteless castigation of his physical condition. When the Tiger took his oath from a special seat at the corner of the first Opposition bloc, he was immediately attacked from the other side by a swooping, hawk-like Datuk Ibrahim Ali, who deadpanned that Karpal failed to seek permission from the speaker to take his oath sitting down. Karpal’s colleagues may have howled in unison protest but the man himself merely looked to Ibrahim like the irritant that he was.

But at least Ibrahim can fall back on an official excuse: he was strictly invoking the House’s Standing Orders that members must take their oath standing unless special permission was approved by the Speaker. In a previous sitting, a different era when you think about it, Karpal weathered the accusation that his condition was the wrath of divine intervention.

“Now you are sitting in a wheelchair. God has punished you (Tuhan qada kepada dia)," was how Badruddin Amiruldin, the erstwhile BN MP for Jerai, savagely moralised after the Kedahan was on the verge of losing a bad-tempered argument with the man from Bukit Gelugor, who was lamenting that there was little hope of seeing courtesy and good manners after referring to the Hansard to lambast Badruddin for uttering the foulest of Malay words inside the House and not reprimanded. And Karpal? He continued with his lamentation.

Add riling boorish MPs to another of Karpal’s long list of riling-up people skills. And the people he has vexed – rightly or wrongly – won’t forget the altercation for a long time. And Karpal is not averse to uttering some dynamic riposte himself – he dubbed Bung Mukhtar Radin, another of his longtime foes in the House, as “Bigfoot” – a reference to the wild life of Kinabatangan where Bung Mukhtar comes from. To his credit, Bung Mukhtar took the insult in good humour, after quickly replying that Karpal was a “monkey”. However, once outside the House, they shook hands and shared jokes about the exchange to the astonishment of people unused to House decorum.

Karpal is debonairly nonchalant about the casting of these “colourful metaphors”. In fact, he actually approves of it, even if it meant bordering on the vulgar, the obnoxious and the derogatory. “One of the dullest places on earth is Parliament, except for the occasional exchanges between MPs from the opposition and Barisan Nasional,” he shrugged. "We need a Parliament which is robust. Lively exchanges and repartee enliven what would otherwise be mundane and dull proceedings.

For the near future, Karpal appears to be in a deep heap of legal, and possibly criminal, trouble after his unflinchingly searing commentary against a Royal House but he remains stubbornly unapologetic, even disappointed at how his fellow Pakatan Rakyat colleagues capitulated in the first light heave of Government pressure. But this is Karpal Singh you’re talking about and he didn’t earn that Tiger moniker without spilling blood.

But here’s the rub: there’s something eerily different in the way Karpal launched his fusillades – those audacious, bald-face, wincing pronouncements that he has long patented. His criticisms against the Royal Houses and the blasé manner in which he dismissed the barrage of police reports against him (“I don’t care if 2,000 reports are lodged against me…”) has the urgency of a “last hurrah”, the kind of impetuous foolhardiness you unleash when you know that you’ve got nothing to lose.

Is that the case, Karpal?