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DEWAN DISPATCHES: The democratic brimstone and defects that is Parliament’s ‘neutral zone’

by: Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT, May 26, 2008

As many as a thousand Malaysians, by rough estimates and on a frequency of four six-hour days a week, congregate to Parliament House every day since it commenced the “First Meeting of the First Session of 12th Parliament” last month to fulfil the desires and requirements of democracy or some parts of it. That said, the Parliament House facilities still makes for abysmal, difficult or creative parking, congregators devouring every nook, corner, cranny and crevice as a passable parking spot, only because every Malaysian of contrasting and questionable political persuasion are almost never denied entry by a smilingly relaxed security sentry.

If that doesn’t tighten your girdle, then witness the laborious work of congregators lobbying certain Ministers, Deputy Ministers or backbenchers with overlord pretensions for favours, support or funds for a fast-approaching party elections. For live entertainment, congregators can savour the blood sport called “Point of Order” or “Interjection” where men and women of various races and religions, and variable intelligence and mood swing, engage in verbal jousting – their political attitude as their reason to attack, their mouths as their lances, their thick, undulating skin as their shields and their political parties as their trusted steeds.

As for the non-MP spectators, they can also behave like the MPs – remonstrate in incensed exasperation or chortle till their guts ache, or until somebody gives them a discomfiting backlash in their face. However, viewers on the public gallery are strictly required to be emotionally restrained and react to the raucousness of the House stiffer than a cadaver. That’s the daily Dewan Rakyat ritual for most congregators.

Then there’s the Parliament lobby, a rectangular stretch the size of two basketball courts, an impressive expanse furnished with cushy sofas, resonating wood panelling and overarching airy ceilings; and observed with reverent glances, the portraits of 12 past and current Yang di-Pertuan Agongs, with plenty of room in the gallery of many more kings for many more generations to come.

It is at this monumental carpeted range that Malaysia’s machinations of democracy work at its most disputatious and glorious effect. The lobby is a democratic “neutral zone”, a Hyde Park-like locale where activists, reformists, advocators, propagators, procurers, panderers, every Jack-of-all-trades peddler with an eloquent or tawdry sales pitch push their political wares. The only person who seemed bent on spoiling the fun and dynamism is Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, who in a moment of pique last week, reproached the circus (is it not enough that he has to arbitrate the circus inside the House?) as being “unparliamentary.”

The Speaker was protesting the slew of protests, demonstrations, press conferences, confrontations, shouting matches, badge, pamphlet and unauthorised circular distribution in MPs mail boxes. He didn’t particularly approve of the following incidents:
 birthday celebration of Hindu Rights Action Front chairman P. Waythamoorthy's six-year-old daughter, organised by 30 Hindraf supporters and Opposition MPs;
 30 disabled people confronting Datuk Ibrahim Ali (Ind–Pasir Mas) and Bung Mukhtar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) for scorning Karpal Singh’s (DAP–Bukit Gelugor) physical condition to which their demand for an apology to the Tiger of Jelutong was firmly dismissed;
 a letter distributed by Altantuya Shaariibuu’s father, Dr Shaariibuu Setev, on the first day of Parliament; which Bung Mukhtar claimed reflected poor security;
 poison pen letters lambasting PKR de factor leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim that made its way to MPs mailboxes, which N. Gobalakrishnan (PKR-Padang Serai) complained also reflected poor security; and,
 photocopies of a section of the Malaysian constitution which points to provisions to constitutionally remove the Prime Minister.

“Parliament is a place for MPs to work,” Pandikar Amin grumbled, upset that the sanctified domain under his watch was impudently inured by these groups to highlight, gratifyingly, all sorts of political views. “Celebrations can take place outside Parliament. Political matters could be dealt with outside Parliament House.” No word yet on whether the Speaker intends to ban the lobby as a free-for-all political marketplace but for now, he promised to write to all heads of political parties to stop the activism.

Point taken but, for most democratically-inclined people, not that well. That the people who converge at this stretch make use of its “neutrality” to demand a variety of political concessions is actually seen as a good thing, and that Malaysia, unlike some neighbours, still fortifies some measure of free speech, free expression and free association.

Think about it. If these people were to demonstrate “outside” Parliament House, as incited by the Speaker, or any kind of “outside” that desperately needs public attention, they will only inevitably clash with the immoveable object called the Federal Reserve Unit, get arrested for public disorder or for simply trying to avoid the painful volley of the water cannons. The political fallout that ensues cheapens the democratic process.

And by allowing so far the zone’s neutrality to flourish, at least for this current session, Parliament, and to a certain extent the Federal Government, make themselves look good, at least for the sake of free speech, free expression and free association that voters in the March 8 polls, feeling that these basic human rights concept were denied to them among the many pertinent electoral issues, retaliated with infuriated gusto to re-direct a handful of alternative state governments to go the Opposition way and force a staggering reduction in the ruling party’s parliamentary majority.

There had been limpid proposals to build Malaysia’s own Hyde Park but at a space away from popular public landmarks like the Merdeka Square. It was rightly and unceremoniously shot down, with one critic describing it as akin to a shopping mall in the outskirts of the jungles – lots of shops but no shoppers.

That is why Parliament’s “neutral zone” is the perfect sweep for loud, raucous but peaceful demonstrations. Activists, like the strong-willed wives of ISA detainees, get to proffer their grievances to multiple media of mainstream or alternative influence at a convenient and comfortable platform, stating their piece with passion and pride, and passing anti-ISA buttons or badges in mollifying spirit without the ignominy of being ignored.

Even at its most benign, free speech, free expression and free association in Malaysia is still a jarring work in progress, as acrid as a bitter pill: either you gulp it down wincingly or you puke it out and make a distressed face. The most basic of human endeavours being fought under a controlled roof, witnessed by political ideologues of all stripes and purpose with a softly-lighted canteen nearby for a hearty post-confrontation tea and cakes, is far more placating than a violent skirmish on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. For the sake of a more fluent and mature Malaysian democracy, let the “neutral zone” be, brimstone, defects and all…