How To Change our World: Support Haris Ibrahim, Barisan Rakyat and RPK and together we change Malaysia

posted by din merican-january 9, 2009

My Impressions of Haris Ibrahim–Din Merican

Like Malik, it is my distinct privilege to have met this humble man of God, and lawyer for justice and human dignity.

It all started for me in 2007 after I had joined PKR and was attached to Anwar Ibrahim’s Office in Section 16 (opposite the 9th Residential College, Universiti Malaya), Petaling Jaya, a few months before the General Elections. As a member, I was feeling my way in the crazy world of Malaysian politics, oblivious to the risks involved in challenging the existing order.

My first meeting with Haris was rather restrained as we both were trying to assess each other. But he struck me even at that time as a man with a mission, one that would take him into many pathways, nooks and corners, all leading to trouble with the authorities, especially with the Police. He was always defiant and undeterred. He was then working with his colleagues which included RPK and other civil society activists on the Peoples’ Declaration, which Malik mentioned in his article.

After the usual pleasantries, he came straight to the point; he asked me pointedly, has Anwar Ibrahim changed? Is he for real? I told Haris that I had no doubt that Anwar had changed. His 6-year stay in Sungei Buloh as guest of our King had transformed him. Haris wanted me to arrange a meeting with the PKR de facto leader so that he and his friends could hear from Anwar himself. I mentioned that to Anwar who agreed to see them. They met subsequently.

I think that was the turning point in our relations. I became a sucker for justice and human rights causes. Haris had influenced me, perhaps more than he had realised. He said to me that “life is meaningless if we ignore the plight of thousands upon thousands of Malaysians who are less fortunate than us”. On this point, we agreed that we cannot be just bystanders. We had to seize the moment and be in the arena. Then came the BERSIH march to the King’s Palace in November, 2007 followed by the Hindraf Movement. We were caught in them. Malaysians, some 60,000 of them for BERSIH alone, came onto to the streets, defiant of the FRU, to make a strong statement and petition our Beloved King. On looking back, I think the BERSIH and Hindraf movements were the precursor to the March 8 political tsunami that shook our nation, sent UMNO-BN into a state of utter confusion, threw Che Det into temper tantrums, and forced UMNO to demand Badawi’s resignation.

Today, Haris is with Pakatan Rakyat as an ally with the proviso that PR and PKR support his Peoples’ Declaration. We endorsed it. In fact, PKR’s A New Dawn for Malaysia 2008 Manifesto adopts the principles in that Declaration. That was not all. Haris in his rather blunt fashion said, ” Din, any time you guys screw up, we will come heavy on you. You cannot ignore Barisan Rakyat”.

I became close to Haris and through him I came to know the Barisan Rakyat Blogger Group headed by Raja Petra Kamaruddin. We worked together during the March General Election and the Permatang Pauh by-election in August, and I support all his civic activities including the recent campaign to free RPK from ISA detention, and the vigils for ISA detainees. We meet regularly at Big GUS’ Fisherman Wharf in Taman Desa Danau.

I will be joining him in Kuala Terengganu next week. He is great fun to be with because his enthusiasm for work infects me and others around him. To me, Haris is a wonderful friend whose love for his country is beyond doubt. He does not suffer fools easily though, and like me, he is just fed-up with the corrupt UMNO-BN goons who are ruining our wonderful country.

By Malik Imtiaz Sarvar

Haris Ibrahim- A Lawyer for Justice and Human Dignity

I had heard of Haris Ibrahim even before I met him. Some acquaintances had told me of a lawyer who was seemingly singlehandedly taking on the world in his defence of principle. At the time he was involved in the case of the Besut Four, four individuals who had been convicted by a syariah court and sentenced to three years jail even though they had renounced Islam. His was the titanic struggle that pointing to an unpopular and inconvenient truth always is.

Reading of the case in the newspapers, it had struck me how frustrating it must have been for Haris to have to contend with a system that seemed more concerned with finding excuses than solutions. I wondered what it was that made him do what he did.

I came to see the sense of his choices when I met him for the first time at a Bar Council human rights training session a short while later. I saw a man who embraced the world and whose heart had enough space in it for everyone.

Over the years, we have collaborated on various initiatives, driven by a common belief in Malaysia’s need for an open and inclusive society in which all its children, irrespective of race, religion or culture, can have the freedom to pursue their dreams. It is this common belief that saw us developing a proposal for a commission that would be empowered to enquire into matters of religious harmony. It led us to engaging in a public awareness campaign aimed at creating awareness about worrying constitutional trends. It also prompted us to team up in a number cases that we believed had great bearing on the way things would be and which have ultimately left their marks on this nation.

Haris has become one of the most important civil society voices of this era. His highly influential blog, The People’s Parliament, and the range of civil society initiatives he gave life to over the last two years are breathtaking for their depth of reflection and breadth of reach. He was a prime mover of The Peoples’ Declaration, the Barisan Raykat and a host of other initiatives all of which were aimed at making the rest of us see that we had the power to effect change in our hands.

Before we began to believe in ourselves, Haris already did. March 8 proved his faith not to be misplaced. As much as this was about the soundness of his vision of what could be, it was equally about the correctness of his method. I have had the privilege of seeing some of his ideas come to life and I can say with conviction that nothing happened overnight. They developed one step at a time, from conceptualizing to planning to implementation, everything had its time and place.The lesson I took from this is that to change the world, you must want it to and then take it one small step at a time.

Any effort aimed at improving our community, no matter how small, is a worthwhile one. Change is the by-product of an accumulation of worthwhile endeavours that may have as individual efforts escaped notice. We might think that one person’s choice not to engage in corrupt practices anymore would not bring endemic corruption to an end. If however there were sufficient numbers of such individuals, a tipping point could be reached and we might see a day when those who bribe stood out as the exception rather than the norm.

Understanding that our every action has a consequence is therefore the key that unlocks the door to change. Revolutions always start small. Consider the signals we send to people around us – family, friends or colleagues – and how those signals will be received. If you are a father and you bribe a police officer in front of your child, what you are in effect saying is that corruption is acceptable no matter how you might try to justify your behaviour. In the same way, if you are racist then those who you influence, even indirectly, will be influenced. It is the less obvious dimensions of what we do on a daily basis that trap us into vicious cycles of destructive conduct.

The change we effected last year (2008 ) was only skin deep. For us to transform ourselves we must confront the question of whether we really want change. We cannot run away from the fact that though the politicians are to blame for a good number of things, the ills that ravage our society stem from a value system that we have allowed to warp over time for our own convenience.

The question for us is what we propose to do about it.

(Malay Mail; 6th January 2009)

MIS