COMMENT | Hawker Lim Thiam Fook’s retraction of his allegation against the police and the subsequent show of a presser is the kind of flashpoint in this country that is made use of by the Malay uber alles crowd to further racial narratives that sustain a corrupt political and religious class.

Of course, if this had not have been framed by certain parties (as the hawker did) as an extortion attempt rather than a bribery case, things would have been easier to spin if the protagonist decided not to play ball anymore.

When it is framed as an extortion attempt, folks retreat into their corners without being suspicious of either party. Keep in mind that this 21-year-old man allegedly paid a bribe and the narrative he put forward was that he was “extorted”. 

This took on added emotional baggage because we are in the midst of a pandemic. Do not think that “race” will not become part of the narrative. On social media, it already has.

We are constantly told that public institutions are Malay institutions and the discourse around crime, centres around race. 

We have a police force that has resisted any attempts at public oversight. We have a political class that believes that it can and should place “our boys” in positions of power so that the connective tissue between the state security apparatus and the political class, is maintained.

In this milieu, even the smallest mistakes by people who claim to want to reform the institution will be used to craft narratives that the police are victims of politics and that the police are demonised because citizens from a certain ethnic group want to tarnish its reputation.

What we have here is an example of how a young Chinese man attempted to impugn the honourable institution of the police force and of how DAP politicians aided and abetted him. Nobody will remember that Lim apologised for this fiasco, but instead, narratives that the DAP is anti-Malay will be reinforced.

Now some folks are pushing the narrative that the coppers were making life difficult for this young man with all those tedious, time consuming and economically debilitating series of interviews. Never mind the fact that this young man, claims that he “…could not identify the officers so I decided to let it go”.

Of course, the police might make it tough for this young man, but they will say they are doing a thorough investigation. But then again, if he cannot identify (because they were wearing masks) who those police officers are, it would make it difficult for them to investigate, right? This is the game you step into when you hold a press conference with politicians and then decide you would rather not pursue the issue.

So, when this young man thinks that his actions only affect him and his livelihood, he is gravely mistaken and what he did merely reinforces racial narratives in a time when the Malay establishment is at war with itself.

Culture war

The Malay uber alles crowd might use this incident as an effective counter-narrative to the very real systemic corruption in the police force. So, this young man will be demonised even though we have an incident like “Copgate” that illustrates the deep corruption within the force. Corruption so deep, it remains unseen to the naked eye, especially those of politicians.

Now you can say that politicians jump on the bandwagon on these sorts of cases because of the publicity it brings but the reality is that if political operatives did not highlight such cases, they would be lost in the news cycle. Politicians have highlighted many cases that deserve our attention, and especially the DAP in this regard has played an important role.

But like it or not, how you shape the narrative is important and when you hold pressers that play to the gallery, you had better be sure you have a strong case to stand on. Like it or not, the consequences for these types of mistakes are different and this is important, especially when it comes to this young man who made serious allegations against the police.

Remember when Jaringan Melayu Malaysia president Azwanddin Hamzah threatened to attack the Klang police station - "My warning to them, immediately arrest the developer, arrest the lawyers. If not, ladies and gentlemen, we will attack the Klang police station" - of course, he faced the consequences for that, but does anyone really think what the consequences would be the same if a non-Malay made such a threat?