At 11.30am, on the 29th of May, a publishing house
in Petaling Jaya was raided by 20 officers of The Selangor Islamic
Religious Department (Jais). 180 copies of a book by liberal Muslim
Sudanese-Canadian activist Irshad Manji were seized, and the
director of the publishing house Mr Ezra Zaid was arrested and then released on a RM1800.00 (USD600.00) bail
with one surety over the publication of the controversial book.Yes, it sounds like the plot from a movie by Sacha Baron Cohen, but it happened in real-time in Malaysia. During the ISA period, people lived in fear of doing or saying something wrong, or even fraternising with someone not 'approved' of, terrified of the the 2am knock on the door and the sudden removal and total disappearance (for a few days) of a loved one, and a prolonged incarceration at our equivalent of the Gulag. Now, that law has been repealed, and we can breathe (and sleep) a little easier; or at least, so we thought.
Black cloud
The book business in the country, however, has seen no such reprieve. All booksellers and publishers live in constant fear of being raided, having our books seized, and personnel detained (or worse). Any of your customers could be a Special Branch agent prowling through our aisle for contraband material, and you’d have no idea what is not allowed until he (or she) seizes it and deems it so. A daily occurrence? No. How many times have I been raided? None. How many visits have I received from the Special Branch? I have no idea. Like Sauron’s dark forces, they are formless, but everywhere. The fear is real and constant. It is like a dark cloud that permeates and poisons the air, and infects everyone who breathes. Sometimes it's so thick that one feels one can cut it with a knife. Perhaps, we have been conditioned by genetic memories, several millenniums old, of cattle raiders, invading armies and burning villages; of rapine, pillage and plunder. Then, when we hears of twenty-burly-men raiding parties, it all leaps to the surface again, because they can strike you any time, anywhere and from any direction, and they (the dark raiders) want you to know that they can. Irrational fear? Maybe. Paranoid? Hey, which country do you think we live in?
I watched on television, a BBC correspondent interviewing a well-to-do Libyan family at their home during their recent war. The journalist kept asking the mother of the children, why she was against the government when they had every material need, and all the food they wanted. Her English was not good, but I understood immediately what she was trying to say. Malaysia is not Libya. But when a twenty-man raiding party descends on one's premises, it is enough to scare the shit out of most. What the woman was trying to say was that the most important freedom, for her, was the freedom from that constant fear. I understood that.
Intimidation and harassment
Why twenty men? Wouldn't a polite phone call have been sufficient for Mr Ezra Zaid to 'surrendered' himself for questioning? Wouldn’t one or two persons have been enough to carry off 180 books?
Not in a civilised society, one would think. But it all becomes perfectly clear when one considers the intimidation factor of twenty men at your door. Intimidation is the tool of those not interested in discussions, or debate; a tool of those that is intended to demonstrate naked primal power, and its maintenance. Intimidation and harassment is also the tools of choice for those who wish to control this country by censorship.
In the case of the raid on the office of ZI Publictions, publishers of the book Allah, Kebebasan dan Cinta (Allah, Liberty and Love), it has been in the news for over a week, with the author even allowed to come into the country for the book launch on 19 May (though some of her other events were cancelled). Earlier, in 2009, Malaysia banned her book, The Trouble With Islam Today. With this in the background, one is all the more surprised at the treatment meted out to the Mr Ezra Zaid. I speak out for him, not only, as a fellow publisher and a friend, but a remark I expect to be thrown in my direction is, “Why are you so concerned; you’re not a Muslim. Stay out of Islamic affairs, or else ...”
Right to freedom from fear
Do Muslims have fewer rights in the country by virtue of their religion? Do they not deserve to be treated with the same human decency as everyone else; do they not deserve to expect, and receive, that polite phone call? Or, is a twenty-man raid a non-Muslim publisher just as likely? That black cloud spreads while the emperor fiddles.
Back to censorship (this is an old story): I had a shipment of Khalil Gibran books detained by the Customs at KLIA. When I tried to explain that only The Prophet by that author has been proscribed by the government and not all his titles, the officer retorted, saying of the government, “Apa dia tahu, apa PM tahu.” (What do they know; what does the prime minister know.) There was no point in further talk. I never saw my books again. (One officer told me that someone in the Ministry didn’t like the way some of them were written, and so they decided to seize the lot. Everyone is a critic.)
Yes, it does appear that I am willing to compromise and live with censorship. Let me assure you, that’s not true; but I’ll have that debate on another day.
First, let’s establish some civility, human decency and freedom from fear in this country.
Raman Krishnan
Publisher
Silverfish Books
