A question of perspective

In 2008, a Malaysian who was a child prodigy, Sufiah Yusof was found working as an escort in the United Kingdom. She had run away from Oxford, where she was accepted to study mathematics at the age of the 13.

She was 16 when she ran away from university and had alleged that her father abused her. Apart from a short-lived "Save Sufiah" campaign by the then Minister in charge of family and welfare, no effort was made to figure out what went wrong and what could be done to undo the wrong.

Fast forward seven years later, another Malaysian mathematics export to the UK was found to possess 30,000 pictures and videos of child pornography.

Yes, that's right, 30,000.

Even if you look at one every day, that’s enough porn to last 82 years. According to news reports, most of the images were class "A" from the Sexual Offences Definitive Guide (or class 10 COPINE). Which means, as if it wasn’t sick enough for him to see naked children, he was looking at pictures of naked children engaging in penetrative intercourse, sadism and animals.

The convicted Nur Fitri Azmeer Nordin had been arrested next to a boy-sized mannequin in his room.

Whatever he was doing with it, you can rest assured it wasn’t to model his jubbah on.

And yet we hear local NGOs asking the public to give him a second chance. We hear the Rural Development Minister considering appealing to the UK Courts on behalf of the accused.

He had a chance. When the public financed his education, that was his chance. Nobody placed a gun to his head and told him to look at kids that way.

Child pornography isn’t a joke, it isn’t a victimless crime like many put it out to be.

Children affected by it suffer scars for life.

According to his charge sheet, Nur Fitri was also involved in the making and distribution of the videos.

What kind of message is the government sending by having one of its senior Cabinet member appeal a guilty verdict on arguably one of the most serious child pornography cases the UK has seen?

Contrast this appeal from the same NGOs to the arrest of Adam Adli. Adam was accused of being ungrateful to the government and an embarrassment to the country. For what? Standing against the government?

If going against the government is such a national embarrassment, what about producing child porn or going at it with a mannequin? Many of these NGOs actually pushed for action against Adam.

Another example would be the government’s continually confrontational but inconsistent stance against peaceful assemblies. 

On May 1, several NGOs and opposition parties organised a protest in Kuala Lumpur.

Compared with Hindraf or the earlier Bersih rallies, the Bantah/May Day rally was relatively smaller and less boisterous.

The theme of the rally revolved around worker’s rights and GST – economic issues. Yet, the police deemed it necessary to haul up organisers and speakers alike and keep them overnight, because to them this was such an important issue it couldn’t wait till the next working day.

If people aren’t allowed to talk about and vent their frustrations on the most basic of grouses regarding the issue that affects them most, in a peaceful manner, then what is the point of calling ourselves a functional democracy?

Just a few weeks prior to that, another protest occurred outside a church located in Taman Medan, Petaling Jaya.

A group of presumably non-Christian, non-Tamil speaking Malaysians had a big problem with a group of Christian Tamil fellow Malaysians occupying a tiny shop lot somewhat near to their homes. They shouted slogans against a religion and carried banners displaying similar. They threatened a reporter, asking that he write a favourable report.

Yet, the police only thought it necessary to interview them a few days later. No overnight detention, no remand order. According to a government leader, it’s not serious because no one died.

Then what about the case of the recent fatal accident where two little girls were left orphaned after their whole family perished as six Myvis were said to be racing?

If the police can locate NGO and opposition leaders and news editors and journalists and other "dangerous" people at ungodly hours and work so hard to keep them in remand to get the bottom of that very urgent investigation – as if the very survival of Malaysia depended on it – why is it so difficult to locate a bunch of guys whose personal information, whereabouts and faces have been plastered everywhere on social media?

Where is the perspective? Do we even have any left? – May 6, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.