The two Molotov cocktails that were recently lobbed into the family home of Seputeh MP Teresa Kok is the second incident that occurred in Malaysia in recent past.
The first involved a Molotov cocktail thrown into the former residence of the current Bar Council president in the wake of the controversial ‘Conversion to Islam’ forum organised by the legal fraternity.
These are absolutely abominable acts of people who seemed intent on putting fear into the hearts of others they considered ‘different’, nay, incurably incompatible.
One only hopes that these people have not set a disturbing trend in the country whereby opposing views are prescribed – by a certain group of people – a violent solution.
But there is more to these violent incidents than meets the eye. These events are symptomatic of a society whereby different views, dissenting opinions and criticisms are seen as more than mere irritants.
In this context, opposing views are often not given their rightful place, i.e. a platform or forum whereby attempts are made to iron out differences, if at all possible, in a civilised and democratic fashion. At the very least, dwellers of a democratic society are expected to agree to disagree in a good natured way.
Instead, what we often witness in our society are some attempts to crush dissenting views with a sledgehammer in the form of draconian laws, or the demonisation of people holding different viewpoints by social institutions such as the mainstream media to the point of making them appear to be social deviants.
Or it is also quite likely, as has been the case in recent past, that a group of civil society groups would get their act together to lodge a police report so that others they consider as incompatible with them will be ‘handled’ by the police and the law of the land. This is certainly not a clever idea of encouraging dialogue and promoting understanding among disparate groups.
Indeed, it doesn’t do democracy any good by criminalising people who hold onto views that others deem ‘different’, especially if the former do it in a democratic and civilised manner. Intellectual growth obviously gets stunted in society.
