Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Mat Rempits still in the news
Last month, I had posted my comments on why members of the dominant political party UMNO wanted to co-opt thousands of youths who engage in illegal motorcycle races under the guise of looking after their welfare and channeling their energies into more useful activities. When news of the so-called UMNO Putera, the junior wing of the UMNO Youth, going on a media blitz to talk up its “noble” efforts to round up these “stray” sheep into the folds of the community, I smelled a rotten fish head. In a society like Malaysia where politics have seeped into the very fabric of our consciousness, there had to be more to this development than what meets the eye. I was reminded of the Brown Shirts patrolling the streets of Berlin in the early 1930s. They were also the “eyes and ears” of the Reich government, remarkably similar to what UMNO Putera chief Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim has in mind for these Mat Rempits.
These boys are already a menace on the roads with no care for other motorists. I am very wary when I see a group of them zooming past me. A grazing of engines and I could be involved in a serious altercation, which really, may not end in a happy ending. Even the Malay tabloids and dailies are getting into the act of condemning some of the unsavory antics of these Mat Rempits. A clash between two different groups which resulted in one dead, was also played up in all the dailies, further complicating the efforts of some politicians to silently summon a large group of youths who could prove useful to UMNO when it wishes to organize its often favored tactic of holding demonstrations. I recall the infamous 1999 demonstration led by UMNO Youth firebrands who threatened to burn down the Chinese Assembly Building in Jalan Maharajalela. And of course, who can forget the storming of the APCET conference in 1999 in Kuala Lumpur? I could illustrate more recent examples such as the demonstrations to drown the voice of concerned Malaysians for dialogue with the government after the Moorthy fiasco. So I say, looking at the situation from the UMNO Youth perspective, young men with a surplus of energy and a dislike for authority, used to moving around like mobs on motorcycles .. … well, they could be an asset by people adept at playing puppet master.
But it seems when it comes to Mat Rempits, even the police are finding their voice to turn down requests from UMNO Putera to provide crowd control assistance for a grand gathering of illegal motorcyclists in Bukit Jalil scheduled for January. The police would be best positioned to know of the extent of trouble these youths have been causing the public. When we hear of the problems these guys are causing i.e intimidating other motorists, smashing up parked cars, drunken behaviour, that is just a small sampling of a serious social problem we are all facing. What we read in the newspapers is just a small representation of the real story. I can say this with conviction because I was a journalist once for a mainstream newspaper and a lot of things remain untold when the newspapers hit the stands. ¶ 2:46 PM
These boys are already a menace on the roads with no care for other motorists. I am very wary when I see a group of them zooming past me. A grazing of engines and I could be involved in a serious altercation, which really, may not end in a happy ending. Even the Malay tabloids and dailies are getting into the act of condemning some of the unsavory antics of these Mat Rempits. A clash between two different groups which resulted in one dead, was also played up in all the dailies, further complicating the efforts of some politicians to silently summon a large group of youths who could prove useful to UMNO when it wishes to organize its often favored tactic of holding demonstrations. I recall the infamous 1999 demonstration led by UMNO Youth firebrands who threatened to burn down the Chinese Assembly Building in Jalan Maharajalela. And of course, who can forget the storming of the APCET conference in 1999 in Kuala Lumpur? I could illustrate more recent examples such as the demonstrations to drown the voice of concerned Malaysians for dialogue with the government after the Moorthy fiasco. So I say, looking at the situation from the UMNO Youth perspective, young men with a surplus of energy and a dislike for authority, used to moving around like mobs on motorcycles .. … well, they could be an asset by people adept at playing puppet master.
But it seems when it comes to Mat Rempits, even the police are finding their voice to turn down requests from UMNO Putera to provide crowd control assistance for a grand gathering of illegal motorcyclists in Bukit Jalil scheduled for January. The police would be best positioned to know of the extent of trouble these youths have been causing the public. When we hear of the problems these guys are causing i.e intimidating other motorists, smashing up parked cars, drunken behaviour, that is just a small sampling of a serious social problem we are all facing. What we read in the newspapers is just a small representation of the real story. I can say this with conviction because I was a journalist once for a mainstream newspaper and a lot of things remain untold when the newspapers hit the stands. ¶ 2:46 PM
