Sajakkini

Elizabeth Wong : 13th Floor

Ahmad Harizal Ahmad Fauzie is an accidental hero, whether he knows it or not.

It started out as a search for the example of what would happen to youths who dared to contemplate skipping national service.

The full force of the law will come down hard on you.

You will be hunted, arrested, interrogated by the police and charged in court.

The deputy public prosecutor and the magistrate will perform according to the given script.

Resistance is futile.

So Ahmad Harizal was found guilty and emerged handcuffed from the court under the full glare of the media to serve his 14-day sentence. His family could not pay the RM 600 fine to save him from the penal colony of Kangar.

ELIZABETH WONG has been involved in human rights since her student days in Sydney. She is currently the secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society (Hakam), a member of the Suaram secretariat and was a human rights fellow of Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs (2002-03). ‘13th Floor‘ will attempt to look into the paradoxes and intricacies of democracy and politics. In her spare time, she revives her search for Dante (the lost cat). She is still leaving the option of playing guitar in a loud band open.

This was supposed to be the landmark case.

But the scripted text of a naughty National Service dodger quickly unravelled to that of a young man forced to quit school while in his early teens to take on poorly paid piecemeal work to help out family expenses, and who, not only could not afford a lawyer but had to borrow RM7 to attend his own hearing.

It is to the credit of the protesting public who highlighted the unpalatable state of affairs, to the point where the Attorney-General and the Deputy Prime Minister were pressured to issue separate public statements, albeit blaming the young man for not telling the ‘truth’ to the police, and ignoring what was told to the magistrate in court during mitigation.

But what ‘truths’ could Ahmad Harizal have said in his own defense?

Opportunities miss the mark

That he needed to work otherwise during the three months he would be away, his family could well starve in the bountiful land of Malaysia Incorporated?

That the opportunities in the past three decades of economic development plans completely missed its purported mark?

That there was little logic in forcing young people to attend a programme fraught with problems?

Or that he was as frightened as any other person interrogated by the police, and could he have a lawyer from the National Legal Aid Bureau … please?

Till this day, many wonder what really goes on in the National Service programme. When it was mooted in 2003, politicians held it up as the answer to the multitude of national woes – from dirty public toilets to social ills, racial polarisation to globalisation.

The dizzy gush of ‘approvals’ from toadies and the attempted inclusion of a controversial section in the original draft bill that would have made any criticism against the programme a crime punishable with a jail term of up to two years and/or a maximum fine of RM10,000 (now discarded due to public protests), could not disguise the fact that the Government knew even back then, it was not going to be one of its more popular project.

So it began in early 2004. Thousands of young men and women conscripted into wearing god-awful uniforms bright enough to tempt hungry tigers and mosquitoes; where tales were told and allegations made of sexual harassment, abuse, rampages, discrimination, moldy bread and even rape.

We were slapped with a RM 500 million bill and told that the programme needed more funds.

If we had been presented with a different proposal for a month-long national jamboree of fun and games with weaponry, valuable lessons and inter-ethnic bonding for our 18-year olds, it is doubtful anyone would have objected - provided it had been voluntary.

There would still be enough participants to give some much-needed business to empty resorts and campsites, parcel off sweetheart contracts here and there and provide work for the unemployed.

Something wrong

In its present state, the Deputy Prime Minister had to admit that National Service would not be supported by the youths, thus it had to be backed by the law to force people to attend.

One should take note the subsequent chain of events that occurred in the last 48 hours: - It was a government official, no less than the chief minister of Perlis who settled Ahmad Harizal’s fine and got him freed; it was the ruling party politicians who were up in arms; and it was the public who rallied against criminalising a reasoned action of a young man.

What is unspoken here is that there is something very wrong with the National Service Act 2003 and a criminal justice system that penalises the young and the poor.

The National Service programme must be reviewed in its entirety, from the mandatory provision in the Act, to as far as a reasonable proposition here to repeal it, so that public funds could be better allocated in other programmes and areas. The opportunity lies in the coming session of Parliament next month.

There is much to be said of how the government can be of service to the youths of today. But it surely cannot be in the form of a compulsory national service or prison time. The mere thought of having another young person convicted and sentenced to prison under this act is abhorrent.

Ahmad Harizal may not have realised this but his decision, to earn a living for his family who live in abject poverty, over attending National Service, is an unconscious act of protest – against a draconian piece of legislation and a system that thumbs its nose on those who are in dire need of some real justice.

A national disservice