“ Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ”

- Henry David Thoreau

COMMENT We live in dangerous times and most people do not even realise it. We have become so immune to the constant provocations that the Umno state throws at us that right-thinking Malaysians merely shake their heads at their computer screens and consume the next bit of news in an endless cycle of outrage and apathy.

The problem with this is that the very real danger the National Security Council Act presents is overlooked and sublimated as just another Umno gambit to remain in power.

This piece of legislation has far-reaching consequences and will shape the destiny of this country and its people. This is far more dangerous than the corruption scandal that has engulfed this regime or the threat of religious extremism that an Umno-PAS alliance would birth.

This is a piece of legislation that threatens the very nature of the fragile parliamentary democracy of this country. If this sounds hyperbolic (and even to me it does), it is because we have become so used to the idea that in Malaysia nothing is sacred, and cynicism is the language we express our outrage in.

Before I go any further, I would just like to remind Malaysians, that it is not that we have become a militarised society, but rather Umno has become a militarised political party. We may scoff at the outsourced thugs of Umno who stir racial sentiments in the pretence of upholding race and religion - but something, deeper and darker has emerged from the long Umno watch...