“Harapan, being politically and ideologically similar to BN, does the same thing any authoritarian regime would do: discipline, punishment, and control.”

– Maryam Lee, 'Making sense of GE14 from a dissenter's POV'

COMMENT | When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad reminds Suhakam that our value system is not the same as the West, this is complete horse manure. Are there differences in what we as Asians value than that of the West? Sure, there is. You could make the argument that what we value as a community, regardless of race and religion, differs from the West. So, there’s that.

But when it comes to the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issue, what separates us from the “West” is that we are bare naked hypocrites. Indeed, all you weaselly politicians are big stinking hypocrites. And anyone who supports you in this thinking is a big stinking hypocrite, too.

When the Wikileaks cables scandal erupted many years ago, tongues were waging of the gay politicians within the then Umno establishment. Does anyone really know of the gay politicians in the now Harapan establishment? What about the grassroots level operators who are gay? What about the propagandists from Harapan – DAP, PKR, Bersatu, even Amanah – who are gay?

All these gay people helped create your new Malaysia and you have the audacity to lecture Suhakam about not following Western values? But forget about that. Even in the old Malaysia, there were gay people who were part of the gravy train and who had no problem weaponising sexuality to destroy people, especially if they were part of the opposition or who sympathised with the opposition's values.

In fact, whenever the state wants to demonise an opponent, they usually claim that the opponent is attempting to propagate Western values when it comes to issues which at the core are about freedom of speech or expression, sexuality being part of the latter.

You know what really bothers me about this whole issue? It like this. First, the establishment attacks people who have very little say in society. They attack them along racial or cultural values lines because they know they have the support of other “religious” people. They know they can get away with it because people do not really care.

Then they move on. They always do. Take these attacks against lawyer/activist Fadiah Nadwa Fikri. You really think that the attacks against the LGBTQ community and Fadiah are not part of a larger narrative of social/political control? The difference between the two is the reception of the public. In Fadiah's case, what she dissenting against finds some currency in the way how some people think of state power when it comes to history and the royal institution. So, the establishment is careful in the way how they handle the Fadiah issue.

But when it comes to the LGBTQ community, they know that people generally do not care for obvious religious or cultural reasons. They also know that their hypocrisy will not be unmasked on a political level because while political parties rely on gay people, they know that nobody wants to rock the boat in case the balance of power is threatened. So, all that is left are gay activists, and nobody cares much for them or their cause.

Meanwhile, people are licking their lips at the situation the former Umno grand poohbah Najib Razak finds himself in, and the prime minister gets to remind a human rights organisation to marginalise certain people based on their gender or sexuality. The state security apparatus gets to mess around with an activist who is challenging the official narratives, pedophiles have a field day because child marriage laws allow them some leeway in their perversion because religious people are more involved in the sex lives of consenting adults than the grooming – see what I did there? – of children...