National Reconciliation: Nuremberg Revengeful Justice or RTC Restorative Justice?

I have to put up a caveat: this is my personal opinion as a writer and blogger. It is not Pakatan’s official position.

PM Najib spoke about national reconciliation in parliament. Yes- he is becoming quite well known for coining big slogans. He started with all the GTP, ETP, EPP, NKRA, PDP etc. it must have become an addiction.

Now is National Reconciliation. Unfortunately his people in parliament take the National Reconciliation proposal as a means to do a Nuremberg kind of justice. Impose the victor’s justice on the opposition representing 51% of the voting population. Move on means accepting BN victory and be quiet about it and allow the winner do what it pleases.

This time, Najib needs help from the opposition to ensure that his National Reconciliation isn’t turned into another of his useless slogans. We are 89 strong.

He has only given but one precondition- that the results of GE 13 must be accepted by everyone. My reading of this is that he is willing to sit down and sort out contentious issues and to engage the opposition to hear out matters they feel strongly about.  

I think we should engage him. But then he has to offer something in return. Is he offering us a victor’s justice/ the Nuremberg kind of Justice?

Most of us know what Nuremberg represented. It represented retributive justice. A court of justice was established by the victorious allies to try Nazi war criminals and other German military leaders after the 2^nd world war. The allies called it de-nazification. Most of those tried were sentenced to death. It was justice imposed by the victors which was retaliatory and revengeful in nature.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission otherwise known as the TRC method, is a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. To restore as much as possible the loss by victims by making the perpetrators of wrongs compensate by reparation. In exchange, the perpetrator gets amnesty. Not all, only the deserving ones cleared by the commission.  Its objective is to get restorative justice.

The Najib government of course hasn’t done any crimes against humanity. We have no war criminals to prosecute. We don’t have the African Apartheid system. We didn’t fight on any of those issues.

We fought for a reformation of the election commission. We fought for electoral reforms. We fought against corruption, mis-governance to replace with good governance, we fought for more democracy and we fought for an end to race politics in Malaysia. We fought for integrity, accountability and adherence to the rule of law. These are the noble objectives said out in the King’s Speech at the opening session of the current parliament.

And So Najib wants to offer us which? The victor’s Nuremberg justice or the TRC restorative justice?

 Personally I have said and still maintain, Najib is a fairly decent fellow. That concession given will not stop me from believing through personal knowledge, that as a leader, Najib is a dud. But if more people believe in him, there is nothing I can do other than sticking to my conviction about the leadership qualities of Najib. I can’t help those who get wet dreams when describing and extolling the virtues of Najib as PM.

Despite my own feelings, I think Najib has some sense of morality and I would therefore think, he wants to choose restorative justice. But he first has to tackle the bigots and the right wing elements within his group. From the belligerent and one-sided demands of BN backbenchers, its clear, what they mean by reconciliation is the Nuremberg kind of Justice.  Meaning, we move on by being subservient in exchange of whatever concessions are given at the pleasure of the victorious party.

Actually Najib does not have to offer any reconciliatory overtures. He won 133 seats and because we follow the first-past-the-post system, he has the right to form a government. He has legal legitimacy. The only reason he offers reconciliation is because he knows he hasn’t got moral legitimacy.   

As much as I dislike it, he is correct to demand his precondition. BN won and is the government. But whether we accept the manner by which they won the elections is a different matter. But equally also, however we feel about it, our feelings cannot alter the fact. BN won.

How do we overcome this impasse? If reconciliation is desired, then some sacrifices have to be made and given.  

And what elements of restorative justice do we want to put up for negotiation? Maybe top on the agenda is the restructuring of the election commission. Maybe a change in the manner funds is allocated to parliamentarians. The opposition needs funds to service their constituencies. It is simply not right for voters who voted in PR to be starved out of much needed funds. For those who are not aware, neither ADUN nor MPs hold funds personally. The funds are available through the District offices and various government departments.

Maybe get some justice on the issues the opposition fought for in the elections- that corrupt leaders are brought to justice and demanding they restore the wealth they have taken in return for amnesty. Reform of the electoral process. Establishment of a really bipartisan select committees having real oversight powers over so many areas. These are meaningful and worthwhile objectives worth striving for in exchange for willingness to accept the results of GE13.

The results were: BN got 133 seats and PR got 89 seats. Because it has the most number of seats, BN is the government.  I don’t think we can change this fact by illegitimate means. And by that I mean, we can’t change the government by way of rallies. And we don’t intend to use it that way- only BN makes propaganda material of these rallies. The rallies such as Black 505 are not meant to do that but are carried out to advertise to the public that the SPR was conspiratorial. It conspired with the incumbent to ensure the incumbent retains power.

We can only change through elections and however unpalatable it is, we have to wait for the next general elections.

Otherwise there will be anarchy. My own experience in the recent elections, by and large, the election officials manning the counting and polling stations were decent people. But I am suspicious of the supervising officers in dark suits hovering around at the counting and polling stations. Admittedly, unless I can prove any wrong doings, my suspicions remain at just that.

The objective of national reconciliation is to bring opposing sides of the political divide to sit down together, sort out differences and come to peace. The whole idea being, once differences are put aside, everyone can carry on to perform their respective roles. The government continues to carry out the business of government and the opposition carries out is duties provided by law, as his majesty’s opposition with all the respect and recognition due to it.