Hartal, a word that can still shake the country

Students and lecturers of Universiti Malaya are expected to join in a hartal today, to protest the prosecution of law lecturer Azmi Sharom under the Sedition Act. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, September 10, 2014.The last time someone called for a “hartal” or a strike, it shut down Penang in November 1967. Twenty years earlier, the all-Malaya hartal shut down the whole Malay peninsula.

Shops, restaurants, cinemas and offices were closed. There were also no buses, lorries and taxis on the roads and no one showed up for work at ports, plantations and tin mines that formed the economic backbone of Malaya then.

Unlike a typical rally, a hartal, which is a Gujerati word signifying the closing down of businesses, rarely happens.

When it does, said political analyst Dr Wong Chin Huat (pic, right), the government and the wider public should take it as an alarming sign that a “crisis of legitimacy” is brewing.

In this case, it is the charging of law professor Dr Azmi Sharom of Universiti Malaya (UM) under the Sedition Act 1948 for his opinions concerning the Selangor menteri besar crisis.

The UM student union has called for a hartal today to protest Azmi’s prosecution.

A hartal, Wong explained, is more than just opting in or choosing to participate in an act of civil disobedience.

“Hartal is collectively ‘opting out’ from normal activities. It is therefore a higher form of civil disobedience.

“That is why it does not happen often and when it happens, the authorities and other players in society should take it as an alarming sign,” said Wong, who heads the political and social analysis section of the Penang Institute.

The Penang hartal of 1967, called by the Penang Labour Party, was to protest against the devaluation of the old currency by the administration of Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister.

According to a September 2013 article by Koay Su Lyn in FZ.com, the old currency’s devaluation brought more hardship at a time when the island was suffering from a recession.

In October 1947, the all-Malaya hartal was called by a multi-racial coalition of pro-independence groups to pressure the British colonial administration to give Malaya independence.

The hartal, which was documented in the landmark film “10 Days Before Merdeka”, was the culmination of a campaign by the Putera-AMCJA, a coalition of political parties, trade unions, youth and women’s groups.

According to the film by Fahmi Reza, the hartal was organised after the British refused to meet the coalition’s proposals for a new Federal Constitution.

The Putera-AMCJA “People’s Constitution” would have given political rights to Malayans and paved the way for a popularly elected government in a newly independent Malaya.

But the British, along with Malay rulers and Umno went ahead with their own Constitution which saw Malaya remaining a colony under British rule.

The British largely ignored the hartal, which arguably remains the biggest political demonstration the country has ever seen, and put in place their Constitution on February 1948.

Wong said the 1947 hartal did not work because the issue of nationhood and citizenship, divided the population along ethnic lines.

“While the organisers of the 1947 Hartal included the Malay Leftists represented by Putera, it was largely a non-Malay affair in town areas.

“Fearing more of losing the Malay support than the non-Malay support, the British ignored it,” said Wong.

Wong argued that a hartal in the current politically-charged, post-2008 tsunami environment could be different.

“Charging a law professor under the Sedition act for merely expressing his legal opinion shows complete cynicism and arrogance.

“What Merdeka are you talking about when even a law professor cannot talk freely about constitutionalism?

“From 1786 to 1957, for the whole of 171 years when British ran part or whole of Malaysia, no law professor has been charged for sharing his professional opinion.

“We were not free before 1957 and 1963 and become free after that, surely, some people out there will ask, what are you joking about?”

But just as significant is how Malaysians and the Malay community responds to this latest call for a hartal, said Wong

Unlike the 1947 hartal which was about gaining independence, this hartal is about fundamental rights and freedoms necessary for an independent nation to progress further.

“Umno-BN and its propaganda machine have brainwashed the Malay community that freedom of speech is bad for their interests.

“But will Malays today oppose - not just freedom of speech in general, but in the case of Azmi - academic freedom as they did Malayan Union some seven decades ago?

“This is the 21st century, how can any community or nation progress without even academic freedom?" he asked.

- TMI