Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Whither the Contrarian?

While Holy Ramadhan silently wings its away into its secondhalf, bizarre things have been happening in local blogosphere in the realm of so-po blogging. Warrior 231, that inimitable, inscrutable and indefatigible rascal, is in the news again for all the wrong reasons this side of the Rubicon.

To cut a long story short, W231 posted a contrarian take on the SA50 furore much to chagrin and indignation of the fawning rabble in PP. The end result was that Warrior was forced to adroitly parry a slew of verbal thrusts, opinuendoes, slander etc for daring to evince his independent views on the matter. The net result was a separate post in which the sly blogmaster called the rambuctious chamber to consider a motion to...wait.....ban warrior 231, omigosh! of in all places the selfstyled People's Parliament. : http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/ban-warrior-231-you-decide/

The very gumption of the motion send a cold chill through my spine as memories of my own unjust banning from the selfsame blog came flooding back. Back then, I had trenchantly stood by my view that the Holy Quran is beyond interpretation save by the Infallibles as per verse 7 Surah Ali Imran. Of course that ran counter to the prevailing viewpoint and I was assailed by an eclectic coterie of the erudite, journeymen, rogues and charlatans alike. Actually, I was quite enjoying the skirmish though quite a number of my comments were banned until the blogmaster instigated by panic and imbeciles decided to abruptly ban me while allowing others to tear me to shreds.

I gather that except for one lady, who will remain nameless and who had the epiphany to eventually understand my view and apologise, the other yahoos gnashed their chops in satisfaction of the kill and retreated yodeling into the jungle of their minds. The episode enlightened me to the fact that freedom of expression and the right to an opinion is a myth, mere platitudes, for when push comes to shove, the supposedly "...........I will die for your right to express them" groupies are more liable than not to sacrifice their promise at the altar of expediency and prepare the noose for the very person they once vouchsafed to defend.

The more troubling question is whether my minor banning, the motion to ban Warrior 231 are harbingers of things to come if a certain poltical mob seizes power via the ballot box, the street or jumping frogs. Things like thought pogroms ( to quote warrior 231), mind cleansing /deprogramming, demands for intellectual seppuku and the harakiri of inimical ideas and viewpoints and the usual stuff like media control, censorship (including the net), banning of publications...In short to put everyone in an opinion straightjacket policed by organisations like the Gestapo, Stasi and KGB a resurrection of the fading echoes of totalitarianism. The omens are not good as indications in this direction are already apparent in Penang and Selangor.

Though I have forgiven the Yahoos, accepted the lady's apologies and moved on to my own puny blog, I have not forgiven the blogmaster of PP for his wanton disregard of my rights and his manipulative scheming to get me banned. Lets hope. a similar fate does not befall W231 as he is being metaphorically prepared for a lynching by a mindless mob at the behest of you-know-who, the only saving grace being his "extermination" is being carried out on the front pages of a prominent blog and not hidden away in the bowels of an ultimately inconsequential thread of an equally inconsequential post.

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