MANY years ago, I was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt at a rally near Parliament. A special branch officer approached me and asked me whose portrait was it as he has seen it many times.

I told him, he is an actor. The policeman immediately said “no wonder-lah so familiar” because he has seen it football matches and in the theatres.

Yes, Che Guevara poster was portrayed in theatres for the movie Motorcycle diaries. Che has been a symbol of liberation and resistance. He was killed in Bolivia under instruction from the CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency).

Klang restaurant raid

After hearing the news of the restaurant manager arrested for using food and beverage utensils featuring images of Mao Zedong the former leader of the Chinese Communist party, I was baffled that I was let go of wearing a t-shirt of another left leader. I am sure the police would be now busy Googling about Che Guevara.

In fact, our second Prime Minister Tun Razak Hussein went to meet Mao in 1974 and that poster of their meeting was used widely by the newly minted Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 1974 General Election to gain support of the Malaysian Chinese after the Alliance Party having lost a two-third majority in the 1969 election.

It was reported that during the Klang raid, Police seized five white ceramic bowls bearing Chinese inscriptions and Mao’s images along with his associates.

It was barely two weeks ago that the government lost the suite for seizing 172 Swatch watches from outlets in 11 shopping malls in May 2023, purportedly for promoting LGBTQ.

The follows the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling that the Home Ministry should return the 172 rainbow-themed watches after finding that they had been seized illegally.

Don’t the authorities know that the best way people learn about an ideology is through the internet and social media? Now by ‘promoting’ Mao, I am sure many young people who have not heard about him will Google and find out.

Never learnt its lesson

Similarly In 2011, police said that 31 PSM (Parti Sosialis Malaysia) activists were arrested and was charged with ‘waging war against the King’ based on police findings that the group was trying to resurrect Communism in the country.

The report also said that the police seized t-shirts printed with the names among others of Rashid Maidin and Suriani Abdullah, all of whom are linked to the MCP (Malaysian Communist Party).

But the real reason was at that time, PSM had just embarked on a campaign called “Udah La Tu Bersaralah BN” roadshow which started on June 24, 2011 as part of a build up to the upcoming Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9 that year.

Six PSM leaders were arrested later under the Emergency Ordinance (EO) for being “movers” of Bersih 2.0 and not for any communist leanings. Not a single word about communism, socialism or Chin Peng appeared in the Government’s 37 affidavits served in reply to the habeas corpus application by the detainees.

Later, all PSM members were released. Good for PSM, we took a civil suit against 82 individuals for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment of the E06 and were compensated RM201,000 in damages in an out of court settlement in 2013.

The lesson from this is that the shop owner will be able to take a civil suit and perhaps come out even richer. After all, the Attorney-General (AG) can only charge them for something else other than promoting communism while it would give some good publicity for those who have no clue who Mao is.

And yes, more of taxpayers’ money and police resources will be wasted. – Dec 6, 2024

S. Arutchelvan is the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) deputy chairman. 

https://focusmalaysia.my/who-is-promoting-communism-in-malaysia/