Last week, the mother and daughter duo of Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid and Tengku Yasmin Natasha Tengku Abdul Rahman, who had mounted a constitutional challenge that nullified 16 provisions in Kelantan's syariah criminal laws, had complained that they have been receiving an endless number of death threats as a result.
“This morning when I woke up there were already people slamming me, one wrote ‘we’ll find these two (Nik Elin and daughter), we’ll burn their house, Allahuakbar!” Nik Elin said.
Nik Elin also has filed three police reports over the threats, including one that threatened to ‘slaughter’ her over her constitutional challenge.
If that is not enough, Yesterday ( Feb 12), Johor police chief, M Kumar, said he had received an email containing a bomb threat.
This came after earlier reports that three government agencies in Johor Bahru had received similar threats.
In criminology, the “broken window” theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.
According to the theory, if a window in a building is broken and is left unattended, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.
These death threats that Nik Elin and her daughter have received, as well as the bomb threat that government agencies and the police in Johor have received, are each like “broken windows”.
They are visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder. If these “broken windows” are not addressed, they will encourage further crime and disorder, which might even degenerate into cases of more serious crimes.
That we are seeing back-to-back cases of death threats and bomb threats being issued blatantly against government officials, is likely a sign that the people’s trust and respect in our laws, authority and institutions is being rapidly eroded.
People, as a rule, follow examples, not instructions, and examples are provided by leaders and those who are in the top positions.
If our leaders and top politicians continuously bend and break the law, while behaving as if they are smart and capable for being able to bend or break the law while getting away with it, why wouldn’t the people take after their example and do the same?
There is a reason why a law-abiding and civilized country is one that adheres to process, procedures and system, not only in letter, but also in spirit.
When everybody sees that everything in the country is running systematically according to established processes and procedures, they will work together with the system, which will in turn make the country civilized and cultured.
When people often see their leaders recklessly breaking or bending the system, and behaving as if they are smart and capable because they are capable of bending the system, then they will aim to prove to themselves and everyone that they too are smart and capable because they can bend and break the system.
It takes generations of good and virtuous leaders to establish a process, procedure and system that can inspire the confidence of the people to follow it, to the point that it brings peace, happiness and prosperity to the country.
The reign of one or two reckless and careless leaders, who believe that they are so special that they are not bound by any laws and procedures that governs everybody else, is often all it takes to bring down what took generations to build.
There is a limit to how many cases like Zahid Hamidi’s not one, or two, but 47 DNAA’s or Najib Razak’s partial pardon, despite the fact Najib has not even admitted his guilt, that the people can witness, before they start believing that only losers and weaklings are bound by the system.
When our leaders themselves, through their example, teach the people that to be a winner and a champion, you have to dare to break the system, then as sure as night follows the days, those amongst us who see themselves as winners and champions, will clamor to break the system.
We can only hope that our leadership will quickly wake up and realise the consequences of the bad example that they have been showing.
If they don’t wake up soon, and show by their example, that a winner and champion is one who is capable of abiding by the system, regardless of how difficult it is and how much sacrifice one must make to abide it, and if they keep showing us that a winner and a champion is one that is capable of breaking the system and getting away with it, like the “broken window” theory postulates, it is only a matter of time before we see more serious cases of criminal, antisocial and civil disorder occurring.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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