Declaring a state of emergency provides a means for dealing with events having some potential for depriving the government of its ability to protect the people from unusual and unlawful acts which threaten the continuation of an orderly governmental process. In the ordinary sense this refers to activities involving large numbers of people acting in loose concert, without regard for any violation of existing laws with provide for the peaceful security of all.

Desire for political change is often the cause of an emergency, with unruly crowds engaged in the destruction of property. The crowds tend to create an apprehension of harm, appearing to present some threat to the police and military. The new President of the Philippines declared a state of emergency to deal with large crowds having intent to enter the presidential palace and physically remove her from the premises. Her declaration was resented, and as soon as the threat ended, she was quick to remove the declared state of emergency. She demonstrated a sensitivity to democratic ideals.

A state of emergency allows the elected officials to assume extraordinary powers. The police and the military are instructed to invoke special laws reserved for use on such occasions. Martial law may be called, in which the military assumes temporary political control of the country until the emergency is deemed quelled.

The special laws severely abridge the normal rights of every ordinary citizen, and thus are dangerous to a democracy. The military, once in power, may find the role of leadership so comfortable that a restoration of the democracy is indefinitely delayed. The police, given such power, may be difficult to restrain. Opponents, once detained, represent a threat that must be indefinitely enchained.

Malaysia at the present time is in a state of emergency. It has been in a state of emergency for the entire time the prime minister has been in office. He likes it, and finds no inclination to remove it. An objective observer might note that the state of emergency is not the prerogative of the prime minister, but is reserved to the man who acts in the revolving role of king-for-a-day. The day for the sultan-now-king in Malaysia is five years long, but the state of emergency has been in continuous effect during the entire kingship of a number of them, so it must be that they are also comfortable with this sorry state of sinister affairs.

Every honest citizen feels the emergency is phony, unnecessary, and most feel it was declared illegally. When challenged, the judges sitting in Malaysia's courts have upheld it, to the distress and dismay of free men everywhere. They thus sanctify the repressive law that is sanctioned by it. Legal scholarship is tentative and tenuous in Malaysia's courts. A strong refresher in the hallowed halls of England's justice system is called for, to clear the fetid air, and restore health to this sickly inn.

A notable Malaysian law that becomes operative under a state of emergency is called the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows the prime minister to arrest you whenever he feels so inclined, and you will not see a lawyer or your family for the rest of your life. No evidence need be presented. No body of law is available to protect our rights. You just disappear into the torture chambers of the special branch, the butcher boys of the police force.

Those who have survived this ordeal report it as very unpleasant. The descriptions they provide are convincing, and one wonders at the depravity of men who engage in such sport for pay. The relatives of many state their loved ones are permanently disfigured in mental and psychological performance. To this the prime minister is tone deaf. The police dance dumbly to his tune, and it is a nasty note indeed. It is not known for certain if he studies the life of Idi Amin, but there is little he has missed of it. It is known he pays well, both to those who creep and cringe, and in different coin to those who dare to cross.

It is observed that the prime minister finds the company of fellow dictators a treat, and along with them, he hopes the deaths of the innocent will not mar the markings on his monument. He may be assured they yet have a voice. Even now they speak to him from the grave. He does not hear for now, but he shall, he shall.

The state of emergency in Malaysia is peculiar, in the sense that the various ministers and apologists of the party-in-power repeatedly state, as a point of pride, that Malaysia enjoys the English legal system. We need not debate the issue too deeply, just alluding lightly to the British contribution; to the various laws of Malaysia which were put into place during the period of colonial patriarchy.

The British fashioned the criminal code used in Malaysia after the famous criminal code drafted for India, and it is a very serviceable one. The men of Malaysia who have trained under English legal scholars in the great law schools of England (and Australia) have a keen understanding of the sense of fair play it embodies. The un-restricted rights of the king to rule over his subjects has been under attack since the Magna Carta was signed, over 700 years ago. Malaysia has managed to recover some of the king's initiatives.

Many of the finest minds of Malaysia have been trained in the English system. They know it well. They know it well enough to thoroughly subvert it. The state of emergency, which abridges the rights of their fellows, is defended by them. The torture and indefinite detention they find necessary to preserve stability and security for the majority. They have left their law books behind, to gather dust on the shelves of English soil.

Another form of dust accumulates in the mind and soul of those who daily ride the tiger, fearing to fall off; fearing to be found afoul of the fiend they fondle. They justify their role as rectifying the wrongs from within, doing as they may from day-to-day to prevent harsher crimes. Ambition is a thing of greed, not necessity. It is a thing of choice. Let none be confused at the motive, nor spare rebuke when the reckoning comes.

There is a state of emergency in Malaysia, and it is a fire raging in the minds of men struggling to make atonement for evils past. It is this torrent which threatens to tear asunder the torture tombs where injustice is meted out to both victim and tormentor.

There is a state of emergency in Malaysia, and the lines are sharply drawn between those who know a higher law of justice and those who dissemble while the good wives wring their hands and the children weep. Technology allows us to look upon their on-stage faces, to hear their voices, to look into their eyes, seeing clearly how the cancer of ambition has corroded the heart and soul of these weak would-be leaders.

They stand upright before the hall, gaudily gowned before the glare, gushing gibberish about honesty, truth, unity, and obedience to the creator of us all.

None travel far to see or hear such gall. It grabs in the gut.

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