IN 2014, Hannah Yeoh who is currently the Youth and Sports Minister published an autobiography entitled “Becoming Hannah: A Personal Journey” to describe her journey as an ordinary Malaysian woman whose life was transformed through her Christian faith which later led her into politics.
When former inspector-general of police (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan checked it out, he thought that Hannah had wanted “to make this country a Christian country” and told a forum what he thought.
Hannah sued Musa in 2020 for defamation over his allegation that she was trying to turn Malaysia into a Christian nation but her suit was dismissed by judicial commissioner Arziah Mohamed Apandi who ruled that “public figures must expect and tolerate robust criticism and debate about their public statements and activities”.
I heartily agree with the judge who further awarded Musa RM40,000 in cost for the speech he delivered at a Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) forum four years ago (he had already retired as IGP by then).
Even as Hannah will be bringing the case to the Court of Appeal to seek justice, it remains that you can say whatever you want but you cannot expect people to believe you or even understand you for that matter.
If Musa had misunderstood Hannah, so what? Misunderstanding someone is not a crime.
‘Free society’
You should only be able to sue somebody for criminal defamation if what they allege about you is a crime and you can only sue somebody for civil defamation if you actually lost something tangible, like your job or money because of their allegation.
If people allege you to have been involved in robbery or murder, that is criminal defamation because it is illegal to rob or commit murder.
If you lost your job or business because somebody alleged you to be something that you are not or doing something that you did not do, then I suppose you can sue them for civil defamation if you think they did it out of malice.
Other than that, you got to accept that people are free to understand you in whatever way that they understand you and say whatever it is that they understand about you regardless of whether you approve of it or not.
But if people are alleging that you want to make Malaysia a Christian country on the other hand, so what?
Afterall, is not illegal to want to make the country a Christian country even if that is not what you want. It is not as if Hannah lost her job or had investor pull out of her business ventures because of that either.
A free society is not a society where people will have to understand you exactly the way that you want to be understood.
As a matter of fact, it is only in a totalitarian state that you will get that kind of privilege and that too only if you manage to claw your way to the top.
In a free society, you must expect that people will misunderstand you, disrespect you or disdain you because that is what the human condition is all about.
In a free society, it is you who have to rise above the less appealing aspect of the human condition and not expect everybody around you to be turned into automatons just because you believe that it is your due that everybody sees you exactly the way that you want to be seen. – Dec 26, 2024
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main image credit: Kosmo; Hannah Yeoh/Facebook
