All the Good Men

Watchmen's Dr Manhattan

One of the more famous Bonnie Tyler (those in my age range would probably know her) song goes:

“Where have all the good men gone and where are all the Gods?”

(While the second part of the lyrics might pricked some conscience in how blasphemous it is but I would like to believe Tyler was singing contextually.

The “Gods amongst Men” kind of statement.)

Tyler’s “I need a Hero” was the first thing that came to my mind when I read a story on Youth and Sports Minister Ismail Sabri Yaacob in the online edition of The Sun.

Quoting sources, the news reports cited: “The minister blew his top at one meeting and brought in the MACC to clean up the ministry” .

Through the years (!!) we’ve been fed with countless number of stories on the alleged (ahem..) excesses of certain politicians and their officials.

Of late, even juicier still were the alleged “cashploits” of a certain former Menteri Besar who - despite being less than brave to face up to the Committee which lead to the expose in the first place - has since come out with denials of ANY wrongdoings on his part.

Feeble is one of the more courteous word I can say to that.

Those of us reading such exposes hope in our hearts that something would be done to arrest acts of milking public funds and abuse of positions.

At the same time, though, we are resigned to the reality that most often a majority of these miscreants gets off scot free for a lack of action taken.

Ie. NFA = No further action.

The Sports Minister’s story – while unconfirmed – delighted me to no ends (and more so if it is confirmed) as it goes to show that there are still decent men (and women) whom the nation can still trust to do what is right and not let something as tenuous of political afflictions to hold them back.

We need a lot more “blowing of tops” so that the ball can get rolling for the country to get a head start in tackling the debilitating culture that okays short cuts aka corrupt practices since everyone is allegedly doing them.

The cost of doing things in Malaysia is rife with add-ons from this very culture: RM1,500 to get your child’s file for a school transfer to the top of the pile, RM500 to push the clerk to file the MB Consent for the transfer of deed faster, millions to buddy up with the local political warlord to get some contract works.

All these are hypothetical examples, of course, but as the hierarchy of authoritative powers goes up, so to would the “cost” involved getting things done or not done.

Ridding the nation of corruption is understandably a HUGE and almost impossible task but such steps would make corrupt practices the crimes that they are and not merely the additional cost of doing things that they're treated as.

Just because something is difficult to do doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give it a go.

I hope Ismail – if indeed the story is the unblemished truth – will be back in as a Cabinet Minister next week.

We need more who are not afraid of treading on the foot of their own colleagues and political "friends" to right wrongdoings.

The law of the land must be allowed to run its course to let the damned get their just dessert.

An aging Bats slugging it out in DC's Dark Knight Returns