Treasonous Ingrates

During the course of an FB chat, a friend asks for my comments on a former reporter colleague’s posting of choosing between peace and prosperity, or freedom, rights, integrity and transparency.

In the Malaysian context, this is supposedly a Hobson’s choice.

As it was close to midnight, I yammered some incomprehensible reply before logging off but an article on the massacre of 57 people, including 31 journalists, on a November morningthree years ago in Maguindanao got me thinking again on the question.

Yes, we have been blessed with relative – the main blemish being the May 13, 1969 riots - peace and prosperity throughout the 54 years of the nation’s existence.

Why couldn’t we, then, put in place principles that upholds one's freedom and rights, governing integrity and transparency – and if I may add – moral and ethics into the way we administer the country?

Can’t we have both? What is it about the latter that is so threatening to the former that co-existence is supposedly impossible?

We are not talking about unbridled freedom and rights but in the context of the proper adherence to the Rule of Law; i.e. where EVERYONE knows exactly where the boundary lies and the penalties for transgressing this line.

Realistically, it is here that we have been found wanting for quite a while now with seemingly two sets of rules being in play: one for the politically favoured and, another, for the rest of us.

That, and the seeming politically-expedient way of our execution of some laws: the most recent being the charging of a Border’s bookstore staff over the banned Irshad Manji’s book.

At least, there is a Judicial Review on the matter.

The retroactive nature of the alleged offence and the seriousness of its outcome (for the staff’s livelihood and freedom) means that there shouldn’t be any other way forward than to contest the charge brought against her under the Syariah Enactment.

So, can it be argued that the Rule of Law is alive and well as such?

Before we come to the said conclusion, do remember that Borders is owned by Berjaya Books and in Malaysia, Berjaya is a biggie.

There shouldn’t have been a charging in the first place had the Rule of Law really been adhered to.

All things said, I have to admit that the country is a relatively peaceful place to live and work in.

Not necessarily play, though, (pun intended) – what with the, ahem, increased perception of lawlessness apparent amongst some of the populace.

What is also true, however, is that some of the natives are restless; a sentiment simmering just below the all-glossy,shiny surface of the nation’s peace and prosperity facade.

Restless over perceived and actual bias in the implementation of national policies, over the seemingly accepted culture of rent seeking as a valid method of earning a living, over a more apparent division of class on top of the already well entrenched polarization of race, over the increasingly burdensome chase of economic over social well being…

Perhaps these are just the middle class / urban suburban / Gen X manic responses to the crushing economic malaise of late.

Or mere ravings of the disgruntled, treasonous ingrates as purported by some of our politicians.

Sadly, the peace we’ve held for so long did not see the putting into place a system of governance where such grievances could have been amicably tackled.

I’ve often asked this question: how and when did the country go off tangent in its nation-building to come to this sad state?

When did we make peace and prosperity, and governance, rights, integrity and transparency a Hobson’s Choice?

To some, this was when the Doctor was in the house.

Was it? Why did we let it be so?

Did we want our people to be forever in hand outstretched for crumbs mode?

The Tyranny of Thanos the Titan

Visionary Templates

Off and on, the Sun provides some really thought-provoking pieces such as this latest nugget from Halimah Mohd Said on reviving the Vision School concept.

 

Among others, she said: “We are too far gone into vernacular education to realise after more than half a century that it has not served national unity and integration well.”   

Halimah (Datin?) is worried over growing divisiveness of a national education system trying to accommodate three different streams replete with their very own linguistic and cultural exclusiveness.

(Digressing a bit but perhaps she should also include a fourth stream which has come out strongly over the last few years in the form of the sekolah pondok type of schools, some of which feature integrated syllabus, and offering far more exclusivity than even the vernacular schools can profess to offer.)

I echo Halimah’s thoughts in the urgent need to bring the diverging schools system together and for the time being, it does look that the Vision School concept is the most viable solution we have.

It is important for the children to be allowed to open up and learn the hotch potch in race, religion and culture “real time” rather than what they could theoretically gain from books.

In book form, such differences can come out very cold and technical. Boring is an apt phrase to be used.

Worse still, things come out all black and white with no grayscale allowed perpetuating an “Us and Them” mentality right from the start.

You’d have to wonder why the concept never did gain the kind of wide acceptance and strong political support it should rightly garner given the national unity objective that it carries.

I would venture that the main problem lie with our inability to do away with the racial distinctions of being Chinese, Ibans, Indians, Malays, Muruts, Sikhs etc etc etc instead of identifying ourselves first and foremost as Malaysians.

50 plus years of independence and we still identify our schools on the basis of their purported main language of use: Malay, Chinese and Tamil.

Throw into the mix with the newer streams in Sekolah Tahfiz – with its predominant Islamic-based syllabus – and the elitist community based International schools – predominant English speaking - and we have a potent divisive foundation on racial, linguistic and class lines all set up for the future.

Is this the kind of future we are offering our kids?

It is time that the education reformists take the Vision School concept a step further than the mere sharing of grounds, facilities and resources.

No: the Vision School should be a sharing of ideals and principles.

Not “You”, not “Me”, but “We” as in “We” are in this together.

And the government should not be put off by the wholly Malaysians’ Malaysia philosophy behind this.

For God’s sakes, can we chuck racial politics out the window for once?

God knows the haste in the need to set up the correct foundation before we all go down six feet under and leaving our legacy of a divisive education system for decades to come.

Gleeful Convictions

Its midday and at lunch, someone stifled a chuckle
Trembling bright pink lips which end forms a crinkle
Staring at her Tablet whilst waiting for her burger with pickles
Reading something with a rumbumptious sparkle

A stranger curious sneaked a peek at what she’s read
Must have spied something as forehead he slapped
Off he sidled joining his friends, his chaps
Questioning looks, worrying of inanity relapse

From the corner a guffaw boomed
Next to the door that leads to the restroom
A young couple waiting to be bride and groom
In a world increasingly growing in gloom and doom

Table after table the laughter spreads
A news flash seriously solemnly read
Some straining so hard their faces turned red
Tickled silly everyone looking like boneheads

It’s not only here the laughing rang loud
Everywhere it seems, wherever there is a crowd
Watching, listening or something thereabouts
Whatever joke played, it was a total knockout

Heard the word revolutionary, freedom and assembly
A jumble of phrases spoken with great conviction and dignity
Oxymoron stuff so funny so jokey and gaiety aplenty
Alas the man is serious and not talking cockamamie

He is serious and not talking cockamamie
And once the laughter dies, thus we’ll see
Whatever reform has been decreed
Strings all attached, nothing’s free

Nothing comes free…

Gluttonic Tendencies

“We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.

That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.”

This was written by NYTimes columnist Bob Herbert in his commentary aptly titled: Safety Nets for the Rich.

BH spoke of the amazing dichotomy, and incredulous imbalance, in the multibillions in bonuses for Wall Street bankers and the straight jacketed American public, faced with keeping their day job intact even as the country’s deficit grows to US$1.4 trillion.

That is a huge sum in deficit to be covered.

Probably the US would be able to ride their deficit storm, but the longer its economy remains in the doldrums, this figure would continue growing.

What is Uncle Sam to do?

What else but what it does best: send out young Americans to far-away land to fight the good fight for democracy.

I digress, but this posting is not about the US of A.

According to BH (Bob Herbert, not Berita Harian), two-thirds of all the income gains from the years 2002 to 2007 went to the top 1 percent of Americans.

I’m wondering what the percentage is like for our country.

A country will probably prosper if the middle class (in terms of income) is the biggest of its population segment simply for the fact that it would relieve the state from the burden of socialism, which is the reality of subsidies anyway.

State handouts should be restricted only for the poor and hard core poor segment in a country.

Given a scenario where there is fair distribution in wealth – which meant that the poor and hard core poor will be fairly small in size – there should then be an equally fairly equitable distribution in the variety of levels of services.

Far too Utopian a scenario?

Perhaps, but shouldn’t it be the kind of future we should be looking at?

Tun Dr Mahathir was a firm believer of the trickling down theory, whereby the giving of a select few of gargantuan amounts in opportunities to grow and become wealthy would help kick start the downstream effect.

Didn’t work, as the Statesman missed out on the strength of one of mankind’s seven sins: gluttony.

What we got was a suppressed labor market where the wage levels in the 1990s and in 2008 remains pretty much the same plus or minus a few Ringgits for the low paid income earners.

Looking at the many “revelations” from the Auditor General this year, the leaks in RMs that could have instead gone into the economy is same old same old.

(No convenient links here: they're all over the place.)

Old news really, as nothing came out from the AG’s revelations last year.

Surely we're not expecting anything else this year, are we?

Just like it was before, trust us to go about town with these, and watch the furor over what could well be criminality (at least for neglect) in the handling of public funds die a typical Malaysian style death.

Aren't we ever the forgive-full.

Like BH says: It’s one Big Fat (Blip)ing Fairy Tale Dream to be hoping for the hammer to fall on these miscreants.

Semuanya OK.

Whatever the (blip) that means.