The False Dawn
This government
is fast losing credibility in my eyes.
It wasn’t very
many years ago, in the last general elections, when the current regime swept
into power with a huge mandate. The feel good factor was palpable, even
someone who is overseas such as me felt that ‘winds of change’ blowing. After
20 odd years of Mahathirism, with its many strengths and also many weaknesses,
the rakyat was ready for a change.
“I am the prime
minister of all Malaysian,” says the PM, in front of a congregation of bishops
and priests. That bought me to his side, here was this man he genuinely seemed
to be a clean, pleasant leader whom you could trust. And he wanted to bring the
country to greater heights. And so we placed our trust in him, and we asked him
to show the way.
We saw purgatory
of sorts, a flushing of the corruption, so it seemed. Big names were punished
for their alleged corruptions, and we thought “This guy means business!”. The
media looked to have loosened its governmental control somewhat and it seemed that
we have more freedom to speak our minds.
But those days
seem long gone. Slowly but surely, this government began to reveal its obvious
deficiencies. The promises made not so long ago seemed empty. What we have now
is a government with different personnel than the last regime, but very much
having the same mentality. ‘Winds of change’ now looks more like a breeze.
A stagnating
economy. Rising prices. Racial politics. Further debaucherization of the
judiciary. Regression in national unity. Arrogant governance. Wanton violation
of human rights. Widespread corruption. All elements associated with this
government like a slap in the face of everyone who believed in this false dawn.
What frustrates
me most about this regime is the double standards and hypocrisy that it
partakes in. During last year’s UMNO general elections, I saw and heard some
very racist and offensive remarks being made, and even an incitement to murder
or two. Yet, no one from the ruling party came forward and admitted as much and
what galled me even more was the same people who uttered those remarks can
actually ‘warn’ people not to use racial issues to gain leverage!
Similarly, I
remembered a year or two ago when a certain Ms. Rice came to Malaysia, a great
big ruckus was kicked up in protest, lead of course by UMNO members. No mention
of a police permit was even uttered. But today, five lawyers were charged in
court for walking in conjunction with Human Rights Day. The reason? No police
permit.
If this
government was supposed to be better, why do we still have people like
Baddarudin Amiruddin who uses the word keling in Parliament and makes
jokes about tunnels under women’s skirts. Why do we have Bung Mokhtar Rudin and
the Jasin MP making sexist jokes about ‘leaking’? Why do we have the Parit
Sulong MP, who recently claimed that ex-missionary schools like La Salle and
Methodist are funded by the Vatican and forces its students to sing church hymns.
And most of
all, why do we still have Mr. Nazri Aziz? This thug, this uncouth and barbaric
person, who is very much intellectually limited has been the bane of everyone’s
existence this past few months. He acts like he owns the country, he speaks
without thinking and he is the very epitome of what is wrong with the current
government. But it seems that we have to entertain him for a very long time.
What about
trying to weed out corruption? We fell some places in the recent corruption
index. I still hear stories of widespread corruption in government departments.
The police still agree to accept an RM50 under your driving licence. The
Auditor General’s report, whilst going some ways to show that the government
does some good things, also shows the extant of corruption in the ministries.
In a few months
time, the inevitable will happen; oil prices will increase. So too, will every
other thing under the sun. The civil servant salary increase, despite long
overdue, seemed to be a ‘softening of the blow’ of sorts.
To me, the feel
good factor permeating all over the nation in the last general election has
long dissipated. What is left is a feeling of frustration and anger at a
government who supposed to rule with the heart, yet instead choose to rule with
arrogance. A government who seemed to think that it is invincible.
What happened
to those lawyers yesterday proved to me that it has lost the plot. I fail to
see how a walk to commemorate human rights could possible be a threat to
national security. The government’s handling of the protests in the streets of
KL so far has been poor, and Sunday’s event was the last straw for me.
In some ways, I
am disappointed that I wasn’t one of the five. Actually, I’m even more
disappointed that I wasn’t even there for the walk. Would I have gone? Maybe
not, many factors pull me not to go, chief amongst them is not wanting to make
my parents worry.
So what can I
do, if I can’t overtly show my dissatisfaction? I might not be able to walk and
protest, but heck if I don’t at least express my opinions on the net. Will it
get me into trouble? I hope not, but if the government was to detain every
single user in cyberspace that is dissatisfied with it, there will not be
enough prisons to contain all of them.
And there is
another thing that I can do, and what we all can do. We can exercise our
constitutional right in the next general election.
