MACC: damn this racist thing!
Last Sunday, I sat down with Eddie Ng and some friends at my Cheras neighbourhood coffee shop. Eddie is a local DAP official and a newly appointed Councillor to represent residents in our area in the city council.
Eddie had to step away on some errand. He does have a large and bulky frame, and as his huge back disappeared into the Pasar Malam crowd, my neighbour – an old man — asked me who he was. I told him Eddie was our newly minted local councillor.
The old man mused, “He is the next one to go into the MACC HQ.”
Without batting an eye lid, his wife beside him retorted, “Don’t worry about him. He is too large to lift up. Even if 4 or 5 men can lift him up, they won’t be able to squeeze him through the window!”
I almost died laughing.
This is the unique though slightly slanted sense of humour among ordinary Malaysians, making fun of even the grimmest, the most bizarre, and the most surreal of political anomalies. In that one simple spontaneous joke, the reputation and the moral authority of the MACC were sealed and buried in the hearts of the old couple. They are definitely not alone in Malaysia.
Humour is also a sort of redemption, especially from the rambunctious nauseating racist undertone polluting the Internet when discussions on the death of Teoh Bang Hock came up. Finally, the racist beast rears its ugly head in the mainstream media.
The net news portal The Malaysian Insider had the following story on July 20, 2009:
“Umno-controlled newspapers, Berita Harian and Mingguan Malaysia, today slammed critics for demonising the country’s graft-busters over Teoh Beng Hock’s death, with one suggesting there is an agenda to weaken Malay-controlled institutions.
Both newspapers accused the opposition of politicising the political secretary’s death on July 16, with Mingguan saying the federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) was using the incident to divert attention away from internal problems and weaknesses.
But Berita Harian suggested the agenda was to weaken Malay-controlled institutions in the article, “Kematian Teoh timbulkan pelbagai spekulasi politik”, written by the New Straits Times group managing editor Zainul Ariffin Isa.
He wrote that political opportunism can turn grief into political capital, and death can be made a catalyst to stoke anger and racial sentiments.”
Anybody with a nascent human sense of fairness and justice, especially inclusive Sarawakians and Sabahans, must cringe at this blatant ugly display of racist narrative.
