A nation on the brink of failure
With all the news we have been getting lately, many are wondering whether we are on the brink of becoming a failed nation.
Written by Stanley Koh, Free Malaysia Today
We can forgive the typical Malaysian his sneer and scepticism when he hears politicians promising change. We can even understand it if he has despaired that things will ever get better.
With all the news we have been getting lately, many are wondering whether we are on the brink of becoming a failed nation.
A policeman shoots a child dead. We are shocked, but then we remember that there have been many extrajudicial killings before and that, in many of the cases, there have been no closure for the victims’ families. The government sets up an independent panel to inquire into the latest shooting, and we are reminded of the royal panel that probed the VK Lingam tapes and got nowhere.
The government announces its intention to go for nuclear power. This scares us, because it is the same government that lost jet engines to thieves and the same government that spent millions of ringgit buying a submarine that had to be repaired before it could dive. Can the same government ensure the safety of a nuclear power plant?
A local warlord raises the spectre of another May 13, and we recall the kris wielding of the current home affairs minister and, before him, the current prime minister. We wonder if Umno will ever stop threatening racial violence every time it feels cornered. But we have no doubt that if clashes do happen, it is the opposition politicians who will be rounded up and imprisoned without trial.
Indeed, we have yet to see any evidence that those who have been ruling over us are capable of change.
To the Chinese community, the ruling regime is best described by two idiomatic expressions: “hu zuo fei wei” and “hu e bu quan” (literally, “acting wildly in defiance of moral law or public opinion” and “spending money like soil”).
Both characteristics are sustained by hypocrisy. We are told that 1Malaysia is a sort of road map leading towards a great sense of unity among Malaysians, that the project embraces everything that is good—a determination to wipe out corruption, a more open government, etcetera, etcetera.
So far, the fight against corruption seems more like a campaign to put opposition politicians behind bars. We may have to wait forever for the result of investigations into how Khir Toyo got the money to build his mansion, to name only one case.
