You Don’t Have to be Loyal to BN

 

It is because the Opposition has been strong since 2008 that the BN Government has been giving out BR1M; so the stronger the Opposition is, the more BR1M there will be.

Kee Thuan Chye 

I have a niece who is a government doctor, and recently she asked me a question that was most alarming: “Can we government servants vote against Barisan Nasional (BN)?”

“Of course!” I replied.

Her fear was that if she did not vote for BN, she would be deemed disloyal to the Government. But this is not so.

BN is only the government of the day. It is the officer in charge that takes care of the affairs of the country because they were voted in to do so. They do not represent “the Government” in its eternal sense. Neither do they represent “the country”. BN and the country are not one and the same.

If BN is perceived to be doing a poor job of running the affairs of the country, it can be replaced by another coalition with the hope that the latter can do a better job.

Also, if BN is perceived to have been corrupt and making money for its own officers rather than taking care of the interests of the country, it should be replaced.

There is therefore no such thing as disloyalty to the Government.

In fact, by not voting against a government that is corrupt, the voter shows disloyalty to the country. And that is far, far worse.

To quote the American political activist and author Thomas Paine: “The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”

We should do this on a daily basis, as part of civil society, if we want to be responsible for ensuring that the administration of our country is properly maintained, and many of us do. And apart from that, once every five years, we get to do it through voting.

In this regard, I would like to address what a Facebook friend has asked me to – the issue of his fellow Indians who are now saying they cannot vote against BN because they have received the BR1M money of RM500. He said they feel they have to remain loyal to the coalition because they have benefitted from its handout.

To this, I have to say that the Indians – and any Malaysians of any race, for that matter – need not feel that way. This is simply because the BR1M money does not come from BN. It comes from the taxes paid by the rakyat. It is the rakyat’s money. The Indian beneficiaries of BR1M, who must also be tax-payers in one form or another, are getting back their own money.

I hope they will not be fooled by BN’s ploy to make it look like the coalition is being generous and helpful and considerate of the less fortunate.

Read more at: http://my.news.yahoo.com/blogs/bull-bashing/don-t-loyal-bn-080621548.html