Perilous ignorance

Under modern-day German laws, anyone glorifying Nazism including saluting Hitler, performing the Bellamy salute or posting the Swastika symbol, is seen as having committed a serious crime.

Imagine what would happen if Thomas Müller yelled “Long Live Hitler” after scoring a goal.

Under normal circumstances, he would immediately be sent off the pitch by his head coach and be put on the next plane home. He would become the target of media bashing the following morning, his family deeply humiliated. The DFB would bar him for life and his country’s chief prosecutor would come after him for criminal offence.

You might ask: Could it be this serious?

Very much so.

Germany under Adolf Hitler waged an offensive against his neighbours, sparking the Second World War which saw tens of millions of deaths in Europe, including 20 million from the Soviet Union and eight million from Germany itself. Many cities were razed to the ground and Western civilisation was almost wiped out.

Thanks to the racism and fascism advocated by the Nazis, almost six million Jews were exterminated as a direct consequence of rationalised hatred and violence. That was a complete flop of humanity and the worst tragedy the human race has seen.

The whole thing was singlehandedly created by Hitler and his followers, and put Germany in disgrace.

The only way the Germans could redeem themselves after the war was through a complete dissociation from Hitler and his Nazis.

In the decades that followed, any right-minded German would feel disgraced by Hitler, and any mention of him would put the country to shame.

And because of such a spirit, the Germans were able to experience a re-birth and stand up again in this world.

But our talented Bung Moktar has come up with such an innovative way of congratulating the German football team, arguing that he appreciated the team’s fighting spirit as on par with the dictator.

Not only would the Germans protest such indiscreet behaviour, our country might as well become an international laughing stock.

Najib’s clarification was meant to save the face of Malaysians.

As for his other statement that a country without effective leadership might end up like the Brazilian football team, to be honest, such comparison is by no means novel.

But since when did our prime minister come to the realisation that a leader needs to be effective and competent?

If our leaders were competent, then there would be no way for the “Allah” issue to tear our society apart and our religious officials would not be emboldened to do as they please. Also, our country would not have the controversies over the status of an Islamic state or a secular state; abductions in eastern Sabah would have stopped; extremists and opportunists would not have fearlessly fanned public emotions; and a very simple case such as the wrongful transfer of teachers would not have been repeated over and again.

Perhaps there is still a chance for the national team to make it to the FIFA World Cup finals, but a realisation on the part of Najib is not a bad thing, and would save the country from a 1-7 humiliating defeat.