Don’t fret, Guan Eng, they’re not after your mother. It’s just bad karma

Raggie Jessy

Principles of causality are nothing new. For centuries, physicists have subscribed to the idea that every action, physical or incorporeal, effectuates a reaction. Likewise, religionists believe your fate to be consequential to your past actions or deeds (or inactions or misdeeds). From day one, they cerebrated on causality from a metaphysical and retributive sense.

That is to say, if you murder someone, you deserve to die. Or, if you were to traumatize someone, you will be traumatized, one way or the other. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. In Buddhism, we call this Karma.

Having cleared that up, let us move on to misdeeds and inactions that have reduced Rosmah to a laughing stock within opposition friendly media circles.

Social media wordsmiths have spun incredible yarns over issues that range from her innocent associations to her whereabouts. They’ve inked miles and miles worth of political claptrap, likening her to the dregs of society. But then, writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders. You give them a column, and they’d turn Mother Teressa into Lim Guan Eng, because between the pen and the paper, you’ll find the devil who works idle hands.

Opposition friendly media never had it so good. They’re raking in numbers with cockeyed editorials and malicious journalism, sparing no expense in taking the piss out of her. Give them a pen, and that’s all it takes; they’d get cracking before you could bat an eyelid. I’d wager a good deal of bucks on them taking digs at the next PM’s wife, anytime. But they’re not done with Rosmah just yet, so let’s not jump the gun.

A trial hinged on insinuation and supposition, there really has been nothing substantive offered to validate claims against her, much less proven. But hardcore dissidents have already inhaled tons and tons of hot air in the span of years. That is to say, the media has been on a blitz to do Najib in, with shoddy editorials geared to satiate desires for scandalous reporting. Little by little, lies spread over the years have been taken gospel by haters, who are all too willing to commute Rosmah with a monkey. And as far as the opposition friendly media goes, they have a monkey on their leash.

Therein the conclusion; media editors and pundits have engaged in a series of misdeeds that have reduced the Prime Minister’s wife to Aunt Sally. And they’re having a field day at it.

So it is no surprise that people remember Rosmah when hell breaks loose. So much so, that I’m surprised nobody blamed Rosmah for the plummet in oil prices. Heck, they may begin blaming her for the extinction of dinosaurs, because in Malaysia, we blame the PM’s wife for everything under the sun. And when Korean singers hug tudung clad girls onstage, we simply tug Rosmah to their rescue.

That’s right; things pretty much squared off, since she once hugged Chong Wei after a badminton match. Now, all we have to do is to publically prosecute whoever or whatever, by telling them to arrest Rosmah as well. It does not matter if these incidents are as different as night and day. We simply rope Rosmah in, because as far as the opposition charged media is concerned, two Wong’s make a right.

Let me explain myself here. In Penang, Guan Eng believes in the rule of numbers. He must, since he helms the ‘Democratic Action Party’, where arithmetic presumably circumscribes right from wrong. It should, because Guan Eng purportedly abides by a ‘CAT’ policy.

Thus, if you had two Wong’s saying ‘cat’ and one saying ‘dog’, the cat would evidently have its way, because democratic arithmetic is all about the rule of numbers, the majority. And this is precisely why Guan Eng never came to Rosmah’s defence despite the years of cockeyed journalism against her favour. You see, he’s all for cats, one way or the other.

So it didn’t matter to him when the opposition charged media made a monkey out of Rosmah. He’s not about monkeys. He’s about cats. His apparently tacit approval for ‘Rosmah-bashing’ editorials probably stemmed from his allegiance to the CAT rule and his propensity for democratic arithmetic.

Thus,inaction on his part (and that of Hadi, Anwar and Kit Siang) may have contributed to the escalation in Rosmah-bashing editorials within opposition friendly media circles. Having let that cat out of the bag, let us move on to an issue Guan Eng seems to be losing sleep over.

Now, he certainly was foaming when the media passed strictures against his wife, who was accused of being appointed to a position in the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerse (PCCC). In an apparent fit of rage, Guan Eng was quoted as saying, “Previously it was my son. Now it’s my wife. Will they go after my mother next?”

That really depends, Guan Eng. Is she a diva? If she is, then yeah, my guess would be that the media would, because it would make for sensational reporting and draw in numbers. But she obviously isn’t a diva. So unless she’s been up to something that the media construes to be ‘reader-worthy’, they’re not likely to go after your mother.

“Why use this small issue to hurt her? Even after she has rejected the appointment, it continues to be an issue. I’m not amused by it,” he was quoted further as saying.

Well, Guan Eng, what can I say? It seems that you either missed a very crucial point here, or are simply dismissing it; nobody really gives two hoots if she rejected the post or otherwise. What concerns many is the fact that she was offered the post in the first place. I’m pretty sure that opposition circles would have politically and publically ‘murdered’ BN politicians should the tables have been turned.

Perhaps you ought to take a lesson or two from Najib. He remains unfazed, despite it being his wife who’s been reduced to a media monkey. Apparently, he believes in the rule of numbers more than you do, which allows the majority to take digs at his wife, so long as things don’t cross insidious or seditious thresholds.

Rest assured, your wife has willingly or unwillingly gotten herself entangled in an issue that appears to be media-worthy. Live with it, like you did all these years when Rosmah got dissected and dressed with applesauce by an opposition friendly media. It’s probably bad karma arising from your inaction, because, as we Buddhists believe, what goes around must come around.