What a (mis)adventure

Nevertheless, only the good die young, as the saying goes. So this offers us very little incentive to be good. Anyway, as Marilyn Monroe said, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls have all the fun.” So give me a bad girl over a good girl any time because the good girl would most probably be already dead and making love to a corpse is no fun as many Malaysians married for more than 50 years to the same woman would be able to tell you.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Misadventure comes from the old English word, misaventure, which in turn comes from the old French word, mesaventure, which means an instance of misfortune or a mishap. In law, this would translate to accidental death not due to any crime or negligence.

I am raising this because it appears that many readers do not understand the meaning of the verdict by Coroner Aizatul Akmal Maharanion regarding the death of Selangor Customs Department assistant director, Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed.

This simply means, in short, no one can explain his death and since the CCTV recordings have been mysteriously erased -- and no one seems to know how that happened -- then no further investigation can be made as to whether there was any foul play involved.

All we do know is that Ahmad Sarbaini died. Of course, you do not have to be a Coroner or doctor to figure that one out. And we all know that the cause of death was because the deceased stopped breathing. Again, you do not have to be a Coroner or doctor to figure that one out. Most people stop breathing when they die. Only a very few Malaysians are still breathing although we can consider them dead and wish they would quickly stop breathing so that we can send them to their graves without further delay.

Nevertheless, only the good die young, as the saying goes. So this offers us very little incentive to be good. Anyway, as Marilyn Monroe said, “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls have all the fun.” So give me a bad girl over a good girl any time because the good girl would most probably be already dead and making love to a corpse is no fun as many Malaysians married for more than 50 years to the same woman would be able to tell you.

And this poses a serious problem for the proposal by PAS to introduce the Islamic law of Hudud to Malaysia. Certainly, the severe punishment under those laws would make everyone become good. And this would mean many, if not most, Malaysians would die young.

Now, the civil servants are asking the government to increase the retirement age to 60. Judges, who now retire at 65, would probably also want their retirement age increased to, say, 75. Considering that even at 85 our mind is still sharp -- as proven by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who still thinks and talks like the much younger Ibrahim Ali -- this makes sense. Age 56 or 58 is too young to retire. Hey, I will be 61 tomorrow and I still think like I am 21, although most of the time it is sex that I am thinking about.

Anyway, the fact that judges can still sit on the bench until they are 65 or 70 and have not died yet can only mean that most judges are bad and that there are no good judges. If they were good judges then they would not be alive any longer since only the good die young and the bad continue to breathe, walk and talk, though most times it is talking cock.

I know, at this point, most of you will whack Dr Mahathir and quote him as a good example of my prognosis above. And in the same breath you will also whack me and allege that I am a Mahathir lover. Never mind, whack on. Malaysia Today does, after all, practice freedom of expression, even the freedom to whack me.

I know you feel that Dr Mahathir is ‘interfering’ in the running of the country and that he should lay off since he has already retired as Prime Minister eight years ago. But you must understand, Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister for 22 years, and with the vast knowledge that he has, what is the problem with him sharing his experience with younger leaders like Najib Tun Razak? Singapore, too, had its Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew. So what’s wrong if Malaysia has a Minister Tormentor? That made Singapore great so maybe this will make Malaysia great as well.

You must understand, under Dr Mahathir, Malaysia set many world records. Now that Dr Mahathir is no longer the leader, we have lost out on many things.

We used to have the tallest tower, the longest bridge, the first national car in the world to be manufactured entirely using Japanese components, the first car to be parachuted into the North Pole (or was it the South Pole?), the first car attempted to be driven in the North Pole (or was it the South Pole) with the engine oil frozen solid, the first country outside India to have an Indian Prime Minister, the first country in the world to have an Indian Muslim Prime Minister, the first country after Nazi Germany to sack its Deputy on allegations of sodomy, and so on and so forth.

Since Dr Mahathir left office, what has Malaysia achieved and what new world records have we set other than the first country in the world to have a husband and wife team as the joint-Prime Minister?

Honestly, Dr Mahathir may have his faults, but he did also put Malaysia onto the world map. In the past, say back in the 1970s, very few people knew where Malaysia is located on the world map. I used to have to tell people, “You know Bangkok?” and the answer would of course be ‘yes’. Everyone knows Bangkok. That is where you go to bang…well, you know what.

Then I ask them, “You know Singapore?” And of course everyone knows Singapore as well. Singapore is a fine city. They fine you for everything, even for chewing gum.

Then I tell them: well, Malaysia is sandwiched in between Bangkok and Singapore. “Ah!” they say. Now they know where Malaysia is.

My relatives on my mother’s side used to think we live in houses on stilts in Malaysia. This is because, soon after WWII, one of my uncles, who was in the Royal Navy, landed in Pulau Ketam off Port Kelang and he thought that the whole of Malaysia was built on stilts. It took a long time before they realised that Malaysia is not built on stilts but on a pack of cards. What surprised them even more is to see that the pack of cards has not fallen yet although other superpowers like Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc., what we call PIGS, are crumbling even as we speak. That should be proof enough that khinzir is haram in case you Islam-bashers in Malaysia Today still want to argue that there is nothing wrong with pork.

Anyway, I am digressing from the topic of the day, which is death by misadventure. Okay, in case many of you still do not get it, let me explain it this way.

If, in a moment of weakness, I find myself in Rosmah’s bed, and realising that this is a fate worse than death, I take Najib’s gun and shoot myself in the head. That would be suicide.

If Najib comes home and finds me in Rosmah’s bed and he gets angry and shoots me dead, that would be murder.

If Najib comes home and finds me in Rosmah’s bed and he gets angry and shoots me but accidentally hits and kills Rosmah instead, that would be manslaughter.

If Najib comes home and finds me in Rosmah’s bed and he laughs so much at seeing something so ridiculous, and then when he slaps his thigh during a moment of uncontrollable laughter his gun accidentally goes off and the bullet hits and kills me, that would be death by misadventure.

I trust now you can comprehend the Coroner’s ruling on how Ahmad Sarbaini died.