You lie, you die

They lie to millions of Malaysians without a tinge of regret and without any hesitation because money and political power give them the comfort they crave to make the lying easy.

COMMENT

In thy foul throat thou liest. – William Shakespeare, Richard III

Barisan Nasional is guilty of pushing the limits of what it does in government towards criminality. We have a prime minister who refuses to submit himself to the judiciary in order for the judiciary to establish his innocence or guilt in the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu.

He takes refuge in religion to swear his innocence. I think we have outgrown using religion to establish the innocence or guilt of murderers, child molesters, thieves and criminals.

We cannot allow our prime minister to use religion to swear his innocence of complicity in the blowing up of a Mongolian girl with C4 explosives.

We have witnessed many audacious behaviours by our political leaders who are prepared to stand solemnly in front of us with their hand on their heart and even, (God forbid!) in front of Allah, and lie.

They lie about their devotion to religion. They lie about their piety to their families. They lie about their “willing buyer willing seller” business deals. They lie about what they have done in government, lie about what they are doing in government and they lie about what they are going to do in government.

This is the norm of this BN government. Lying.

It promises to do things it cannot do. It promises to do things it will not do. All this it does because its God is money and political power, and whatever it needs to do to get money and political power, it will do.

The BN governments lies to millions of Malaysians without a tinge of regret and without any hesitation because money and political power give it the comfort it craves to make the lying easy.

There is a method to the lying. Where it excel itself is in telling us that it needs to lie because not to lie would endanger our national security.

National security covers a myriad of issues so wide-ranging and encompassing that there is no way that anyone can even begin to challenge BN when it invokes the “national security” threat.

Is it in reference to an imminent attack on our nation from Singapore, Indonesia or even China (delete whichever you think is not applicable)?

Or is it another comical attempt to keep under wraps the sweetheart independent power producer (IPP) deal between Tenaga Nasional Bhd and its cronies or the overly generous price paid for the latest negotiated purchases of Maggi Mee by the Malaysian Armed Forces? Your guess is as good as mine.

What I do know is that using this “national security” blanket as a camouflage has proven to be a financial and political bonanza for this BN government.

The next line of defence

Now if “national security” seems too far-fetched an argument to be used in lying about the progress (or lack of it) in the government’s investigations of corruption in high places or any other investigation, then race and religion becomes its next line of defence.

Race and religion are used in situations where the BN government knows that using any other excuses would allow too many questions to be asked by people who are a threat to our national security.

There is too fine a line drawn between “national security” of our country and the “vested interest” of BN. It is so fine a line that there really is no line at all. And there lies the audaciousness of the whole matter.

Lying by this BN government is endemic and systematic. It does it all the time; not on a need basis but all the effing time.

Maybe many of us are now getting used to all this lying, but every now and then they do test our patience when BN reaches out towards greater and more creative lies.

We are seeing this being played out with this Deepak Jaikishan saga – a comedy of gargantuan proportion already into its third or fourth act and still counting.

It would have been funnier if the millions this hapless Deepak is losing, or making, is his money, but this being Bolehland – as always – any money lost comes out of our pockets and any money made by Deepak also comes out of our pockets.

This is what you would call a “win win” situation for Deepak and a “lose lose” situation for the people.

The rule today is simple. If you lie to us you will not get our votes. If enough of us think this, then we will impose change on those that do lie to us while in government. You lie, you die. Amen.

‘The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.’ – Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.