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Saturday, July 19, 2014

PAYBACK TIME FOR UMNO'S UNJUST POLICIES? MH17 - why are so many 'bad things' happening to Malaysia

PAYBACK TIME FOR UMNO'S UNJUST POLICIES? MH17 - why are so many 'bad things' happening to M'sia
KUALA LUMPUR—For years, Malaysia has sought to brand itself as "Truly Asia," an Asian Tiger that punched above its weight.
Now, as the country faces a new tragedy and fresh grief, it finds itself with a global identity that will be hard to shake—the nation of airline disasters.
Early Friday, Prime Minister Najib Razak addressed the media, in what was a sense of déjà vu for millions watching worldwide, and said: "This is a tragic day, in what has already been a tragic year, for Malaysia."
The back-to-back loss of two Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -11.11% aircraft this year—Flight 370 in March and now Flight 17 over Ukraine with a combined total of 537 people dead or missing—has stunned and saddened the nation. No one is suggesting that the loss of the two planes is connected, but many are left shaking their heads over the coincidence.
"It is hard not to ask, what is happening to us?" wrote former newspaper editor A Kadir Jasin on his blog Friday. "Why are we experiencing so many bad things and tragedies in rapid succession"
He added: "I am afraid many of us are becoming numb and are unable to show emotions anymore. Still our hearts and prayers go to families and loved ones of the passengers and crew of MH17."
Unprecedented 2 losses in 5 months
MH370
The devastation has prompted many Malaysians to question whether their luck has changed and has even shifted the worldview of some.
"I think people are still in shock," said public opinion pollster Ibrahim Suffian. "They are still trying to figure out how this happened. They have never experienced any natural disasters or tragedies such as this."
Losing two jetliners in less than five months is unprecedented for any major carrier. And the circumstances of each case have made their loss even more traumatic, especially as Malaysia Airlines has been a symbol of the nation itself.
Flight 370 was on its way to Beijing on March 8 with 239 aboard when it vanished. Investigators believe it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean but no trace of the plane has been found, and it is modern aviation's greatest mystery. The confusion and mishandling of the initial search under an intense international spotlight left Malaysia's global image bruised.
On Thursday, Flight 17 with 298 aboard was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine, where a civil war is raging between the government and Russian-backed separatists in the east, by a surface-to-air missile.
Neutrality
Oh Ei Sun, a Malaysian and senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Malaysia has long tried to find the middle ground and avoid taking sides in conflicts between major powers, such as the United States and Russia.
He said it is time for Malaysia to reconsider its policy of neutrality in global affairs.
"This incident demonstrates that whether we like it or not, tragedies will be imposed on us," he said. "We have tried to be friends with everybody, but when incidents like this happen, we can't help but think that sometimes we should be more discerning in evaluating who are our friends and who we can rely on."
Govt reliance on racial politics and religious bigotry to stay in power
The Southeast Asian country of 30 million people sits at the southern end of the Malay peninsula between Thailand and Singapore, as well as on the northern part of the island of Borneo. In the late 18th century, Britain established colonies on the peninsula, which were occupied by Japan in World War II. The peninsula achieved independence from Britain in 1957 and formed as the modern country of Malaysia in 1963.
Over the years, it has managed fraught race and religious relations, growing an economy from commodity-producing backwater to a high-tech workshop, and for a time was home to the world's tallest buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers.
Mr. Najib, who has been in office since 2009, has attempted to continue to diversify the country's economy toward services and tourism.
Mr. Najib's ruling party, which has been in power since independence, came under fire during the early days of the search for Flight 370 over what many critics perceived as slow action and secretiveness.
The loss of Flight 370 was also especially traumatic for the nation because its disappearance has never been explained.
Closure
Some people took a small bit of solace, this time, that at least Malaysia couldn't be blamed.
"Now we know it's been shot down," said Mohammad Ali, 60, a shuttle driver at the airport. "Last time we didn't know. It's a little bit easier knowing."
Jagjit Singh, a government spokesman who worked with the media daily during the crisis days of Flight 370, said one of his wife's relatives was lost in the crash in Ukraine. "It's really sad,'' he said.
At the same time, he said, Thursday's disaster was more easily understood.
"The last one really hurt," he said. "Now only four months later, we have something like this. It's really shocking. A crash is a crash, but we don't expect it to be shot down."
A man looks at a screen displaying 'Pray for MH17'' at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Friday. European Pressphoto Agency
Rahmah Mahmood, 56, who was waiting for a friend at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, said she was up much of the night and worrying about friends she feared were on the flight. "For Malaysia, it's such a shock," she said. "You can't predict life."
"At least I think families will have closure,'' she said. "For the other flight, there is no closure."
Muhamad Paizal Othman, a manager at an offshore oil services company working on his laptop computer at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, said "everyone'' is writing about it on social media and online.
"I think people will feel better later," he said. "It will just take some time." - WSJ

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