Malaysians: Victims of Acts of God or BN Disaster?

by Dean  Johns @www.malaysiakini.com

It would be nice to imagine, as so many otherwise seemingly sensible people clearly do, that some omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being might be prayed, or otherwise, persuaded into to saving Malaysia from the string of disasters it continues to suffer.

Unfortunately, however, Malaysia’s most destructive and never-ending disaster, the ever-misgoverning and corrupt BN regime, has apparently or at least allegedly enlisted God on its side.

The one and only Smart Malaysian

This has been evident since as far back as 1993, when the Highland Towers collapse that killed 48 Ulu Klang residents was quickly declared an “act of God” by the then Dr Mahathir Mohamad-led BN misgovernment to save its members and cronies from the civil damages suits and criminal charges they should have faced for corruptly permitting condominium construction on hill slopes.

And the success of this ploy back then has since so emboldened BN in its project to press God into its profane service as a combination of accomplice and alibi, that today it even presumes the power to decree what name(s) the Almighty can be known by.

Meanwhile, they have come to regard accidents like air crashes and natural disasters like the current floods, as heaven-sent opportunities for sanctimonious displays of ersatz sympathy for the victims of their corrupt and incompetent misrule.

Even to the extent of displaying their graven images in disgracefully un-Islamic fashion, as BN Machang MP Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin did on bags of rice delivered as aid to flood victims. And at the same time commandeering so many government helicopters to take them on self-aggrandising photo-opportunities as to put the lives of dangerously-ill hospital evacuees at risk.

Having a Good Time while Malaysia sinks

Perceived ‘acts of God’

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s opposing repositories of allegedly divine revelation, the ulamas and supporters of PAS, perceive accidents like air crashes and natural disasters like floods as signs of heavenly disapproval of anything from the service of alcohol on flights or the immodesty of female cabin attendants’ uniforms to the BN regime’s denial of their God-given right to amputate wrongdoers’ hands.

When in fact, the reality is that such gruesomely misguided God-botherers as PAS and such hyper-hypocrites as BN – along with its complicit ‘religious’ authorities and its paid racio-religionist pressure groups like PERKASA and ISMA – should be cut off forthwith from Malaysia’s body politic.

Adherence to any of the countless available gods and religions claiming to be in their names is a personal affair, not a pretext for wielding power over others. Especially when, as in the case of BN, the power is illicit in having been ‘won’ in rigged elections in 2013 and is used for criminal, rather than civic purposes.

There is no place in Malaysia or any other multi-cultural country for mono-racial and mono-religious political parties like UMNO, PAS or others of their ilk posing as present or potential impartial representatives of the people.

And any hope of achieving “developed” status by the year 2020 under the currently deeply divisive system is, by definition, doomed to failure.

Doomed, in fact, to disaster, as Malaysia has been ever since race and religion were used by the father of our current Prime Minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, to allegedly foment the May 13, 1969 riots that led to him replacing Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Since then, especially during the 22-year premiership of the messianic Dr Mahathir, UMNO-dominated BN has cost Malaysia and Malaysians far more dearly than any number of air crashes, floods, landslides and other accidents, natural disasters or indeed so-called ‘acts of God’ have done.

Another BN Disaster in Waiting

Far more money, for a start, in the countless billions squandered, siphoned-off and outright stolen in a series of massive financial scandals that continues unabated to this day, as evidenced by Malaysia’s disgraceful level of illicit capital outflow, and the looming threat of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) debt.

The BN disaster has taken – and continues to take – a terrible human toll, too. Hundreds of people, from high-profile casualties of BN criminality like Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) ‘witness’ Teoh Beng Hock to the lamentably largely nameless and forgotten ‘suspects’ killed in police ‘shoot-outs’ and in custody.

Victims of the BN disaster

Most dire of all, however, is the fact that through all the decades during which the BN disaster has been unfolding, it has cost the victims of BN thievery, homicide and sundry other injustices, and indeed every Malaysian, all possible chance of rescue or redress.

The police, supposedly the protectors of the people’s lives and property, are not just hopelessly and otherwise outright criminal, but have been co-opted by the God-forsaken BN regime as its security guards and stand-over men.

The judiciary, whose purpose is purportedly to defend people’s rights and dispense justice, is riddled with political appointees paid to do the regime’s bidding.

The mainstream media, whose sacred mission is to report the news without fear or favour, and hold governments, civil institutions and businesses to account on the people’s behalf, has been utterly prostituted by BN for the purpose of keeping its corruptions and other crimes secret, if possible, or putting positive spins on those that inconveniently become public knowledge.

And these days, the regime even hires cybertroopers – with honest Malaysians’ own money, of course – to peddle its pernicious propaganda in the independent online media, as is disgustingly obvious in the comments sections of Malaysiakini, especially on stories critical of the useless, lying, RM1 chicken, part-time prime minister and his shopping-addicted consort.

Bridget Welsh

In short, every Malaysian – whether he or she is aware of it or chooses for his or her mental health’s sake not to be – is in one way or another, if not many ways at once, a victim of the BN disaster and has nowhere to turn for rescue.

Some commentators who are arguably more knowledgeable than I am, take a somewhat less pessimistic view than this, as in the New Year observation by Dr Bridget Welsh (above) that “it is vital not to be blinded by negativity”.

Though with all respect to Dr Welsh and other cautious optimists, I find myself more in tune with my old cartoonist friend Zunar, who portrays Malaysians as terrifyingly poised above the gaping mouth of a ‘2015’ crocodile.

And with Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, aka Ku Li, who as that rarest of species – an honest, straight-talking BN insider – writes that despite heading into a new year, Malaysia has “deviated from the path of progress” and in fact is “going backwards… particularly because of worsening racial and religious politics”.

To which, all I can think of to say is “amen”. Though, as I’ve said often before, there’s really no point in praying as long as God doesn’t care or isn’t there, and as long as the BN regime is as disastrously hell-bent as ever on keeping right on with its preying.

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DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’, ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.