“Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is never imposed in the interest of the children.”
- George Bernard Shaw, 'Everybody’s Political What’s What?'
The 64th anniversary of our Merdeka Day came and went with a whimper - no festive crowds gathered in clustered noisy merriment while a seemingly endless barrage of screaming, whistling missiles arc into the sky to explosively burst into multi-coloured sparkly bouquets.
No lengthy marches of uniformed and costumed Malaysians past a platform of VIPs receiving salutes, while jets power overhead and more sedate helicopters twirl, trailing flags.
No post-parade media interviews with foreigners who all say they are having a great time in Malaysia and are amazed to see so many races and cultures gathered in such blissful harmony.
The occasion was observed with a much-reduced hoo-hah in Putrajaya.
Blame the government’s still rampant bête noire – the virus. It compelled the prime minister to lie low in quarantine, to be absent, except virtually, from the ceremonial gathering of his re-branded "Malaysian Family".
Sixty-four years of the Malaysian family and Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the new patriarch, heads a fractious, factional, prickly family, seeing racial and religious slights everywhere, in everything; the support of the family’s elders always in question, always a murmuring of murky shifting alliances.
And after 64 years of independence, what is the country free from?
Free from old men and old ideas governing us? Free from politicians who give their word to the people during an electoral campaign, after which it is a “just say only”, you can’t possibly hold them to their word, taken out of context, misquoted?
Free from universities that restrict intellectual discourse and inquiry, and an education system that dumbs down learning to report glowing exam results?
Free from corruption in every niche of the sprawling bureaucracy? Free from a muzzling of dissent and opinion? Free from police investigating cartoons and their creators?
Free from a periodic drying of taps because a water source has been polluted? Free from polluters who will be shut down for a few days, slapped with a fine, and be back in business soon after?
Free from… I won’t go on and on. You readers will have your own long list of grouses with what’s wrong in this country. Call us a nation of gripers, but that’s because there’s so much to gripe about. And there is nothing like a good gripe to release sourness in the system.
Our Father who is in Quarantine did not surprise with his minor re-shuffling of the council of family elders.
I was surprised by the many responses expressing disappointment at the so-called new cabinet. Seriously, folks, you expected different? My rule of thumb: expect the worse of the government, you will seldom be disappointed or shown to be wrong.
The next 100 days
What also surprised me was the prime minister’s bold (to be polite) command that this new/old group of leaders will perform wonders in 100 days, what they couldn’t do in the previous 500.
Possibly because by eliminating the deputy prime minister post, and being safe with the record of the shortest term as deputy prime minister, Ismail Sabri was prompted by the thought - if he could rise to the top in 44 days (from being appointed deputy PM on July 7 to PM on Aug 20), he will charitably give his less-advantaged underlings 100 days to prove their mettle (refrain: what they couldn’t prove in the previous 500 days).
Okay, Monday afternoon, they ceremonially received their appointments. Tuesday was Merdeka day, a more ceremonial showing of face. No real work can be done. Starting the countdown then, from Sept 1. Go on, prove me wrong that the next 100 days are not going to be just another stretch of enervating déjà vu from the vacuous political elite.
Well, the preliminaries were not promising, with Youth and Sports Minister Ahmad Faizal Azumu barging onto the football field, dropping names, and promising a fresh revamp of the league, only to retreat sheepishly to the bench, having been shown a red card by FAM for speaking out of turn and having no business there.
There was also a viral meme of Deputy Higher Education Minister Ahmad Masrizal Muhammad’s expression of thanks for his appointment, which sported two Bahasa and one English grammar mistake.
The mistake in English, okay lah - apa itu apostrophe? - but the Bahasa mistake? Don’t they teach Bahasa grammar in primary schools anymore?
I must defend the deputy minister on the last charge that his inspirational exhortation of “Lets (sic) together light tomorrow with today” should have been attributed to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
There are internet sites that attribute the line to the English poet, but a quick scan of my collection of Browning poems (last read decades ago to pass a university course) did not shed light on the line.
The closest I can come to it is from William Shakespeare's “The Winter’s Tale.” No thanks to a recurrent type of political scandal in Malaysia, I am sure the meaning I derive from the lines now can’t possibly be what Browning intended:
We were, fair queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a say to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
While I am on Shakespeare, here are lines from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that make Shakespeare out to be like Nostradamus, predicting what Malaysia will be like over 600 years in the future.
Diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see.
The seasons alter … change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increases, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension.
THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist. - Mkini
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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