The NATO Syndrome

And how many of you signed the petition asking for Dr Wan Azizah to be given a seat to contest the coming general election? Do you know and do you care? Well, let me tell you. From the more than 13 million registered voters, less than 2,000 signed the petition. So that comes to only…hell, who cares anyway?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The nation reeled in shock last week as private investigator P. Balasubramaniam abruptly passed away, just days before, declaring he would continue to seek justice for the murdered Altantuya Shaariibuu. 

But as the shock wears off and Malaysians move on, his family is left picking up the pieces of a shattered life – a life already strained five years ago, when Balasubramaniam’s declarations regarding the prime minister forced his family to flee the country. 

Now, with Balasubramaniam dead, his wife, A Santamil Selvi, and three teenaged children are stranded in Malaysia with diminishing funds and a rapidly dimming future.

Funeral expenses, education fees and mortgages are weighing heavily on the widow’s mind, who is currently homebound in accordance with Hindu tradition. 

“I visited Bala’s wife last night to talk about how her family was coping – she showed me her IOUs, how she is well in debt. She has even resorted to pawning the items she owns,” Kelana Jaya MP Loh Gow Burne told reporters today.

“Unfortunately, despite Bala’s sacrifice for the country, his family is now in serious trouble.”

In a bid to keep the bereaved family afloat, Loh is now initiating a fund-raising campaign and is appealing to the public to donate any money they can spare for the widowed Santamil Selvi and her fatherless children.

“The priority is for Bala’s children to be given the opportunity to finish their education, and to ensure that someone who sacrificed all he had for the nation, would not have his family left in poverty,” said Loh.

Balasubramaniam’s lawyer, Americk Singh Sidhu, said the funds would immediately be used to help Santamil Selvi and her children return to India, where they had been residing for the past five years.

“His children must go back to India as they have been schooling there for five years. It would be too difficult for them to adapt to the school system here, especially after all the trauma they recently went through,” said Americk.

“The funds will also go towards basic requirements such as food, clothes, mortgage, education… Monthly expenditure can easily reach up to RM15,000,” he added.

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The above was what was reported one month ago on 20th March 2013. Do any of you reading this know where Bala’s family currently is? Do you know how much money was collected and are they now out of their financial predicament? Are Bala’s children back in school in Chennai?

I think a more important question to ask is: do any of you care now that Bala is no longer of any use to the ABU cause? Yes, tell me honestly, do any of you reading this know and care? 

Malaysians suffer from the NATO Syndrome. Do you know that 53% of the voters are women? And do you know that the manner in which Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was treated will have some effect on the women voters, especially the Malay women from the Malay heartland?

Yes, I bet you did not know this.

And how many of you signed the petition asking for Dr Wan Azizah to be given a seat to contest the coming general election? Do you know and do you care? Well, let me tell you. From the more than 13 million registered voters, less than 2,000 signed the petition. So that comes to only…hell, who cares anyway?

And then when the Malay women vote Umno you scream and say that the Malays are still sleeping. Really? Is it the Malays who are still sleeping or is it you who is still sleeping?

Haris Ibrahim posted this in his Blog early this morning:

A bad case of rhinitis in the early hours of Saturday morning kept me from going to the nomination centre to lend support to Arul’s candidacy in Semenyih. Later that day, tracking all the nominations and seeing so many multi-cornered fights, especially in Sabah, only served to remind me again why I am pro-rakyat, and not pro the opposition parties.

I would just like to say “welcome home Sam.” I thought I had lost you. I am glad that we still share the same doctrine -- which is we are pro-rakyat and not pro-party, either ruling or opposition.

I admit that we may have different methods in trying to meet our objective but, as we say in England, there are many ways to skin a pussy, or even pricks for that matter. And we must admit that Malaysian politicians are a bunch of pricks, no doubt about that.

Well, you as an avid Qur’an believer will be very familiar with the verse ‘show me the straight path’ and ‘to you your path and to me mine’. Ultimately, our journeys are both the same -- to seek the truth. And while there are many routes to the truth there is only one truth.

I trust now that Nomination Day is over and we are all awaiting Polling Day, you can reflect on the fact that God made us of different creeds on purpose, as Islam says, so that we may know one another, and that you can accept that this diversity, therefore, makes us differ in how we think and do things.

Nevertheless, as long as we can remember that we were placed on the face of this earth to serve the ummahand not the rulers, then God’s mission and vision would have been served. And that, in the final analysis, is what it is all about as we wait to take our place in the land of the dearly departed just like how our comrade Bala did recently and whom we shall all be joining in the not too distant future.

My salam to you my friend and comrade and may we accept whatever happens as takdir or God’s will, the ultimate decider of all things.