WATCHING AN OLD MAN’S PORNOGRAPHY CAN BE TIRING

Umar Mukhtar

It is not an attempt at a hard-core coup d’état with military tanks rolling down the streets. It’s soft-porn, with lots of foreplays, jilted lovers and loud orgasms, but with the climaxes still being laboured on. But it looks like a coup d’état nevertheless.

Any attempt at removing a ruling government not conforming to constitutional provisions is an attempt at a coup d’état. Whether it is justified or not is another matter. A burglar breaking down someone’s house backdoor is committing an offence irrespective if he says he had suspected a fire and was trying to put it out. What was he doing there at 3am in the morning?

So the anti-Najib forces assumed that they were doing Malaysians a favour and took it upon themselves to be that equaliser against a powerful government. They used the position and wealth that they got to obtain and illegally used procured documents to incriminate the government.

On the face of it, it may appear a heroic and selfless act. Although not one that warrants the protection of the Whistleblower Protection Act because they chose to disseminate instead of report whatever they had procured. So it was heroic going to jail for that. It was also supposed to have cost them their own millions of ringgit. That’s selfless. Only the rich and powerful can make democracy work, it seems.

Only the rich and powerful can be toiling at this since early this year, toiling and conspiring to achieve their desires. All for the democratic rights of ordinary Malaysians? But because the expose do not seem to urge Malaysians to remove the government democratically as per the constitution, it is necessary to create an atmosphere of urgency so that Malaysians go to the streets rioting – the sliding ringgit, high debt-ratings, and other economic difficulties are fun!

The well-fed UMNO structure and the split opposition are no help for constitutional moves. So let’s paralyse the government, and the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong will have to do something about it, even though nothing merits that yet and attempts to prematurely involve him got the cold shoulder.

Dr. Mahathir the jilted lover, and his troupe of democrats are in a delicate position. Push too hard and the house burns, push too little and the scheme may not work. Has he come to the stage “tak dapat nyamuk, kelambu dibakar” yet? Literally, “Can’t get the mosquito, burn the mosquito net.” Scorched-earth policy, a loving present for the living.

I do wonder, with so many do-gooders available in the country, how did we come to this stage in the first place? Unless they are just angry at not getting their way, and not necessarily because of us ordinary Rakyat not granted what we deserve? Who is to know? Any chance that if they triumph, whatever it is will never happen again? And nobody else will be breaking doors to collect incriminating evidence in the future? After all, justification, not operation of law, is the order of the day!

All I know is let the truth be told, properly. Let the guilty be punished accordingly. I don’t give a shit if theNew York Times or the Wall Street Journal think that we are governed well or not. The Arab uprising countries followed what they say and now the Arabs are fighting for their daily bread. I want my morningroti canai in peace knowing that my fellow Malaysian, of whatever race and persuasion, are not keen on wearing their medal of good governance around their necks while eating roti canai hiding under the table.

This is not a piece in defence of poor governance. Far from it. It is a piece that defends the people’s democratic and constitutional right to government and not being dependent on the rich, powerful, influential and greedy to persuade us to their narrative. Two can play this game, and we the ordinary people will perennially be caught in between, unless we show that we mean business now.

We may deserve the government we get, at our peril. But please do not assume we want yours either. Wait for PRU14. The people will decide. You may invite WSJ as observers so that they can write patronising things while you laze away in your yatchs in Cote’ Azur.

Meanwhile, save the Viagra, we are tired.