The curse of being irrelevant

I was away from the country for two weeks, which was quite a long time for me.

What I normally miss most when I’m away are nasi dagang, curry mee and Astro. These days, however, there are some “new attractions” to the list that I cannot find anywhere else in the world. These include the many puerile and senseless statements made by our public figures (these statements are incomprehensible in any other country), which shows the coming of the Age of Irrelevance for Malaysia.

These public statements somehow get the headlines and, to be fair, they can be hilariously funny if you have a wicked sense of humour.

At the top of the list is the Prime Minister himself. He said things were “normal” (despite his reputation) because he was still able to see his neighbour (Indonesian President Joko Widodo) and the President of Ukraine came calling.

I am sure he can still see a few leaders here and there who do not want to upset him. They might come to see him to avert a serious diplomatic row, for example, and perhaps we can expect him to see a few more heads of government in the coming weeks.

Even so, the Prime Minister now knows the pain of being ostracised and of not being accepted as a “normal” head of government.  

No head of government in his or her right mind can accept Datuk Seri Najib Razak with respect and admiration. No one can consider whatever he says seriously. No want wants to be seen as endorsing his views. No one.

It must be painful for him to be irrelevant, and this is why all he can do now is talk to his UMNO members who are in a complete trance and continue to support him against the “foreigners” they believe are trying to get Najib out.

One of the reasons why we need a good Prime Minister is because the way the world treats our leader can make us proud. When our leader is well received and says something important on the world stage, we feel proud and relevant. We share in his relevance.

Singaporeans felt proud in the way the world treated the late Lee Kuan Yew just as we used to be proud of our own Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad especially when, as Prime Minister, he addressed matters affecting the Third World.

If our Prime Minister is seen to be irrelevant then we too feel the pain of being irrelevant. The heads of the civil service departments and Ministers also join Najib in this world of irrelevance. They need to share the pain with him.

Even if they know their statements are meaningless, they still make those statements. When someone in authority says that Pokémon Go must be prohibited, it’s a useless statement because it does not change anything. Pokémon Go has caught the imaginations of young and old Malaysians, and nothing anyone says makes a difference. It’s irrelevant.

When the Immigration Department says that non-Muslim maids will not be allowed to serve Muslim families, this is again a statement that serves no purpose other than to attract some attention. The Immigration Department is feeling the curse of irrelevance too.

Others will follow suit, and the crasser, stupider or more puerile the statement, the better chance the maker will have of getting in the news. I will not be surprised if soon we will have a new ruling that Muslims can employ only other Muslims as drivers, caddies, doctors or masseurs.

Then there is “Red Shirt” organiser Datuk Jamal Md Yunos, who once claimed he could bring out a million Najib-supporters into the streets. In his latest desperate play for relevance, he claims that 300,000 people will turn up to his Red Shirt 2.0 gathering — but seeing as he also claims that 40 per cent of those participants will be Chinese, I think he might be both desperate and delusional.

When will we come out of this Age of Irrelevance? When we have a new Prime Minister.

I don’t know from which party the new PM will come but we need one in a hurry. This is to stop the ugly feeling of shame and humiliation that has engulfed all of us — including UMNO supporters, I’m sure.

It’s this climate of shame that has made some of us say or do stupid things. We are better than this — but, first, Najib must go. -zaid.com