My dear gov't - do simple things to keep the faith

Another week, another struggle to keep believing.

Instead of showing themselves to be strong, our friends in Pakatan Harapan are doing a fantastic impersonation of a ‘lame duck’ administration when it comes to the reform agenda.

The reaction to twin by-election defeats would seem to be an increased desire to pander to the intellectually stunted and morally myopic demands of the Malay right.

In the last few days, we have seen government figures form a queue to bash LGBT rights, a court rush through a monumental sentence for some social media insults and the unmistakable stench of cold feet over death penalty abolition.

If there were mirrors to hold up to the current administration, I fear they would crack from side to side, much like the looking glass in Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott.

Nonetheless there is some ability to self-reflect. Let’s look at what Lim Kit Siang said in a statement last Friday.

“Malaysia is at the crossroads,” declared the Iskandar Puteri MP who would probably be the doyen of MPs if he didn’t come from a country with a 94-year-old prime minister.

“To move forward to be a top world-class nation with an inclusive nation-building policy leveraging on the best qualities of the diverse races, religions, languages and cultures or to be relegated to the trajectory towards a failed state obsessed by divisive and intolerant race and religious politics.”

Well said, Bro Lao Da, well said. And normally I’d be the first to agree with you about lofty principles.

But you know what? It takes time to see the benefits of those principles, and I fear that the current government does not have the know-how, numbers, genuine political will and courage to really hammer through a lot of progressive legislation.

We were probably expecting too much...

As I told an ex-colleague a couple of days ago, we were probably expecting too much from Pakatan Harapan. Yes, the election was won, but not every MP on the government side is forward-thinking. It's not as if we got ourselves 120 Hannah Yeohs or Fahmi Fadzils.

So, maybe Bro Kit Siang, it's time to be a little bit more like your one-time comrade Lee Lam Thye, who was famous for solving 'longkang' issues.

I am not suggesting a haphazard mass gotong-royong. I think what I am after is a sort of practical beautification process on a large scale.

Let’s tackle issues that all of us can agree on and will help improve cleanliness and health standards.

Take a look at our landscapes. What do you see? There still are drains clogged by refuse. Abandoned vehicles are a dime a dozen, and gutted homes are not too far behind. All these are more than eye-sores. They are health violations and fire hazards.

Another issue is that of un-neutered stray cats and dogs.

If the government could run mass campaigns to address this sort of issue (I am sure those behind Beijing’s clean-up for the 2008 Olympic Games can advise us), maybe that would be resources well spent.

There are so many things that could be done, you know. A few of these are organised reforestation, cleaning of rivers and improved internet access.

We could have adult literacy classes so that no is left behind (in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, they introduced a year-long literacy campaign in 1961, under which educated young people from the cities were sent around the country to teach illiterate peasants and workers.

The end result was that Cuba’s literacy shot up from 60 percent to 96 percent in a single year.

My suggestion is to form a task force to deal with solvable issues that will impact on us all. More down-to-earth policies, like the affordable housing announced for B40.

You know what, Bro Lao Da, you talk crossroads but it is the U-turns that are getting to us.

One would have thought that having local council elections and some degree of fairness in the prosecution were attainable enough, but since even that is beyond you, we will take clean drains.

Just clean the drains and you have made a better Malaysia.

I am not kidding myself, or you, dear reader. In a few years, if this govt makes it to full term, I will probably be penning a few columns urging you to vote for the lesser of two evils.

And that’s primarily because the possibility of the abhorrent PAS-Umno amalgamation (which I refuse to dignify with as beautiful a word as ‘unity’) forming the government is too heinous a proposition to contemplate.

I still fear this may be the best government I ever get to experience as a Malaysian. Let’s find ways to make it count.

---

MARTIN VENGADESAN is a member of Team Malaysiakini.