YOURSAY | ‘Even if it was true, the deputy ministers should not openly accuse an 18-year-old student a liar.’
P Pillai: Since joining Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak have been marginalised. Malaysia's wealth division has been disproportionate to the contribution to the federal coffers by these two states.
Every time state or federal elections come around, there is a rush to promise vast infrastructure improvements, often abandoned post-elections.
This is a clear case of internet services being ignored in the East Malaysian states. Instead of defending the ill-thought-out defensive comments, Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin and Deputy Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri should own up and improve the services.
Right now, we are facing laughable child-like reactions from our "leaders" whose only credentials seem to be supporting the backdoor federal government.
Thus, it is fantastic to see a young Malaysian (Veveonah Mosibin’s brother Mekvin) challenge the deputy ministers to come and see for themselves, instead of sitting in their luxury offices in Putrajaya and pretend to represent the rakyat.
Malaysia may claim to be heading for the First World status, but just take a drive outside the Klang Valley and see the desperate state of the people. I am aghast that the same poor villagers keep on voting the same people to Parliament election after election.
Vijay47: You craven bullies, minister, politicians, and lecturers… all of you, you should be ashamed, ganging up on a hapless young girl.
All of you have been launching sortie after sortie on a poor girl whose only crime was that like Oliver Twist - she asked for more, for better internet services in her village.
And for this, you arrogant adults, consumed with power and position, have jointly attacked her. Is your ego so precious and frail that you cannot bear a request that reflects poorly on your contributions to society?
It no longer matters whether Veveonah was wrong or not in her complaint, our support is with her. After your initial feeble apology, you should have stopped there, Zahidi. Instead, you went on and on and worse, brought in others similar to you in your abusive ways.
We don’t know how all this pressure will bear on her. Who knows, she might finally choose to end her studies rather than face constant harassment, no doubt to your smirking satisfaction.
Now Veveonah’s brother has come to her defence. He has said it in very simple terms – it is not just internet service but every basic amenity of life which we more fortunate ‘orang bandar’ (city people) take for granted.
And that such deprivation still exists 55 years after independence shows what abysmal failures you and your brother politicians have been. Not just in his location but almost every rural area in Sabah and Sarawak. By the way, Mekvin is not even asking for a swimming pool in his backyard.
I suppose your immediate response would be to get the police to do a background check on this youth who would dare challenge you, both deputy ministers.
Does he ride a motorcycle without a helmet, does he even have a driving licence? Don’t forget his school record and the marks scored - here you can get the eager help of so-called university professors and lecturers. Does he subscribe to Malaysiakini? Is he a DAP member?
I am sure you wish you had never opened your mouth to criticise Veveonah, you never dreamed that a simple village girl or her brother would hit back at an Orang Malaya minister and his sidekick. So, tell me, Zahidi and Abdul Rahim, are you two tough guys going to take up Mekvin’s challenge?
Or is your heroic bullying restricted to young girls?
Jaycee: Mekvin, do not waste your time asking the MPs to visit. These people live in a world of their own and they have no clue how tough life is for others. Most of the MPs live in nice houses (some with swimming pool), chauffeured, and eat at expensive restaurants.
And if there is water disruption, the tanker will show up at their house to refill their swimming pool. So, how do you expect them to know what life is without internet, clean water, plumbing facilities, and electricity?
MS: When will Malaysians learn to stop referring to these cretins as ‘yang berhormat’ (YB)?
The other problem with most Malaysians is their crippling laziness that stops them from scrutinising candidates standing for elections. By lazily voting for the party instead of the person, all varieties of vermin get into Parliament, contaminating it with their rank stupidity, their vulgarity and their straight-faced lying.
One must remember, the party has zero interest in getting top-notch, high calibre, service-oriented people of character to represent it. The criteria have always been most winnable candidate even if he has a fake degree from a fake university.
The spectacle of party-hopping tailless amphibians we have witnessed over the last year or so and now this latest demonstration of imbecility by the deputy minister from Kudat should jolt the electorate into thinking before voting.
But since that is not likely to happen, given the fact that the great unwashed majority has been successfully dumbed down for six decades, the country may continue to suffer these fools while they help themselves to the perks and privileges of undeserved office.
If there is a silver lining to what has turned out to be the scandalous state of rural education in Digital Malaysia (in 2020), it is that West Malaysians have been given a rare glimpse into the lives of a disadvantaged people who also call themselves Malaysians - out of sight and definitely out of the minds of scheming politicians who traditionally play poker with East Malaysian votes.
Juxtaposing the image of the girl climbing a tree to obtain internet connection for an online exam with the picture of that family in Shah Alam, Selangor, frolicking in the pool in the midst of a water crisis, we get to realise something worse than the palpable racial divide engineered by unscrupulous politicians - the appalling economic deprivation that festers like an oozing sore in a state ruled for decades by centibillionaires, whether white-haired or periodically bearded.
Whether it is Dr Mahathir Mohamad's Pejuang or Anwar Ibrahim's PKR or Muhyiddin Yassin's Bersatu/Umno/PAS, we know that this is the state of affairs after all their demagoguery and routinised rabble-rousing over six decades... using the same endemic poverty to become the multi-millionaires and billionaires they are today.
Nothing is likely to change anytime soon because those handicapped by deprivation will be too busy making ends meet (or climbing trees for internet connection) to cause a change in the politics under which they suffer.
Which is why the Kudat and Padang Besar MPs continue using them for gain and abusing them when cornered.
IndigoKite6964: Big bullies, that is all these grown men are. So what if Veveonah wants to be a YouTube sensation?
If the Kudat MP is jealous and wants to be one too, he can. Drive the point home that internet services in Sabah is poor, post a video of himself up on a tree punching on his smartphone.
Even if Veveonah made up the whole thing, so what? YouTube is full of made-up things. I suppose there is nothing better to do for these two deputy ministers that bashing up young girls on Facebook is probably fun.
BlueShark1548: Agree. Even if it was true, the deputy ministers should not openly accuse an 18- year-old student a liar. They should have taken into consideration the trauma it caused a young person and the stigma that goes with it.
Now that the deputy ministers are proven wrong, they should apologise and not pass the blame.
On the contrary, they should make a double effort to ensure that rural areas in Sabah, Sarawak and other parts of Malaysia have good internet connections.
PurpleParrot0865: Bersatu. One for all and all for one (but only amongst themselves). Anyone that is seen to be a threat, as one, they will level them to the ground.
For them, all that’s happening to them is somewhat the will of the Almighty. They bulldoze the Parliament to the ground. They replaced a speaker with one that answers for them and dines (an expensive one at that) with them.
They replaced our ballot boxes and voted in Sheraton where they cast their own votes, blatantly asking what's in it for us and me.
This case doesn't surprise me. But going after such a young person from one to another? My only question to the MPs, can you have some dignity?
Jaded: Then we must vote to change these deputy ministers and ministers who stay in their ivory towers.
Those who do not think before they speak. Those who do not empathise with the people. Those who care only to enrich themselves.
They do not deserve our respect. They do not deserve our time. They work for us. They should fear us. - Mkini
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