Lethal orangutans? Or lethal stupidity?

Orangutans are actually noted for their intelligence. Politicians are not.

In a politician’s career, there are moments that define you.

You can’t say “Adham Baba” without thinking "air suam". You can’t say “Rina Harun” without thinking "Doraemon".

Used to be you couldn’t say “Zuraida Kamaruddin” without thinking “spraying disinfectant on the roads”.

Maybe Zuraida felt that “spraying disinfectant on the roads” was just too many words, so she decided to shorten her chief associative phrase to “murderous orangutans”.

It’s no surprise that the plantations ministry has issued a press statement insisting she was taken out of context. 

It stated: “Unfortunately, the clip was edited in a way that does not do justice to the context of the minister's speech. In fact, some have tried to spin the minister's words which were merely said in jest, to cast aspersions on her and the MPIC.”

It’s funny how the government’s idea of "public relations" harks back to what are basically pre-internet days. 

A newspaper would quote a politician, then after being ridiculed, said politician would say they were misquoted or taken out of context. There would be no publicly available recording usually, so it was the politician’s word against the media. That’s 1990 for you.

In 2022, we just watch the video and judge for ourselves. 

Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin 

After listening to everything from the horse’s (orangutan’s?) mouth, the response is simple: don’t be ridiculous.

This comment was not taken out of context, and if it was said in "jest", then clearly Zuraida is even worse at stand-up comedy than she is at being a minister.

After all, is anyone in the video laughing? I mean, besides that tragic Joaquin Phoenix Joker laughter in their hearts, thinking about how Malaysia got to this level?

The same cannot be said for the rest of the world, who must be laughing at us, wondering what kind of idiots we prop up to become ministers.

Tragicomedy

We can’t really blame them either, given how this whole speech is some tragic joke on so many levels.

At the most superficial, this level of ignorance truly is just mind boggling.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but orangutans don’t kill people. They are about as kind, gentle, and intelligent as our ministers are not.

Maybe this is just another case of someone from the peninsular being ignorant about East Malaysia.

Then again, this same minister was in the very same breath talking about there being lions in Malaysia, so it would appear that the ignorance regarding our wildlife straddles both ends of the South China Sea.

One of the cringier moments in a very cringey speech was when it became clear that her idea of protecting wildlife was to put them all in zoos.

This lack of basic knowledge about nature and conservation aside, there is a deeper problem here.

Palm oil production has long been controversial, due to very legitimate environmental concerns.

Whether or not you favour palm oil, surely it is reasonable to expect that the minister in charge of the industry has the barest rudimentary understanding of the issues at hand.

Own goals

The minister was passionately speaking at length and without the slightest hint of self-awareness, about how she thought foreigners were accusing us of going into the jungle to kill orangutans.

She has been in this job since August 2021 - surely long enough to understand that the actual concern is how expanding palm oil plantations can mean the degradation of the natural habitat of orangutans, which in turn can result in a diminishing of their populations.

In some four months of being the top government official in charge of plantations, has she really assumed all this time that westerners are complaining about palm oil because they think Malaysians are going into the jungle with shotguns to hunt and kill orangutans - orangutans who she thinks are a lethal threat to humans?

Whatever your position on palm oil, I think it is safe to expect that our plantations minister should understand enough about plantations to understand why it is western countries are looking at cutting back on importing palm oil.

If you go around like a mad person talking about murderous orangutans and lions in Southeast Asia, how on earth can you be expected to be taken seriously?

If you don’t understand the concerns of countries that used to import palm oil from us, how can you expect to address those concerns?

The ministry’s "clarification" spoke of “strong anti-palm oil lobbyists” who “could harm the sector's long-term interests”, and how “social media users” spreading this video would “lower the morale” of ministry staff.

Trust me, with ministers like this scoring their own goals and demonstrating zero understanding of the issues, we don’t need lobbyists to harm our interests. 

And with politicians monkeying around at the top, it’s not the public that is lowering the morale of ministry staff - or the morale of the entire country for that matter. - Mkini

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NATHANIEL TAN was born in the year of the monkey, and is a big fan of the late orangutan advocate Terry Pratchett. Twitter: @NatAsasi, Email: nat@engage.my. #BangsaMalaysia #NextGenDemocracy.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.