Negara Ku

It has been a holiday period of sadness. Of course a large part of it all has to do with the fact that I am all alone in these festive days. Theresa and Kiddo are in Malaysia and here I am, mostly alone. I feel terrible.

Compounding it all – the spate of sad, infuriatingly stupid stories about Malaysia have been occupying webspace of sites I frequent to catch up with Malaysian events. There is of course the Moorthy affair. The late mountaineering hero could not even die in dignity, as the religious department was hell bent on flexing its castrated and vacuous flab in order to feel important. It resorted to making statements no one can challenge. Cowardly and despicable. It stooped so low as to deprive a grieving widow of her opportunities to bid her late husband farewell, to mourn him properly. I am a Christian and I have my own beliefs as to his destination but even I draw a line and stop short of playing fast and loose with a grieving widow’s right to grief and to grieve. Then the High Court, long impotent, still could not rise to be counted on to save that widow. It hid under a table and said it had no power. These are all 3-star institutions at best – no ball room. None needed because these are all ball-less institutions. Cowing is what it is good at. Spineless slimeballs.

Then there’s the side splitting tale of draping the ancient pyramids with the majesty of the Malaysian flag. Is there no end to the stupidity of the present Malaysian government? No less a person than the Deputy Prime Minister, together with the Ministry of Youth & culture and the government of Selangor, the country’s most developed state, thought it a splendid idea and voiced their support. Aiyoh……………

Khairy Jamaluddin buying shares worth RM9.2 million also made the news. Sure, it is obscene for someone so young, with a history only of public service, and having no traceable family wealth, to amass that sort of money for such an investment. But this is Malaysia… enough said. Maybe Messrs Lim Kian Onn, David Chua and Kalimullah were generous with the payment terms so that young Khairy gets a fair crack at making it… I don’t know, but maybe this is less newsworthy – it is not an entirely impossible tsk tsk sort of transaction.

There’s also the news of yet another person falling victim to the public hazard of terribly regulated construction site safety. This guy, a young entrepreneur making it in corporate Malaysia, was crushed by a boulder while in his car. Died instantly.

Proton and MAS making ever bigger losses.

The mullahs giving themselves more bullying powers.

Just what is Malaysia coming to?

I just chatted with Theresa on the MSN. She said a couple, church friends, were sending their child to a private school in KL. They live in Klang. This couple would have to sacrifice a couple of hours each day just to send that poor child to school. Burning fuel, wasting time, stressing themselves out. Why? The system sucks – that’s why. Good schools are as scarce as good truffles these days. So one digs deep to get a whiff of it and then pay some to get it.

What’s happening to the country of my birth and childhood…