GIVE OUR LIVES BACK TO US

U.N. Owen

For the first time in my life, recent events in Ipoh and the tremendous support it has generated throughout Malaysia, has made me interested in politics.

Sadly, for Perak, those who could act and should have acted, to stop the outrage to our country, did not. A golden opportunity was lost.

That was not the only thing that vaporised. Reputations, trust, confidence and expectations were all demolished or diminished.

How could those at the top be so out of touch? Who did they think they could decieve by being so disconnected from the rest of us? Why did they display such arrogance? What could they gain by ignoring public opinion?

Instead of doing the right thing and giving the voters what they wanted, Perak was allowed to wallow in its own filth. The country performed like a headless chicken. With two of everything - mentri besars, speakers, parties vying for power, it was a case of 'Too many cooks spoil the soup'

Right up to last Friday's judgement, we had an incompetent local government, 2 leaders, one discarded speaker and another despised speaker, together with several politicians with clouds over their heads.

But now, we still have that incompetent state government, politicians with clouds over their heads and a leader who might wish to reflect that although he has been placed at the head of the country, but does he believe he commands the hearts and minds of his people?

There is something seriously amiss with the way we are governed as a whole in Malaysia, but the extent to which the abuse of power or the way certain politicians have behaved without integrity or honour and conspired to exploit to their own advantage the whole system, has besmirched the most important part of our constitution - that of our democratic right.

If the voters want an election, then they should get one.

Our government acts with such a frenzy behind the scenes that the character of the nation is changed beyond recognition. It is not the Malaysia that was born in 1957 - a nation united, its people intertwined. The Malaysia today is divided, has strayed from its path of oneness and its people are fractured.

What is it that possesses those in power to commit acts of total control and domination over us, without allowing freedom of the individual? Why are we subject to interference, intrusion and incompetence? Has this government no sense of history? What happened to the philosophical framework from within which they can gauge where government activity should end and when the life of the private citizen should begin? This government has lost all sense of proportion when their domineering, bully-boy tactics does nothing but seriously curtails the freedom of the individual.

The Perak government crisis has only brought resentment to the fore.

Important institutions like the police and the jucidiary have been politicised. Things are allowed to fester. The system has been abused and we have been betrayed. We are appalled by the corruption of minds, people and practices. Without a doubt, we are mad as hell.

Illegal arrests, over-reaction, seizure of computers, a media that is gagged, publishers that are silenced.......that is life in our beloved Perak.....no...I am wrong.......it is atypical of all Malaysia....

This government is acting without authority. They may have 'won' this round but they are operating from a position of weakness, of doubt and of insecurity.

Truly, we have the worst of all worlds.

We are over governed and badly governed.
We are over policed (importance and concentration is placed in riot control and 'opposition parties control') and badly policed (too many doing filing, administration and crowd control but too few are on the beat).
We are over monitored (CCTVs everywhere invading our privacy) and badly monitored (if it is claimed CCTVs help reduce crime, then why is crime on the up?).

But there is a faint glimmer of hope.......The one GOOD thing to come out of this messy debacle is that maybe now, everyone will make sure they will use their vote come election time.

For those of us who went to university, do you recall the time at the start of the academic year, when we were warned that we should vote in the student union elections? That was to ensure that the wrong people did NOT get in. And so we should do the same at the next general elections.

We need to vote not just for necessity or for party political reasons, but also because we want good governance and to assert representative democracy.

And when the elections are over, we need not remind the elected representatives that they are our servants, not the other way around.

Oh, and before I forget....how ironical is it not, that this concept of One Malaysia for which I had serious misgivings, might just be made to work....? As far as I can see, it has galvanised us into action to obliterate the undesirable political class so that we can restore good governance.