Whether we like it or not, politics does affect us no matter that we tend to be apolitical and wish to remain free from it’s many scandals and repercussions.
Take for example, how our country Malaysia has come to be? When I was born in 1958, Malaya had just achieved independence from the British Colonials in the year before.
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| Typical Attap Roofed Kampong House |
Life in the Malay kampong @ village was largely quite simple and we were relatively just a poor family living in a rented attap roofed wooden house. Sharing a common bathroom with 4 other families.
Life was much more simpler as being kampong folks, we didn’t aspire for much. Just like the classic Hindi ‘Roti Kapada Aur Makaan‘ movie’s title, we were quite contented having food, clothing’s and a home. Be it just a simple shared wooden house with attap roofing.
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| Simple meal like this |
We would be counting our blessings if we had just rice, fish and some veggies. No fancy-mancy meals for us. We survived the turbulent times back then in the 60’s and 70’s.
By the 80’s I had already left school and went to work in Singapore. Our Malaysian Ringgit then was RM1.40 to 1 Singapore Dollar.
We might have been an agriculture based economy back then but we were acknowledged as an up and coming country.
Our country”s politics was vibrant but not that scandalous. Until the emergence of our 4th and most illustrious Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
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| Tun Dato Seri Dr.Mahathir Mohamad |
As in other growing countries, there came into being a struggle for power amongst the top leaders of the Barisan Nasional spearheaded by the rising politician, Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir’s handpicked protege who skyrocketed up UMNO’s political leader brushing aside party stalwarts like the unassuming Ghafar Baba, the Kelantan prince Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and others like Abdullah Badawi.
Mahathir had his former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam quit after not agreeing to Mahathir’s electing his rival Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as the Minister for Trade and Industry.
Not to say that before the times of Mahathir, there was no discord amongst the founding fathers of this nation. Tunku Abdul Rahman with his lackadaisical mannerisms had already sacked Mahathir from being an UMNO member after the latter had penned a scathing letter where Mahathir lambasted Tunku for his penchant to give face to the Chinese by overruling the death sentences that were passed on 11 Chinese subversives.
Mahathir also disclosed that the Malays hated Tunku and despised him for Tunku’s fondness to play poker with his Chinese associates and misusing Government assets such as patrol cars and police escorts in such pursuits to gamble with the Chinese.
Mahathir had also penned that members of PAS and the majority of the Malays now hated Tunku and no longer trusted him to champion their interests.
Naturally Tunku took offense to such a strongly worded letter criticizing him and caused Tunku to sack and remove Mahathir from UMNO. Mahathir would have remained in the political wilderness if not for the kindness and mercy of Tun Abdul Razak who accepted Mahathir back into the folds of UMNO and eventually got elected as the Deputy Prime Minister when Tun Hussein Onn became the PM after Tun Razak’s death.
This is why Mahathir felt indebted towards the help of Tun Razak in getting Mahathir back into the ruling party and when he became the Prime Minister taking over from Tun Hussein in 1981 had in a way looked out for Najib Tun Razak, the son of Tun Razak, his mentor.
When Mahathir sacked Anwar Ibrahim for the latter’s said abuse of power and sodomy related offenses, he had no choice but to appoint Abdullah Badawi as his Deputy.
When Mahathir resigned as the PM in 2003, he appointed Abdullah as his successor and Najib rose to become the new Deputy Prime Minister. When Abdullah Badaw failed miserably in retaining power over many states in the Malay Peninsular, Mahathir started sniping at Abdullah’s heels and the flabbergasted Pak Lah threw in the towel and handed over the most powerful seat to Najib Tun Razak!
Little did they know that this ‘puss in boots’ would turn out to be the ‘Master Jedi’ that he is today and get embroiled in the ‘Mother of all Scandals namely the RM2.6 Billion ‘Big Daddy of all Donations into his personal bank account and the still unsolved mismanagement of the 1MDB funds!
As a result, there have been numerous public protests against Najib’s government and demands for his resignation.
Najib has sacked the AG, replaced him with Najib’s selected Yes Man, placed his proxy as the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat in Parliament and another as his IGP where all these fellows sort of shield against any attempts to overthrow him till the next GE n 2018.
it is in this climate of political uncertainty that the average Malaysian citizen tends to go apolitical. Not wanting to support either sides.
The question is can we afford to do so and risk our future with what Time throws at us?
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