cakap cakap....my thoughts on this and that!

Why do we put people with any degree of pedigree, tittle or connections on a pedestal?

Does being a Dato’ confer on a person qualities and values that requires us to respect that person without us first finding out for ourselves if they deserves that respect?

Does having a father who was or is a Prime Minister makes you Prime Minister material or accord you almost a God like status in the eyes of so many? And if you take KJ, pedigree by marriage also seems to work for him but only it seems for as long as Pak Lah was PM!

Once royalty went around insisting that their ‘blue blood’ merited them a status higher then us mere mortals and that was so until too many of these Tengku’s got entangled   in matters that required PDRM’s attention and we realised that there are as many rogues amongst royalties as they are rogues amongst us!

Then it was the Dato’s.  Like the Tengku’s too many of these Dato’s became person of interest to PDRM. Name a crime and I can bet you that a Dato somewhere has done some time for that crime! There are Dato’s galore. I once had a Chairman who had nine (yes nine as in one less then ten!) Datukship to his name and yet at the time of joining me, all he could afford was an old Volkswagen!

And now we are past the Tan Sri’s and going higher to the rarefied stratosphere of a Tun with the crime fitting the level of slime that this ex MCA President was in. Billions not millions of Ringgits were involved in this crime that he is now on trial for. And befitting his status in life he is accused of lying to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister himself. This is Karma for Mahathir. It is what you get when you prefer to have Ministers whose morality and honesty are questionable as your cabinet ministers because you thought you would be able to blackmail them into doing anything you ask of them in cabinet.

It is time those conferring the titles do a bit more conferencing before awarding the tittles.  We must be more economical with the giving of our trusts to those who seek them purely on the basis of their pedigree, their tittles or their connections to people in high public office.

Give respect and deference to those that has earned it and not a moment before. And that includes royalties at all levels and certainly spouses of Prime Ministers, Ministers and any titled personages who seems to be too eager to inform us of their Datukship even before we know their name…..just call me ‘Dato' they say’! Be not too gullible of Dato’s who have nothing more then promises to offer to you.

And we are so forgiving of those that have made decisions that will make even their own mother ask of them “Now why did he do that?” and no example of this is more glaring then the choice we now have to make between Najib and Anwar – either of them can be the pot or the kettle calling each other black!

Think of it –  their time in politics and government has been a sorry tale of personal indiscretions, abuse of executive powers and always, the advancement of their personal interest at the expense of ours!

Both have indulged in skulduggery and questionable tactics to promote and consolidate their political power for political power is the surest sanctuary to keep the unpleasantness of their past and the present at bay. Without power and the artificial aura of the ‘high and mighty’ that they create around them, they will be dammed by what they have done in the past, present and certainly in the future should they still have political power.

Do not bore me with your demands that I produce before you a ‘clean’ politician. A leader unblemished by any political intrigues, corruption or money politics – because if there is none among us that can be that, then Malaysia has failed itself!

Look around you and open your eyes to see if we can find a Prime Minister, whether BN or PR that we can trust to look after our interest and our nations interest without worrying that that PM will divert our billions to the rescue of his son’s shipping business!

Without us having to worry that that PM will gift RM$500 million of our ringgits to a crony who then proceeds to embarrass us with his sexual escapades across the globe ending in the murder of a young Mongolian girl by two of our then DPM security detail who blew up the young lady in question using C4 – explosives available only to the Military!   

We do not want another PM who abdicated by default his executive powers – or were they hijacked?  - to his son-in-law –who then proceeds to install himself, as the defacto PM on the fourth floor of the PM’s office in Putrajaya dispensing his favours for God knows what returns!
 
And today we have a PM who defers to a spouse who deems herself FLOM and then proceeds to debase herself to the level of the rich and famous through her extravagances and avarices. 

We want a PM in the mould of Tunku, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn. For are they not what leaders should be? Putting country before self? Working for the people? Their spiritual devotions were done in private and they respected the beliefs and cultures of others. And always they have within them the understanding that they are there to serve.

Today we have a PM who threatens his own people to behave or else RELA will be set upon them as an owner of a pit bull would threaten to unleash his pit bull on those he wants harmed. We have this same PM promise us a high income economy, various initiatives to increase civil liberties and always his promise of 1Malaysia – a country living in harmony and not in want – and yet in the very same instance warns the Chinese and Christians to behave or be forever silence by the party he is now leader of! And we know these are not some idle or empty threats. He has the means and the political will to make it happen.

And of course the alternative in the guise of DSAI is not that much of a choice. I put it to you that there will be more gutter politics to be thrown at DSAI – but this is only possible because DSAI himself has made if possible for these things to be thrown to him. Just as what is happening within PKR is because DSAI has made it possible for PKR to be what it still is today – a clone of UMNO.

Enough time has passed since he was thrown out of UMNO by Mahathir for DSAI to change into a leader we had hoped he would be inspired to be after his time in UMNO. This he has not done and I think the time for this to happen, by common consensus, is long past its due date.

For PKR now there is only Nurrul Izzah who is surprisingly still left untouched by the intrigues and vested interests under which PKR is now labouring under. Call her naïve, call her inexperience you may even call her too trusting of her father, but you cannot put her in the same category as Anwar or Azmin!

If PKR is to be saved she has to do the saving. But the saving of PKR is from her father. To save PKR she has to stand against all that her father has made PKR to be – a political organization totally subservient to the interests of individuals that seeks to advance their own interest –not the party and certainly not the party members!

The question now is when will she make her move to save PKR from a father we know she respects and love. She will have to do this not because this is what she wants to do but this is something she must do for the greater good of PKR, our people and our country.

Whether she succeeds – or to be more exact whether her father will allow her to succeed is to be seen. But for Nurrul Izzah destiny calls!

Anwar will be distracted by coming events as Najib and UMNO again ramps up their salvo of gutter politics. Expect the spilling of guts and gore. Expect collateral damage of sorts to be inflicted upon the main players and all those within the ambit of the main players – DSAI, Azmin, Khalid and those within PKR that has found it easier to go with the flow then to stand against it.  Expect sodomy three. And when the dust settled expect, hopefully, a final solution to the problems within PKR and Pakatan Rakyat and then we can expect the beginning of our final journey towards Putrajaya and God Willing, success with ABU!