Friday, 3 April 2009

New PM? Bah! Humbug!

So we have a new Prime Minister today. Wow, aren't we lucky? Actually, if you're feeling good about it, you are just fooling yourself. It's no big deal. To me, it's just a transition: a new old face at the top. Will anything change for the better? We'll have to wait and see. If we are lucky, we'll be having a new dose of "same old, same old". Meet the new boss, just like the old boss.

But what if we are unlucky? Descend into a darker age of intolerance? It's something I fear because I just cannot forget that crazy day in May 1987. The battle cry of a mob of possessed gangsters; their slogan to soak the kris with Chinese blood. Was it a slogan or was it more than a slogan? Was it a mere bluff or was it a real threat? I remember that I cringed when I read that in the newspapers. How could it be that people were openly promoting violence in a public place? I waited for a public retraction of the threat or the slogan ... or whatever. None came. Days later, the Operasi Lallang crackdown began on the freedom of the Malaysian Press. Opposition politicians were detained under the Internal Security Act but not the people behind the slogan or the threat ... or whatever. Who was the face fronting the slogan or the threat? Remember who he was? He's our Prime Minister today.

1 comment:

longkin said...

Be patient....Be patient my dear friend. He will be the last PM from the ruling party. We should rejoice because the sooner he became the PM the sooner the will be a change of government.