Things that make me go *sigh* for Malaysia.

Reading the papers nowadays is depressing at worst or sadly humourous at best. It takes alot of effort to see that anything good can come out of it all.

The first of course was the case of the MP who asked Customs to 'Close one Eye' on his alleged illegal imports of timber. That alone was a huge farce, but the complications related to that event in the towing the party line of the Backbenchers club ,and the subsequent resignation of the president showed that the wrong person suffered. Subsequently the One-eyed MP goes on with business as usual, committing other wrongs while going off scot free.

Then the Article 11 issues, where good intentions of debating pertinent issues in a civilised manner was disrupted by unruly people. Instead of arresting the rioters, the organisors were persecuted. And the subsequent gag order in the pretense of maintain blah blah stability was issued. Again, the wrong persons became the victims.

Next up, the asli report on corporate equity distribution. Whether or not the model proposed is right, does not deserve the damning accusation that the report is 'rubbish'. The document seems well researched with facts to balance, and it is open for all to review. Versus the 'closed document', it doesnt seem 'rubbish' to me. Because of this report which was published 8 months ago (Feb '06) asli was politically pressured to retract the figures, now the good Dr. has to resign. Again, the wrong person was persecuted for no apparent wrong doing.

The new thing is the case of the Fraudulent APs where it is alleged that a Senator's son was selling fraud APs. The Senator has the gall to state in newspapers that his son was stupid, and should have been more discrete in the fraud. Perhaps his quotes was out of context, but it sure doesn't sound like this Senator wholeheartedly disproves of his son's act!

Its darn frustrating that people like these are running our country.

Things do make things right again:

1. Transparency. Opaque procedures like APs and Govt docs should be documented and published.
2. Zero tolerance for corruption. MPs and Senators should resign (and not their critics) if they find themselves in controversy
   
3. Knowlege-based workforce. Studies like asli should be encouraged and not persecuted.
   
4. Multi-culturalism and Understanding. More dialogues should be held instead of gagged.
   

And then we have the haze, but that, we can't do much about.


yk.