Malaysia

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID

When we were seniors in high school in the 1970s, we all aspired to enter the one, real university in the country.

A degree from University Malaya mattered greatly back then because it almost always ensured a reasonably good job. 

The quality of the degree mattered even more.

The politician R Sivarasa, for example, was my batchmate until our penultimate year. Then, he dropped biochemistry for genetics.

To no one’s surprise, he got a First and went on to read law at Oxford by way of the Rhodes’ Scholarship.

In short, obtaining a first-class honours degree in any field back then was an achievement. It conferred its recipient great prestige and the pick of jobs. Needless to say, it was rarer than gold dust. 

Not anymore, it seems.  

I was shocked to read today that 80,000 students had been awarded Firsts from Malaysian universities last year.  

You’d think the faculty would know better: churning out such degrees in such numbers is simply to debase their worth. In economic terms, it’s higher education beset by soaring inflation. 

It was in the 1970s when I first heard of graduate unemployment. At the time, it was in the Philippines where, apparently, there were too many graduates chasing too few jobs. 

I never dreamt that the same thing might happen here. Not in Malaysia, I thought, with its superb education system, where a person with just high school education might go on to become fine writers in English.  

Indeed, my teachers in those days largely had diplomas but they were seriouslygood and cultivated in us a love of reading that’s helped enormously. 

Here’s a question: Why, ceteris paribus (all things being equal), are graduates from Sunway University more employable, than graduates from public universities? 

It’s a fact that makes government officials uncomfortable. But it’s a question the Education Ministry would be well advised to ponder. 

How did we come to this?

There is an adage that goes like this: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Our education system was never broken, yet our government, starting in the mid-1970s and, prodded by Malay nationalists who should have known better, thought it needed fixing.

Almost 50 years later, the results are clear, most demonstrably in the difference between the education systems of Singapore and Malaysia.   

Both began with similar British-designed structures. One changed while the other did not. 

The outcomes are palpable. Singapore has world class education. We don’t. 

Even worse is our access. Once open to all races at relatively cheap entry levels, a good education in Malaysia is almost exclusively a preserve for the well-heeled. 

Unless you count education in Chinese schools which, for one thing, is ironic. For another, it’s limited: it’s difficult to get approval for new independent Chinese schools. 

With his impregnable majority, Dr Mahathir should have tackled this a long time ago. It’s different now: with the fragile coalitions we have, it will take a miracle to unravel the mess that is our education. 

Like it or not, we will continue to have graduates working as Grab riders, and waiters, or rubbish collectors in Singapore.   

Imagine their dashed expectations. Imagine their despair and hopelessness.

Now imagine their rage. 

ENDS

THE RETURN OF THE COMEBACK KID

I intend to open up this country to democracy, and anyone who is against that, I will jail – Joao Baptista de Oliveira, 20th Century Brazilian politician 

Thankfully, Malaysia isn’t like that anymore. 

In what can only be described as retributive karma of the dramatic kind, Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as Malaysia 10th premier just as his long-time nemesis Dr Mahathir Mohamad began contemplating a future of political obscurity. 

It’s about time. Dr Mahathir is old enough to know better, yet he conspired to delay Anwar’s ascension to the top for the longest time. His hubris knew no bounds either: right up to the night of November 19, he actually thought he was Malaysia’s best bet for the premiership. 

Alas, how the mighty have fallen. 

The island of Langkawi in Malaysia’s northeast was single-handedly promoted and developed by the physician throughout his 22-year leadership. For all that, its people so rejected him that he lost his deposit. In political terms, that’s about as humiliating as it gets.  

Indeed, his entire party – including a son, Mukhriz – was annihilated.  

Anwar’s triumph underscores his never-say-die, singe-minded perseverance in the face of unrelenting adversity. Sacked in 1988 for “moral misconduct” by Dr M, he was immediately clapped behind bars without bail for seven years until the federal court finally acquitted him of abuse of power and sodomy.  

He was jailed once again in 2013 for sodomy and spent another five years behind bars until he was finally pardoned in 2018.

In contrast, ex-premier Najib Razak spent five years free on bail and was accorded every privilege of a former premier despite being accused of the greatest theft in global history.

The markets endorsed Anwar’s appointment jubilantly with the stock, forex and bond markets all rallying to highs not seen for almost two years. The broader index of the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange, for example, leapt almost 4%. 

In contrast, when it appeared, on Wednesday, that a government dominated by the Islamic Party of Malaysia, appeared likely to gain power, all three markets retreated in fright.

Anwar will inherit a government beset with formidable challenges, On the one hand, the country faces serious economic challenges ranging from huge domestic debt and declining investor confidence to rising inflation amid a persistently weak currency.

On another level, the question of education, specifically the type of education being force fed to many children is assuming sinister proportions. 

After Anwar’s victory, news surfaced of Malay children expressing fear that the Democratic Action Party, a partner in Anwar’s coalition, would stop the call to prayer and force girls to wear skirts. 

It emerged only after parents and at least one set of grandparents complained to the newspapers. It’s led to a probe and public outrage. 

More importantly, it’s sparked questions about the level of political indoctrination by religious teachers in primary schools. The “creeping Islamisation” of Malaysia has been long warned about by political analysts and journalists as far back as the late 80s. It seems to have finally come home to roost. 

In many ways, the election revealed a fractured country cleaved along rural and urban lines among the Malays; secular and conservative lines among the races. 

For all the against-all-odds return of the Comeback Kid, Anwar Ibrahim is inheriting serious problems. 

He will need all the help, and luck, he can get. 

ENDS

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS 

The word “politics” is derived from the Latin “poly” meaning “many” and the word “ticks” meaning “blood sucking parasites.” – Dave Barry, news-paper columnist 

I’m not asking for much. Not really much at all.  

All I’m pleading for is a government led by common sense, that gets the little  things right, that’s not always looking around for the next big project.  

In fact, spare us the big projects altogether, thank you very much. It is almost always cost-inflated, wasteful, excessive and, worst of all, probably unnecessary.   That’s why it’s becoming harder and harder not to be cynical in today’s Malaysia. 

Let’s start with the small things, the little repairs  that can actually save lives and mitigate damage. In short, let’s reclaim our maintenance culture and stop our build-new-and-bigger-things mentality immediately. 

City Hall should get its priorities right because the roads in Kuala Lumpur have more potholes than the hairs on Khairy Jamaluddin’s chinny-chin-chin. 

The last time anything was done in that respect was when that famous chin made unplanned contact with a pothole in Banting two years ago. That particular hole was  immediately sealed with great fanfare. However, nothing else has changed. City Hall is back to idiotic projects that cost a lot – the River of Life anyone? – but don’t make much sense one way or the other. 

Some of the potholes along Bangsar or Sri Hartamas can cause serious injuries to  hapless motorcyclists, not to mention expensive damage to car axles.   

Maybe we should await the agency’s release of A Pothole Dodger’s Guide to Kuala Lumpur before venturing out on the streets. 

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I remember being proud of our country’s roads, which the Reader’s Digest once described as the “best in Southeast Asia.” Indeed, we seem to have lost a lot of our “bests” where the region is concerned. 

Let’s get back our once-nice roads, shall we? It’s not rocket science. Not every expensive but oh-so-very-pleasing to the eye and to the health.  

Back to our seemingly-forgotten culture of maintenance. Our capital city has many beautiful buildings that are sadly in disrepair. Examples include KL’s famous Railway Station and the majestic Sultan Abdul Samad Building opposite the Royal Selangor Club.

These are lovely structures  that are being left to nature. They are worth preserving as iconic emblems to our nation’s history. Instead, we treat them with an indifference that’s as cruel as it is ignorant. 

Tomorrow the nation goes to the polls and push will come to shove: we are at a  crossroads.

Essentially, we’re faced with three choices and that’s only because no party can fool everyone all the time. 

But we should know what we don’t want. I don’t want a party that once blindly supported kleptocracy and, in many respects, still seems to. 

I certainly don’t want a side that encourages obscurantism, a retreat into medievalism and a shunning of modernity or liberalism. 

Once you’ve knocked off those, the way forward is apparent. 

What the head makes cloudy, the heart will make very clear. 

ENDS

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

In the end Brazil went back to Lula,
The left whooped, a ‘hoot and a ‘hula.
Bolsa felt despair.
Rare, hard to bear
For he was blamed, people yelling you-lah!

Latin A was swinging to the left,
It was why Donald felt bereft.
It was a shame,
He could not blame
Joe or the Democrats for the theft.

He needed a trustworthy coup,
Even the military would do.
If smoothly inveigled,
It might even be legal.
There’d be no sham; it’d be the real poo.

Rishi thought it would be most unfair,
If power was seized in the public glare.
Although his mandate
Wasn’t all that great,
He thought that was neither here nor there.

At home, the circus is coming to town.
It’s almost begun, it’s the countdown.
Scoundrels and thieves, with those who achieve,
Everyone aspires to wear the crown.

Bro ‘Mail must hope to remain Boss.
Anything less would surely be dross.
He can, of course, plead
Nothing’s guaranteed.
Tok Mat might think it time for his toss.

Gather round good citizens, cast your vote.
Let’s get rid of the national bloat.
The bells will soon toll
For our nation’s soul.
Let’s not fail ‘cos we missed the boat.

ENDS

FAMOUS LAST WORDS OR SOME SUCH

Election-talk hung in the air. It was 1999 and fresh from sacking Anwar Ibrahim – he was in prison without bail – Dr Mahathir’s term was nearing its end. 

We’d just returned from Kelantan and Terengganu where the mood seemed anti-government. My colleague, Simon, and I were now heading to meet Deputy Mnister Ibrahim Ali in the Pan Pacific Hotel.  

The place was packed, and Simon spotted Ibrahim having lunch with his officers. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.  But he could always be relied on for the suitably inflammatory comment, the racist dig that Umno believed would always unite the Malays behind it.  

In short, he had Dr M’s complete confidence.  

But the interview was disappointing. The politician didn’t admit there were problems in the party and predicted a thumping win for the government.  He was particularly disagreeable about Anwar, gloating about his imprisonment and waxing lyrical over Dr M’s leadership.

Ibrahim, an MP from Kelantan, then asked me what I thought: we told him of our trip north. 

“You won’t like this,” I began and told him a story about how he, personally, would lose his seat. Indeed, I said we thought Umno would fare dismally, especially in Terengganu. 

The deputy minister turned red and looked furious. Glaring, he slammed his hand on the table and bellowed a profanity.

If my Hokkien’s right, he was referring to a man’s unmentionable, but I digress. His roar must have been loud because it silenced the room, and every eye followed the politician as he stalked out in high dudgeon. 

I was merely lashing out at his boorishness. But it was ironic because Ibrahim not only lost badly but the Islamic Party of Malaysia swept both Kelantan and Terengganu. 

Who knew? 

Political mistakes can have consequence. No, we aren’t talking about Ibrahim, but one made by Dr M’s successor, Abdullah Badawi. 

Let me explain. The in-your-face racism of an Umno assembly can be jarring. I remember a rookie from the Star – a young, Malay girl – being comforted by colleagues from other papers after she was so traumatised, she broke down. 

That’s why, apart from some speeches, the gatherings are never carried live. 

Only Abdullah Badawi thought otherwise. It may have been the error that the National Front continues to rue.  

When thousands of, especially, Chinese -Malaysians witnessed Hishamuddin Hussein brandish a kris (ceremonial dagger) and uttering veiled threats – de rigueur for any Umno Youth leader – they were appalled. 

But they remembered.

It occurred in 2005 and an assembly has never been televised since.  

In 2004, Abdullah took the Front to its biggest win ever. No one thought anything might be different in 2008.  

But I remember Opposition MP, Teresa Kok asking me if anything had changed. When I looked puzzled, she replied: “The crowds at our rallies are 2 or 3 times bigger.” 

Michael Devaraj was a socialist who’d unsuccessfully challenged Works Minister S Samy Vellu in two previous elections.  Like Teresa, he too felt something had changed.  

Not Samy though. In fact, he was brimming with confidence when Nadeswaran and me approached him in his centre in Sungei Siput.

After assuring us that he would, indeed, thrash the hapless Michael, he asked if we knew him. 

Why?

“He is a very nice fellow,” said the late, great Samy sadly. “I’d hate to see him lose again.” 

He needn’t have worried. 

ENDS

THE DOGS MAY BARK BUT THE CARAVAN MOVES ON

You can’t fix stupid: there’s not a pill you can take, or a class you can go to. – US comedian Ron White  

One suspects a great many politicians in Umno thought of Ismail Sabri the way mathematician Von Neuman thought about arcane math, that there’s “no sense in  being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

But the Malaysian premier may be a great deal craftier than anyone gives him credit for. 

It is generally accepted that Brother Ismail likes the job and wants to keep it. But a segment of Umno led by Messrs Najib and Zahid, twin heroes-tuned-zeroes respectively, want an early election. The two HTZs are, apparently, convinced than a snap poll will somehow bring them political survival.

Going by Darwin, the duo’s chances aren’t great: extinction is the rule and survival is the exception. 

Even so, they remain undeterred but, to use a chess idiom, Brother Ismail has maintained a Sicilian defence of such complexity, it’s so far repelled all comers.  

Much to the chagrin of the duo, the wily premier has ignored, evaded, parried, and procrastinated with the best of them.

And, occasionally, he’s come back swinging. 

Consider his position in the ever-spreading Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) scandal.  

Last week, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC)  revealed that the defence ministry and Boustead Naval Shipyard, the  contractor given the job,  had ignored the navy’s views on the project. 

The PAC disclosed that not a single ship had been completed although RM6 billion had been paid out by the government,  adding that the navy should have received five of the ships by August, that is to say, now. 

Surprise, surprise, the project had not been publicly tendered out but simply given to BNS through direct negotiations, a much-beloved Umno practice first created during the tenure of one Mahathir Mohamad.

In many ways, the LCS scandal has aroused a great deal of public anger. Unlike 1MDB, it didn’t involve complex money-laundering webs, global banking rules or fugitive crooks who hobnobbed  with Hollywood royalty. This was a straight forward “RM6 billion spent and nothing to show for it!”

So, the public wanted to know, where had the money gone, and into whose pocket? It was stuff that the ordinary man understood, grand theft rooted in treason.

At the material time, the premier was Najib and the defence minister, Zahid. 

Jibby has been  sarcastic about the matter but, in fairness,  he’s got far bigger problems now. For his part, Zahid denied any link to the matter. Then he changed tack and brought up “security” as possible cover. 

He advised restraint, warning that the release of the project’s details might expose state secrets and jeopardise  national security. 

According to the Star, Zahid said that the government should handle the matter “wisely” and “not be influenced by public opinion.”

But it appears that Brother Ismail was being influenced by public opinion. 

On Wednesday, the government declassified all documents regarding the LCS investigations, effectively making them public.  

On Thursday, the NST had this headline. LCS scandal: Report reveals Zahid involved in procurement process.  

It might get  worse for the guilty parties.  Putrajaya is  considering a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the matter. 

It almost always ferrets out the truth. 

ENDS

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Behind every great fortune is a crime – French novelist Honoré de Balzac

Jho Low, the plump pirate better known in select criminal circles as Felonious, was entertained by the joke and, as always, delighted in his friend’s masterly grasp of understatement. 

He’d just read that Fearless Leader, once a Malaysian Premier, had revealed to the Kuala Lumpur High Court that he had “only RM4.5 million in assets.” 

Politicians from every component party of the National Front government were moved. They knew the real root of all evil was a lack of money. 

But most people weren’t politicians, they were more cynical and distrustful and generally seemed unbelieving.  Fearless felt injured. “You think you’ve got problems?” snarled Malaysia’s once-most-powerful man. “What about me?”

It was a good, if pointless, question. Ever since 2014 amid the gradual revelations, the whispered rumours, and the increasing awareness of the gravity of the 1MDB problem, Fearless had had to deny, evade, duck, prevaricate, obfuscate or simply lie to Parliament and the Malaysian people about the matter.  

That takes a lot of nerve, an epidermis of no mean thickness and, surely, much heart-hammering amid the blood pressure of a giraffe. And, lest we forget, he had to return home to daily karaoke (Girls just wanna have funds) and occasional counsel (Can I advise you something?).

The extent of Fearless’ pre-emptive efforts to distance himself from 1MDB are slowly emerging. On Thursday, an anti-corruption agency officer testified that Fearless amended a 2016 audit report on 1MDB that was to be presented to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee “to shield himself from legal consequences.”  

And what do you think he felt every time he attended an international meeting after 2016, after the US’ Department of Justice had made sure the 1MDB scandal had made the world’s headliners, when the magnitude of the fiasco was becoming clear?  

Are they giving me the cold shoulder and ignoring me, or am I imagining it? 

Oh My God, is that a knowing look in Lee’s eyes? 

It must have been a time to try anyone’s soul and Felonious sympathised because he knew the extent of the heist. Neither did he feel any remorse about the matter. In fact, he’d recently offered RM1.5 billion to Putrajaya to forget the whole thing but the ingrates had declined.

As for those who accused him of burdening future generations with debt, he charitably forgave them as they did not know it was condoned. Didn’t the Bible say, “Blessed are the children for they will inherit the national debt?”

Felonious considered himself a principled man because, principally, there were only two rules governing crime and Rule 1 was unambiguous: never get caught. 

The second, which he was particularly proud of, simply referred the seeker of knowledge to Rule 1.  

Fearless considered his friend’s position neither here nor there and thought it cold comfort. Meanwhile, his defence team anguished over his RM4.5 million “revelation” because they’d been calculating their bill. 

And so it goes. And, in this instance, only the Bamboo River remains.

Still, silent, waiting.

ENDS

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID 

Veteran oppositionist, Lim Kit Siang, has called on the Cabinet to freeze all increases in salaries and allowances in government-linked companies (GLCs) until the economy recovers.

This comes after FGV Holdings,, which is 80% owned by the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda), agreed to increase its chairman’s annual allowance from RM300,000 to RM480,000 at its annual general meeting yesterday.

The hike came into effect yesterday. Meanwhile, the six board directors’ also saw their allowances increase from RM120,000 to RM150,000 a year. 

Most people would not even know of these proposals were it not for a social media post that went viral. The commentator, who wrote the post in Bahasa Malaysia, was grimly sarcastic about these pay increases at a time of   economic uncertainty amid steeply rising living costs. 

It appears that Lim was following up on the apparently popular rant.  

Even so, the government seems oblivious to the situation because no one, least of all in Putrajaya, has uttered a word about GLC salaries or anything connected to the economic situation.

Actually, our leaders  have said very little about anything meaningful which, given the economic climate, makes me believe that things will get a lot worse before it gets worse.

Indeed, I suspect  that’s the main fear of people: they worry that their leaders don’t  know what’s going on, and they believe they wouldn’t know what to do even if they did.

What are they all thinking  about anyway?

Messrs Najib and Zahid aren’t worried about the cost of living; they note that despite its increasing cost, it remains popular. 

They both think an early general election, preferably sometime around now,  will see a resounding victory by the National Front. This will somehow get them off  their respective  legal hooks. The exactly how is unclear but whoever is the premier after the election will presumably provide the answer.

For that reason, it appears that the current incumbent is quite happy with the status quo and sees no reason for an early general election. Dr M and most of the country is happy with this proposition. 

All the Finance Minister seems interested in is to be a candidate in said general election. It’s a wish that he telegraphs with increasing urgency to Umno and to the general public which, quite frankly, doesn’t give a hoot.  

All the Islamic Party, or Pas,  cares about is an electoral pact with Umno, without which, it will be soundly  thrashed in the election. It also worries about increasing national immorality which it defines as the morality of anyone having fun.

Tajudin, the boorish MP for Pasir Salak is so mightily chuffed with his ambassadorial appointment to Jakarta that he’s graciously forgiven his critics. They haven’t though and continue to assert his only credentials are idiocy veering on buffoonery.

Meanwhile, Nazri still hankers for a posting in Paris while sulkily insisting that floods in Malaysia could be the next big thing for tourism in the country. In fairness, no one’s ever accused him of sound reasoning in any shape or form.  

Now you know why everyone should worry.

ENDS

BETWEEN THE MIRAGE AND THE REALITY 

We were in Langkawi over the weekend and there’s something about the island that the rest of Malaysia might do well to emulate. 

We saw little, or no,  migrant labour, with locals doing everything from manning the hotels and waiting the tables to driving taxis – lots of female drivers, too – and working as guides. They were polite and, if you could speak reasonable Bahasa, were a lovely lot, always eager to help.   

There isn’t a trace of Pas’ influence on the island and thank Heaven for that. By way of explanation, the chief minister of Kedah state, where Langkawi is located, is  from the Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas, which frowns on anything that’s remotely connected to joy or feelings of good cheer.  

We went to Bon Ton for dinner one night to hear Joy Victor front a jazz band so smoking that  the appreciative  crowd of wall-to-wall Caucasians were besides themselves in rapture. But Norelle, the beanpole Aussie owner of the establishment, told me they were all “locals.” Norelle herself had  been in the country for over twenty seven years. 

In our party that night was a South American  Ambassador who’d taken up his assignment two years ago and seemed fascinated with all things Malaysian. 

But it was a comment he  made that struck, and quietened, us.  

He said before he arrived, the picture he’d envisaged of Malaysia was that of a Third World Southeast Asian developing economy. Not quite Singapore but not Somalia either. Which, if you think about it, isn’t far off the mark. 

Then he landed and as his embassy’s car rolled towards Kuala Lumpur, he began asking the same question: “Where are the shanty towns?”

These were the unmistakable  signs of urban blight, the slums indelibly associated with developing economies the world over, from Rio to Delhi, from Manila to Jakarta. 

“My mother came down recently,” he told us. “And she asked the same question. Your country is fantastic and I don’t see what all the Malaysians I meet are constantly bitching about?” 

I do because I’m in my sixties and I remember. 

I remember having a leader like Hussein Onn who set great store on honesty which struck me as very impressive then. Yet I remember later assessments  of his tenure being denigrated as slow and indecisive. Would that we still had that, rather than the grandiose megaprojects, the massive debt and the corruption that would characterise later leaders. 

In the 70s, I remember attending a local university that was ranked higher in quality than its peer in Singapore, a time when our educational excellence was right up there with the best of them, a period when standards mattered, when English was taken matter-of- factly and not treated as some dirty word.  

“Patriotism,” wrote Samuel Johnson, “is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” That is self- evident in today’s Malaysia. In the name of nationalism, merit is shunned, corruption is tolerated if not quite extolled and smart people migrate the first chance they get. They don’t want to because what’s not to love about this country, but they see a future where they are not wanted. But most don’t have a choice. 

If we are honest with ourselves, the signs of decay are everywhere. Potholes aren’t fixed, the water supply keeps breaking down. It’s scary the way the local colleges turn out graduates that are unemployable. It’s what happens when you drop standards and ignore merit. 

Meanwhile, a resigned population accepts everything thrown at them because we have learned to live with third-best. 

That’s what we’re bitching about Mr Ambassador. 

ENDS

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING PAS

I’m an atheist…thank God – Comedian Dave Allen

Who knew that Malaysia’s counter-terrorism chief Normah Ishak had a dry sense of humour?

Take this statement for instance: “The recognition by an Islamic party for the Taliban’s struggle augurs well for fans of terrorism in Malaysia,” Normah was quoted as saying in a recent webinar on Afghanistan.

The counter-terrorism chief was talking about that group of people who know an awful lot about very little – the Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas. More specifically, she was referring to Pas’ admiration for, and recognition of, the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

The party was, apparently, banking on the Taliban to improve its Islamic image. Its head of International Affairs Abdul Khalil Hadi had tweeted his party’s congratulations to the Taliban after the hard-line group had taken over Kabul in August.

Khalil is PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s son, which reinforces the notion of the apple not falling far from the tree.

True enough, the father echoed the son’s sentiments two weeks later. In a statement published in the party’s organ Harakah on August 25, Hadi claimed that the Taliban’s leaders had “changed” and were heading in the right direction.

He also urged Muslims not to be influenced by the coverage of the Taliban by the Western media, which he described as “evil”.

Normah explained the method behind Pas’ madness. “They are creating narratives to the party’s advantage, forming opinions and perceptions among Muslims in Malaysia, so that they will think the Taliban are okay now,” Normah said.

To paraphrase her, “fans of terrorism” will undoubtedly be dancing in the aisles. People who think that the danger of terrorism in Malaysia is much exaggerated should think again.

Three years ago, I was invited to a briefing by a very senior cop to the senior management of a listed company. The briefing was about terrorism.

In the beginning, we were shown slides of training camps, young people using guns and other weapons to, essentially, learn how to kill.

Most of the camps were in the Middle East, while I supposed the last two to be camps in the Philippines or Indonesia because their backdrops were “green.”

I was half-right. The last slide, we were told, was in a camp somewhere in “the vicinity” of Kuala Kangsar that “we’ve been watching for some time.”

God bless our Special Branch: they’re ahead of the curve.

That’s why the Islamic Party’s narrative is confounding. It flies in the face of the Malaysian government’s refusal to recognise the Taliban. It’s yet another reason to kick it out of the government.

Pas is still a part of the federal government although its contributions are generally in the “Less is More” category.

It’s safe to say that Messrs Hadi and Hadi don’t read widely because they were clearly unaware of the Kandahar commander who ordered all the women employed in a bank there to go home while their jobs were filled by men whose only ideas of banking or finance were previously gleaned from the business end of a Kalashnikov.

It isn’t clear if the same order applied to all the female doctors at Kandahar General.

“I’m sorry, I’m unable to do your hernia op right now, Commander,” says Dr Ayesha as she divests herself of mask and surgical gown. “But here’s my cousin, Ali, who’s got lots of experience with sheep.”

Who says I’m kidding?

Thus far the Taliban have grimly forbidden all things Gillette, quietly encouraged opium cultivation, and continued to discriminate against women and minorities.

And this is the model Pas holds up as its exemplar?

It’s got to be kidding!

ENDS