Tolerating Intolerant Untolerables

That to me sums up the Malaysian experience, meaning living in Malaysia. Which (unintentionally, I must add) forms the acronym TIU.

We have effectively sold out. Everything that can be exchanged for money, we have. Education, environment, the law, personal freedoms, personal safety, the whole lot. The numbers and results show - our economy's doing well, some people are growing rich, some of some people are growing incredibly crazy-rich; on the other hand, our 'top university' ranking has dropped to match our Transparency International index, people can C4 other people and get away with it, governments can get bought out, hillsides are falling over each other from under-studied development, trees are felled left right centre, and people are getting more scared for their safety every day: robberies, snatch theft, rape and murder.

Charming innit?

An untolerable situation, stemming from having Untolerables in charge. They think they can get away with everything, and we let them. If half the stories are only half true, it's still a staggering 25%. The core of the problem?

I think it's from our collective understanding of power. We believe that the people/person in power can do anything - take money, cheat the law, make people do stuff. And so, they do. We practically expect it of them.

Now that wouldn't be so much of a problem, if the 'dictator' were benevolent - history does show that states ruled by a benevolent dictator can become a shining beacon of enlightenment. However, we have somehow allowed the most Intolerant buggers to be charge of stuff.

"Let's review and discuss the NEP, as was planned at its inception": "You racist, go home!" 

"The ISA might need changing, it's seriously outdated": "Aha! You communist, that's exactly what we have it for!"

"Do you think it was a good idea for the sultan to make that decision?": "You traitor, how dare you question the royalty!"

"I think a inter-communal religious dialogue will promote greater understanding within our fractious society": "Infidel! There is only one true religion!"

Yes, every society will have their proportion of Intolerants. Ours tends to put them in charge of stuff. It's easy, because the moderate majority are so Tolerating. We put up with so much shit it's unbelievable. Here is a list of beliefs the average Malaysian has, I'm aware that I'm assuming they're shared and I'd be very very happy to be challenged on them:

Law

- The justice system is mostly fair, unless a high-profile person is involved. Then they will win or get away with a pittance penalty.

- New laws are always advantageous to the people in power. Even with laws to further development for the people, the first beneficiaries are the people in power.

- Traffic / Road law is outdated and unreliable.

Enforcement

- The police are too busy escorting the people in power to bother with the rising crime rate on everyone else.

- Traffic police are too busy misdirecting traffic to properly enforce traffic law. In fact they probably don't know traffic law, but that's fine 'cos no one else does either (except lawyers).

- Everyone needs to have residential security in their houses/neighbourhoods. They'll provide the vigilance that the police do not.

- Women are in constant danger on the road, whether on foot or in a car.

City councils

- Are not bothered to provide for adequate/ample parking space anywhere because they'd rather collect the fines. Of course, they don't enforce their summons-collection, so why pay these lazy buggers?

- Are slow, inefficient and don't do anything. They don't fine dangerous parkers, they barely upkeep the roads, they don't have a system for naming houses or ensuring sufficient road capacities for new residential developments.

Education

- Public Universities are rubbish and their graduates barely employable.

- Local Schools must be supplemented with private tuition to provide adequate education.

- Moral (the subject) is an absolute waste of time as it bases itself on fictional situations and does not teach anything useable in the real world.

- The standard of English is so deplorable that calling ourselves an ex-British colony would elicit much laughter.

Freedom of Speech

- Relegated to the mamak only. Even then, be careful there aren't any govt people around. Otherwise it's ISA time.

Freedom of the Press

- Sure, the BN-owned press can say anything they like. They can even make up stuff for the Opposition to say.

- Facts? References? Due diligence? Journalistic integrity? Sorry didn't learn those words in Bahasa Inggeris class.

- Careful with your blogs too. Say the wrong thing and it's ISA time.

Okay so that's my TIU post. Now don't get me wrong - I love this country. I love the people. It breaks my heart to see all these little things that can be easily put right, but not enough are interested in doing.

People Power begins at points like these

Some people might have heard about hoo-ha being raised over the Selangor Water Restructuring Exercise. Many probably have no idea, or wonder what the big deal is. In short, the Federal Government wants to directly buy up poor-performing water concession companies' assets. If this already gets your hackles up, go here and find out more:

http://www.airuntukrakyat.com/

There's a great PDF link on the right bar, about one page down from the top.

Here's the long version, which starts with some questions:

- would you ever consider drinking water directly out of your tap?

- do you know that people in the UK (and several other countries) do so, as a matter of course?

- do you ever look at all the water filters that people put outside and/or inside their house, and wonder why don't they just pool that money together for cleaner water out of the tap?

- have you thought about how regularly we seem to have price hikes on our water?

- have you wondered why water can seem to be such a problem in an equatorial rainforest country like Malaysia, where we have rainfalls that, if properly channelled, can wash Singapore right off the map? (sorry, couldn't resist)

Now that you're thinking about water, which is a fundamental human need; here are some facts about these water concession companies that our wonderful government wants to buy off:

- they are in RM6.4billion of debt

- Syabas, a semi-private company (that is the sole distributor of water in KL and Selangor), will benefit greatly

- some of them are run by the guy who runs Syabas

- they want to hike up the price every 3 years from now until 2030

If that stinks like our water does, take action at http://www.airuntukrakyat.com/ . If not yet, read on.

An unfortunately great number of Malaysians already think that there's nothing they can do. Why fight, when these buggers in power can do what they want, the rakyat be damned?

Okay here's a dramatic answer to that: if we keep on doing nothing, they'll keep pushing harder and harder until finally, we've had enough. When we react then, it becomes nothing short of a revolution, because we've been oppressed and bullied and condescended upon for so long that there's a lot of negativity to release.

On the other hand, if we keep up our momentum of People Power / Makkal Sakthi, we're reminding those in government that we're still watching, that we want better and more (or less). We're keeping things civilised, even if they're not. We stand by our beliefs and our ideals, even if they have no idea or don't care.

The more pragmatic answer to that question, of course, is they we're giving feedback to them. Simple as that. Adding our voices, our views, our opinions to the mix; hoping that one day, they'll hear, they'll see, they'll do something about it.

And that is where People Power begins. One voice.

[Edit 9/4/09] There's also a site that spoke to an MP about it - check out PopTeeVee at http://popteevee.popfolio.net/default.aspx?e=66 .