When the alarm bells toll

When minister Idris Jala gave his opinion that the country may be bankrupt by 2019, he is offering an honest opinion, based on the figures that was given to him by Pemandu, the agency under his care. His intention is good, telling Malaysians that we must change our ways.

Even though this thing may not happen (though many outside the government think that this actually can happen if we are not careful), it is always good to have ‘umbrella’ ready , even when there will be no rain in the immediate future.

He surely didnt expect the uproar he caused by speaking so frankly. Politicians, mainly from the dominant party, criticised him one after another. No one came to his defence, not even one in that party. Perhaps, his sounding the alarm bells must have caused uneasiness, especially when some of these people knew that they are part of the reason that causes the deficits in the national budget.

I can’t help but think of those old Cantonese movies that i watched in my childhood. Typically , there would be a rich family, the parents died broken hearted because the son was not filial and behaved like a play boy. So after the parents’sdeath, the faithful maid or male servant in the house would often reminded the son to mend his ways, since by spending and not working, the family fortune would be fast depleted. And the son would not heed those advice, and chased the faithful servants away. In the end, he became bankrupt and the one that came to his rescue and offered him food would be the faithful servants that he chased away.

In a way, many of us bloggers are like Idris. We want the country to go towards the right direction and not be manupulated by politicians for their own self interest. By so doing, we inevitably incur the wraths of the authority, and some might even be forced to go overseas and some might even be jailed. Some got their workplace audited by authority No one cares whether the intention of the blogger is good or not; rather , the powers that be would not want  their self interest being threatened by bloggers speaking the truths and seeking ways to change the mindsets of the voting public, so they would do all sort of things to create problems for the blogger. But a minister was criticised left and right , too, for speaking the truth!  That is rather shocking.

Idris is not a politician. He must be shocked to receive so much of brickbats from his colleagues by merely sounding the alarm bells, and trying to tell the power that be that we need to be more frugal.. He is one of those who have been so hardworking, and  trying to work out a blue print on all the NRAs to improve on the delivery of the government. He has done well to draft and make ready the Government Transformation Program.  But , in politics, it is not how much you have done or how well you have done that matters. It is how much you conform to your colleagues and how much you listen to your boss that is of ultimate importance.  He must be regreting that he joined the cabinet. ALl his efforts in preparing the GTP might come to nought, since I doubt whether the warlords would follow what was laid down in the blueprint.

I would like to commend him for having the courage to sound the alarm bells. We need more people like him, hardworking, not partisan and see things in proper perspective.

It is a pity that these type of people never get any support from the top, and like a pawn in a chess board, these people can be easily sacrificed too, in the name of winning the game.