It could be the Selangor public account committee's belly dancing tour of Egypt, the Malacca state government's golfing tour of the United States, Muslim patrons in nightclubs or Muslim contestants of a beauty contest harassed and humiliated by the Selangor Religious Affairs Department (Jawi), schools so badly constructed that they have to be shut down within months of its opening, hundreds of millions of ringgit earmarked for major educational projects which are abandoned mid-way with no explanation, mentris besar annointing Umno division chiefs with dato'ships if they are elected to high party positions, private secretaries of cabinet ministers signing official papers they have no authority to, the list is endless. But every revelation is greeted with thunderous silence.

Once the National Front (BN) governments could pull this off with equanimity and aplomb. The political repercussions on the citizenry to challenge official dictates became too fearsome to contemplate. The BN government instilled the collective fear that walls have ears, and the collective view that the citizen's sole right is to elect the BN to power, that he stands to lose his self-respect in society if he should ask too many intrusive questions or, indeed, if he should vote those it does not like to Parliament or, God forbid, elect an opposition to power in a state.