COMMENT | Home sweet home not for criminals

COMMENT | I suspect “Home Sweet Home” was coined by a person who committed a crime, served his time and when he finally came home to the bosom of his loving wife and family, exclaimed with tears in his eyes, “Home Sweet Home!”

I have left out the fruit trees, the banana grove, a cat and a small garden with a fish pond but you get my point that he was no longer a criminal.

You can call me sentimental and old-fashioned. But like so many others in this country, I believe in “Do not pass go, do not collect RM2 billion, go directly to jail, and stay there until your time is up!”

Yes, I added that last bit, not out of spite but because hundreds and thousands of Malaysians have paid their dues for the crimes they committed. “Apa lagi you mau?” (What else do you want?)

And old folk like me can tell something is in the air when a minister is caught looking down at the floor, laying the groundwork for a change in the rules of the game of Monopoly ala Malaysia.

This time, I suspect it is about allowing certain convicted criminals to go directly home without completing their allocated time in our jails which needs a thorough shake-up by the MACC.

You say: What the devil!

Minister replies, house arrest. Not convinced, we sniff the air. Within hours, “What the devil” became “Who is the devil”. And one name kept popping up. VVIPs always take the lead in this country!

Strange coincidences

Then there were the strange coincidences. On the same day, Budget 2025 double-taxed small and medium enterprises which account for some 90 percent of employment in this country and bear 100 percent of all business risks.

But even stranger still, the T20 had become T15 without any notice while the B40 and the M40 remained the same. Why and where is the government suddenly hiding five percent of the population?

In a country prone to living off rumours, the mongering began that a new category sitting above T for Top would be announced soon. Some suggested it would be called C5.

C5? That is close to C4. This is explosive, said an old man. “What does C stand for anyway?” another asked. Cronies? Capitalists? Connected?

How will C5 folks be taxed after living off the fat of the land for all these years? Putting two and two together we oldies became convinced house arrest is for the C5. But why confuse us by calling it house arrest instead of home arrest?

Look, when a person stays in another person’s house and pretends it is his home and not a hotel or a jail, we call it a homestay, a man nearing his 90s pointed out.

Coming home to roost?

The last I checked, nobody wants to spend time in a housestay, he added. So let us agree to call it home arrest and await the arrival of our first VVIP jailbird coming home to roost in his palatial home fit for a king.

Expect loyal party people to mill about the porch, waiting for the homecoming of this jailbird. They had lobbied hard for the new law that allowed jailbirds to become housebirds.

They still yearn for the times when the feeding trough was overflowing to the brim by using every trick in the book, cooked or uncooked. This is the least we can do for him, they said, grinning unapologetically from ear to ear.

For they know in their hearts that he stole for them and the party as much as for himself and his family. The only difference was, he was caught even as they fled from the feeding trough.

Those who escaped his fate now suffer from survivor’s guilt. They can no longer bear to see their benefactor languishing in jail. Call it Kuala Lumpur syndrome. Stockholm is half a world away. But how?

Enough is enough

The toughest part of their plan was not how to convince the Madani fellows who were still new to the game of backroom politics. It was how to convince the rakyat jelata, the common folk, that jailbirds under house arrest will not fly off and have a lark, excuse the pun, from time to time.

And how do we make them believe that this home arrest law was made to benefit them, the rakyat jelata?

Then there is the question of how to deal with a husband and wife pair of jailed criminals. Do they get to live under the same roof under home arrest? Wouldn’t this make jailbirds in our prisons demand conjugal visits?

Wah! That’s so modern! Can the home minister convince the rakyat that our Bonnie and Clyde couple are staying in separate rooms like the French? Excuse-moi cherie, your room or mine?

I say enough is enough! We have seen it all before! We gave that old devil of an ex-PM a second chance and it turned out to be “Bagai melepaskan anjing tersepit” (a Malay proverb that means an ungrateful person repaying good with evil).

Let us enjoy our home sweet home knowing it will never be turned into a jail. As Russell Peters said in one of his standup routines, just tell that criminal to his face: “Be a man!”

MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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