It may look a little odd but what we are witnessing today is a situation where predecessors seem to be regretting what they had helped create because that very creation has turned into a growth that we cannot seem to help stop.
If only our dear Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the revered leader of Malaysian politics, had allowed a fair amount of check and balance in our system, though he may not agree with some members of the judiciary back then but if it could have been contained to a level where there is a fair balance of check and balance where the executive is kept at check should it get out of hand, then we would not see the situation that we are in today.
It is a real pity actually, at this age when most of his peers have long gone, he seems to have been picked by God to see what he had helped create, work against him when he wants to speak his mind out and provoke a response from a responsible system of governance which is supposed to have a reliable system of check and balances.
Though a little strict when it came to his ways, Dr Mahathir was to an extend a benevolent but tough leader when he helmed the country for 22 years till 2003. But unfortunately, one has to reap what one sows because of a complete breakdown of a system of checks and balances that we are witnessing before us, to question the supreme authority is seen as a very improper thing to do.
If anyone else would have made attempts to question, that poor soul would now be incarcerated by using the array of legislations that we seem to be dishing out of Parliament which will allow the powers-that-be to simply come up with something and make it sell in a compliant judicial system.
Now questions are being asked which was not allowed to be asked earlier when the matter went through the compliant Judicial system. But these questions can only be asked by one man which the entire system fears which is none other than Dr Mahathir himself.
Now one may ask, why has the system come to this? Isn't there any form of check and balance? If the enforcement agencies mess up, can't the prosecutorial and judicial services at least check and get to the bottom of the matter? The entire system has become beholden to the Prime Minister's Office and it has become an Executive-led Guided Democracy which we have to endure with. It has come to this because we allowed it to.
We don't seem to allow questions any more, even in school when a child questions, it is frowned upon by today’s teachers.
Our system has been allowed to rot because we have allowed the state to get too powerful until it doesn’t believe in a system of check and balance any more. Legislations are ramrodded through parliamentary sittings in the wee hours without an inkling of concern that Members of Parliament are not robots who are battery-operated and not need adequate rest to function well as the representatives of the people.
Our Judiciary seems to have been reduced to that of a clerical assistant to the Executive instead of a equal partner and organ of state that can and should check and balance. Dr Mahathir may now realise that what happened 27 years ago has now made the once very stellar institution a very largely threatening one to the masses which does the bidding of Executive-dominated Legislature.
Our education system has created students and graduates who can't think and articulate out of the box because they just don't read any more. Even if they read, it is nothing but junk and rubbish material which doesn’t enhance proper speaking and writing skills.
We ought not to talk about English-speaking prowess, many aspiring politicians and even those who are already in positions of power as lawmakers can't confidently give an interview in English to the press. Let’s not talk about giving interviews to the foreign press; the MH370 fiasco will talk for itself.
Who allowed ethnic favouritism?
Who let the rot set in so deep? Who allowed ethnic favouritism to take the place of meritocracy? The tentacles of religiosity has been allowed to spread wide and deep into our education system where we now see the national schools looking and behaving more like state sponsored madrasahs instead of the school of choice which it once was.
The current generation of leaders are only following suit and leading by example, the only difference is that they are doing it more blatantly and are not too bothered about any form of repercussions because they believe that they have got it all made and figured out. If the system of checks and balance can be manipulated for political purposes with such ease and impunity, then what is there to worry about?
Now when we are in dire straits when our currency is not doing well, our debts which may take another two generations to settle is still mounting and to top it all up, we have now introduced a far and wide-reaching consumption tax which made the ordinary man on the street worry about taxes for purposes of consumption for the first time, we suddenly wake up and think what has happened.
When we cut corners, when we changed the goal posts in the level playing field and routinely changed the referees until we were assured that we would win every time we played, we created monsters called corruption and abuse of power.
These monsters and its activities were containable at first but as we went, we decided that the law and the so called checks and balances proved to be a bane to our quest to enrich ourselves as quickly as possible. So the small poodle became a canine, the canine became a crocodile and now the crocodile has become a Godzilla.
Now it is not easy to contain a large prehistoric creature like the Godzilla who goes about and does what it likes. It will be up to the masses to contain such a creature. Time and again race and religion was used to ensure that the masses were kept within mental and feudal mould, anyone who managed to come out of this mould is deemed dangerous and not suitable to be allowed to mix freely with those who are happily living their existence in the mould.
If one speaks and it is not liked, it is deemed seditious and one is charged, fined and thrown into prison.
So summing it all up, isn’t this like a situation which parties like the Congress Party of India and the Kuomintang party of Taiwan found themselves in after long decades being in the saddle of incumbency? Time has run out, what goes around will eventually come around. We reap what we sow.
