comment A little over 50 years after Merdeka, the powers-that-be are still treating us like children by conjuring up ‘bogeymen’ to scare Malaysians into silence and terrify us into supporting them.

Or at least, they are attempting to, amidst the winds of change.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a ‘bogeyman’ is “a monstrous imaginary figure used in threatening children” or “a terrifying, dreaded person or thing”.

    

Parents in particular use a ‘bogeyman’ to frighten children into doing - or not doing - something.

It is sad that the government is not only treating us, the rakyat , as children, but is also subjecting us to the ‘bogeyman’ tactic because it cannot be bothered to grow up.

Its latest attempt is with the ‘bogeyman’ of economic recession, raised specifically to prevent the people from looking at the opposition as an alternative to the BN government.

asli capital market summit 131107 awang adek Leading the charge, Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek Hussin ( left )   belittled Kelantan’s supposedly meager annual tax collection. In this, he was all too obviously equating the state’s alleged economic stagnation to the performance of its opposition-led government.

Withheld royalty

No mention was made of the withheld petroleum royalty, and the auditor-general’s report on Kelantan’s sterling financial performance and recognition of the state as the one that has repaid the most in loans to the federal coffers.

ahmad husni hanadzlah This was followed by Second Finance Minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah who tried to stoke fears by saying that the opposition’s ‘antics’ are scaring away foreign investments and purportedly leaving Malaysians to face a bleak future.

Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen once zeroed in on ‘dirty toilets’ in Kelantan, while police are reportedly worried about the crime rate in the same state.

In Penang and Selangor, the Malay community has been goaded by the likes of NGO Perkasa to rise against the state government for supposedly marginalising them.

Failing to agitate the rakyat with the ‘bogeyman’ of barn-burning and pig-headed religious sectarianism, or to scare Malays with the ‘bogeyman’ of losing the institution of the royalty and their special rights, the government may now be moving up the idea chain by playing the economic card.

It is targeting sensible people who are otherwise unmoved by other ‘bogeyman’ rhetoric, to hit them where it hurts - in the wallet.

Same old drivel

Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng ( below ) was perhaps the first ‘bogeyman’, used to bludgeon the British into submitting to our demand for independence and to bulldoze ‘convenient’ policies into place.

chin peng interview 021209 03 He is perhaps a ‘bogeyman’ still, being denied his rest in his motherland and used to stoke sectarian fires and to label opposition figures as communist stooges.

Then of course there were the May 13 riots, the Al-mau’nah tales, Operasi Lalang stories and other skeptic-fodder whose timeline suspiciously coincides with a power struggle in the corridors of power.

But apart from generating needless worry and suffering, the saddest part of raising the bogeyman is that this continues to be the government’s modus operandi 52 years on.

It’s the same old drivel. Instead of working to solve real concerns and real-life troubles, the government seems intent on manufacturing more reasons to create squabbles.

Where it does not create bogeymen of its own, it is all to ready to step in to muddy the waters - making things murkier to serve its own agenda.

    

Alas for the powers-that-be, we have grown up, in more ways than one. We the rakyat are becoming inured to these tricks. The lacklustre reception of these last several ‘bogeymen’ should be an indication of this.

It’s time we say: We are not children and we tire of your bogeyman-dering!

HAZLAN ZAKARIA is a member of the Malaysiakini team.