The parable of the BN minotaur in GE13

COMMENT While rummaging about in classical myths and ancient histories, to calm my allergy to GE13 date speculation and politics, I came across a powerful symmetry between our very own Umno-led BN ruling coalition, with King Minos, the cruel complexity of his curious labyrinth and the terrible double-axe-wielding minotaur of ancient Crete.

Minos is the more well known of ancient kings, largely due to the depiction of his labyrinth and minotaur in Greek legends, made popular in modern works of popular culture, and fantasy literature.

His was the namesake of the Bronze Age Minoan civilisation, discovered on Crete through the work of British archeologist Arthur Evans, who posited that the island was the exact home of Minos, his labyrinth and possibly the half-man half-bull fearsome minotaur.

There was some confusion as to King Minos' actual reign, as early mentions put him on the Cretan throne for an excessively long time.

Longevity is perhaps to be expected of one supposedly descended of the Greek chief-God Zeus, but modern logic would argue otherwise.

Historians attribute this to perhaps the same phenomenon that occurred with Julius Caesar's name in Rome, how the name of a great leader was later used as the very name of his office itself, "Caesar" equated in later years, to the position of the Roman Emperor.

So was Minos used as the subsequent title of preceding Minoan kings, some speculate, but perhaps the theory most relevant in my reading of the parable of the BN Minotaur, is that there were two kings named Minos in Crete.

One, the 'good Minos' who wrote the Minoan constitution - credited with being the inspiration behind that of Sparta written by its great 'lawgiver' Lycurgus - and the royal who founded the Cretan kingdom.

The good and the bad

The other the 'bad Minos', a descendent with the same name responsible for atrocities such as the sacrifice of Athenian children, to be thrown and lost in the labyrinth, and later devoured, one by one, by the minotaur.

Here I draw the beginning of my parable, how there are probably two BNs, the good one that founded this great country of ours, helped write our great constitution and forged a multiracial country, out of our fragmented colonial past; A bastion of great leaders, great visions and greater aspirations that embody the hopes and dream of our multifaceted populace.

And then there is the 'bad BN', the empty shell of what was once a good-intentioned grouping, but now a horde or grasping self absorbed creatures, more disposed to sow discord, preen about on gilded horses and trampling upon the rakyat's rights.

The BN which had constructed a great confusing and destructive labyrinth in its over fifty-year rule, obfuscating truth by shackling the media and curtailing free expression, reinventing history in its own image via 'loaded' histories, and corrupting justice by riding roughshod over the judiciary.

But worse, the ruling coalition had hijacked the rakyat's voice by castrating the People's House of parliament, turning it from the highest governing body in the land, into the errand boy of the Executive, while at the same time misusing the civil service which is supposed to serve the rakyat, as personal butlers of the ruling BN elite.

All in the name of keeping a firm grip on power, lording over us and rolling in our wealth, though they would argue it is in the best interest of the people who should be grateful for all that the 'good BN' has done.

All the while constricting the rakyat through poor public transport, poor quality of affordable foodstuff, rising prices, depressed wages and an economy dominated by those in power or minions and cronies related to them.

Tumpurung of a vicious nature

The BN which has created its own Minotaur to terrify and terrorise the populace, an engineered racial strife monstrosity used to cow the races, pigeonholing them for easier control, and the dark-shadowed beast of government crackdown via oppressive laws that continue to haunt us despite being allegedly repealed, only to appear under another name.

To paraphrase the Great Bard Shakespeare, an ISA by any other name (SOSMA) still stinks of oppression, and the Police Act by any other name (Peaceful Assembly Act) still reeks of control.

Adding to the latest iteration of the BN Minotaur are thuggish tactics deployed to disrupt any opposition to its rule, from bothersome mat rempits who gun their engines, to thugs wielding crude weapons who threaten innocents, to flag waving miscreants that disrupt ceramah and fly-by-night NGOs outsourced to conduct BN's dirty work.

I can't help but to be reminded of Hitler's SA, the Sturm Abteilung or Storm Detachment, more colloquially known as the Brown shirts, for the colour of the uniforms donned by the truncheon-wielding thugs employed by the infamous German dictator to disrupt and break up opposition events and harass their members.

The BN which continue to sacrifice the future of our generations, though not really thrown to be devoured by the Minotaur in the labyrinth, the children of Malaysia are sacrificed on the altar of substandard education and robotic indoctrination.

At the primary and secondary level, our education system is plagued not only by decrepit buildings and worn out equipment, but also lack of trained teachers, stunted syllabi and various window dressing policies that look good but fail to deliver, like the ubiquitous Sekolah Wawasan and national sports school in Bukit Jalil, as alleged by some.

While tertiary education has been made to produce more robots than future leaders, as independent thinking is curtailed and academic freedom manacled, by the heavy chains of the University and University Colleges Act.

Rules made not to protect students from politics as authorities claim but more to ensure that students only support the government, some commenting that it is more indoctrination than education.

Breaking free with a vengeance

But the labyrinth that the bad BN built, has chafed upon the rakyat's freedoms for far too long and as the 2008 political tsunami has shown, they are pounding to break its walls or perhaps as the Minos-imprisoned engineer Deadalus and his son Icarus, are building makeshift wings to soar free.

And the minotaur that has terrorised the rakyat has raised a mob of discontented rakyat, like a flock of angry birds intent at egg-pelting the monster into oblivion, while the BN's callous sacrifice of our children have not gone unnoticed but is being resisted by shackled youths and concerned parents alike.

One can only hope that for the sake of our generations one more parable with Minos will be drawn, that of his elimination.

How he was trapped in a bathhouse and dowsed with boiling water to his destruction. May the coming GE13 be the boiling cleansing bath for BN, as popular votes wash them down the drain.

Though whoever comes into power next must also take heed of this ancient tale, for should they, too, fail the rakyat's expectations, they, too, should be washed out and drained away, as we the people dislodge the drain-plug and pull the rug from under their feet.

---

HAZLAN ZAKARIA is a member of the Malaysiakini team.

 

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The parable of the BN minotaur in GE13