SATIRE Halim’s heavy footfall echoed on the busy Petaling Jaya sidewalk lining the road in front of PJ Hotel, as he waded through the crowd, pushing against one another as they advanced step by step in their collective journey to get to the nearby iconic Padang Timur public square.

Today is special. They were all in for a treat, as the federal government is launching the new TN50 Federal Law Enforcement Robots, FELLER for short, programmed to enforce both civil and syariah laws and empowered to act as judge, jury, social media monitorer and punisher.

And as with every federal government programme, there is bound to be goodies and gifts for those who attend as the government loves to have crowds at events, especially if they cheer loudly and wave the ubiquitous 'I LUV (insert name of leader here)' placards with gusto.

He mingled with the crowd making the trip to the square, keeping his gaze lowered just in case his sight grazes that of a non-Muhrim female, as the state Morality Authorities' (MORAIS) moral-surveillance drones flutters overhead.

The drones are equipped with a hypersensitive 360-degree panoramic extreme-zoom camera that can detect lingering looks and prolonged eye-contact, as well as a unidirectional electro-zapper to zap offenders into catatonic obedience.

Halim mulled about the Out-Of-Wedlock Sex Prevention Enactment 2021 (OOWSPE) which made it an offence for all Muslim males and females to engage in prolonged eye-contact with non-Muhrims of the opposite sex, in the fear that it would lead to out-of-wedlock sex.

The enactment also provides for the use of drones for enforcement, bypassing constitutional privacy safeguards by virtue of superior moral authority.

Parliamentarians and assemblypersons from the opposition fought the enactment via the courts and the House and state legislature, until the Political Activities Requirement Act of 2024 was passed.

The Act requires that all those seeking public office go through mandatory lobotomy where the intellectual and argumentative centre of the brain is removed to ensure docile and servile behaviour.

The law was put in place by the government after it was found that there was a mismatch between the quality of MPs and assemblypersons fielded by the opposition and those selected for candidacy and cabinet posts by the ruling party.

The government decided if its ministers and elected representatives were selected sans intellect and ability to argue, then all opposition politicians should be of the same level too, thus the enforced lobotomies on all seeking public office.

Halim found it sad that after the new law was enforced, the opposition MPs and assemblypersons were now indistinguishable from those from the ruling party and no longer fought for the public good, like opposing the Out-of-Wedlock Sex Prevention Enactment.

Halim even found himself missing the frequent urgings for royal commissions of inquiry (RCIs) by the opposition elected representatives, no matter how annoying it can often get.

“Woiii,” screamed the person in front of Halim, as he was jolted back to reality by the violent impact of him running into his fellow citizen...