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Rehabbing of Najib, Hisham and Ivanka:
A Thaipusam Walkabout, Tying Shoelaces and Free Food Box Distribution Photo Ops
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright January 2022
A Thaipusam Walkabout, Tying S oelaces and Free Food Box Distribution Photo Ops
It is a week full of events starting with Thaipusam’s warm embrace of self-styled ‘BossKu”, UMNO’s favourite son! Everyone was surprised when Najib showed up at Batu Caves, dressed in a veshti, and jippa, a shawl, its borders thickly printed, hung over his shoulder. He looked good.
He was pictured being escorted to the temple by an entourage. Should we applaud him for being bold enough to be there, symbolically promoting religious tolerance amongst races? Wasn’t he afraid of being negatively labelled non-Islamic, as were the UIA students who helped clean a Hindu temple, after a recent flood? Was he nominated a representative of the government keen to bring everyone into the much-touted “Keluarga Malaysia”? No reason was forthcoming as to why or on whose directive he was at the event.
But Thaipusam we know is a Hindu tradition that celebrates the victory of good over evil, a thanksgiving ceremony for Lord Murugan who destroyed the demons. Thousands of Hindu devotees gather at Batu Caves every year to honour Lord Murugan, also known as the “universal granter of desires”.
So, was Najib there to celebrate his victory of good over evil, too? Or was he there to wish for a better future hoping for more of what he desired? Or was it a step towards rehabbing his self-image? We shall never know. But over social media comments were aplenty, mostly negative.
However, across town, one day before Thaipusam, Najib’s cousin, Hishamuddin, the Minister of Defence, was seen tying shoelaces of Muhammad Ammar, a son of an army officer who had won an award for educational excellence in the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR).
Reports say when the boy walked up to the stage to receive the award, Hisham noticed the boy’s shoelace was undone. Hisham quickly bent down and fixed it. The audience gave him thunderous applause for his thoughtfulness. It was a fortuitous opportunity for him and his PR team. The boy’s shoelaces needed fixing, Hisham was at the right time and place. The photo opportunity was indeed heaven-sent.
Two days earlier, across the oceans at the city of Rochester in New York State, USA, Ivanka Trump, daughter of a former President was helping distribute free food boxes. One newspaper commented that giving food to the poor was a worthy cause but posting “stylized photos” of the event was indeed hypocritical. Especially when it was after the event without information for people who may still be looking for food was of little help to anyone except for Ivanka herself.
She was accused of rehabbing her image over social media from which she took a leave of absence for eight months hiding because of the bad publicity from a meaningless upheaval a year earlier, engineered by her dad.
She failed to pay attention to a cardinal rule on social media that she was not to think of doing something good for others without posting about the deed as an attempt to start rehabbing her image.
In the case of Hisham, he too needed to be seen in a positive light. But unlike Ivanka the shoelace came undone just at the right time, an ideal photo opportunity and the quick thinking Hisham seized the moment.
However, for Hisham’s cousin, it was news itself. Sometimes politicians just have to create events to hit the headlines. Najib at Thaipusam was news. Every tabloid and digital media outfit carried the story. He loved the limelight. It was rehabbing of an image at its best.
Two Malaysian cousins showed Invanka how to stage-manage rehabbing without being hypocritical. They did something good for others without posting about the deed as an attempt to start rehabbing their self-image. The press did it for them.
Real smooth!
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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