……….rational and functioning society.
The answer is unfortunately, no.
Those who are rolling their eyes lambasting the Madani government and the PH coalition despite clear cut evidence presented by the RCI into Tabung Haji must have outsourced their critical thinking to religious leaders and the politicians
The polemics that followed after the release of the RCI Report on Tabung Haji appeared to show that the years of racial and religious indoctrination has seriously done an unbelievable amount of damage here.
It has given corrupt politicians a stage to perform righteousness.
Increasing the wealth of the elites and politically connected while the ordinary rakyat, the people who pay their taxes and funding these elites and politically connected, can barely afford to eat.
We love saying the country is broken because of bad leadership.
That’s true, obviously.
But our leaders didn’t fall from the sky.
They came from Malaysian homes, Malaysian schools, Malaysians mosques, churches, temples and Malaysian communities.
They are direct, unfiltered products of the same culture we are all part of.
We also love telling ourselves this sweet, comforting lie: that the average Malaysian is a fundamentally good person trapped in a bad system.
If we are being completely honest, Malaysians in our purest, unregulated form are barbaric. This is not an insult.
Look at what we do the moment the thin veneer of order slips.
Look at how we behave at accident scenes.
The immediate instinct of the crowd is record it on their phones for entertainment or be the first to post it on their social media account.
We treat empathy like a weakness and ruthlessness like a skill.
We wll bribe a policeman, and then turn around to complain on FB or Insta that corruption is destroying the country.
We will destroy public property because “it’s government property.”
We will justify almost anything if it benefits us.
We will praise unexplainable wealth brazenly exhibited on social media before asking how it was made.
We will underpay our house helps and interns while insisting we’re “helping them” or “doing them a favour.”
Someone finds a loophole and immediately asks how to exploit it, not fix it.
Probably, all these are not unique only to Malaysia but across the world.
Human beings are capable of selfishness everywhere, sure.
But in societies that actually work, there are usually consequences.
The law functions.
Public accountability matters.
People trust systems.
The question then becomes, what keeps people in line when institutions don’t?
FLK (leekhean.foo@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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