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I Wanna Kiss Your Hand, I Wanna Kiss Your Hand, Oh, Najib My Don, My Benefactor!
By Mihar Dias (C) Copyright August 2022
I wanna kiss your hand is an adaptation of the Beatles “I wanna hold your hand”, Sing it and you’ll get my message.
In fact, that’s what it might probably sound like if we could hear the secret wishes of a poor policeman who stooped like a knight in shining armour on bended knees to kiss the hand of a former PM and convicted criminal awaiting final appeal.
But to this policeman, Najib might have been kind and generous to him in the past. Or he was an officer and a bodyguard to Najib at some point in his life where he developed a strong bond between a staff member and his boss.
Or he could be a distant cousin who is indeed in awe of the former PM. Or he could be just an ordinary policeman who found Najib to be indeed an awesome guy. We don’t know!
Anyway, he kissed Najib’s hand, in public, bowing low showing real respect reserved only for parents and the elders or those who are more senior to him.
If you were to do a quick search on Wikipedia on this peculiar cultural norm, it would explain that this kissing of hand is a common practice in Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Somalia, and even Brunei.
It says that hand-kissing is a common way to greet elders, primarily relatives closest to you, including parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and teachers. It often times includes village elders.
During Hari Raya festivals for instance, after kissing the hand, you’ll often see the greeter drawing his hand to his own forehead as a form of salutation and a sign of deep respect.
In Malaysia, it is also common to see the rakyat bowing in front of royalties and kissing their hands. Malays in general have been conditioned for generations, like Pavlov’s experimental subjects (dogs), to respond toward them in such manners.
But it has been cascading downwards to cover UMNO politicians too since independence.
According to Wikipedia, in Southern Italy, mainly Sicily, the greeting “I kiss the hands: Bacio le mani is derived from this practice. This is seen in The Godfather and the series based on the original movie where the hand-kissing is featured quite prominently as a way to show how powerful and influential the Don is in the community.
We are not alluding to the idea that Najib is anything akin to the Don of the Italian Godfather series. But to many amongst B40s and the lower rungs of the civil service he might have been regarded by some of them as a Don, the benefactor!
In reality, the way he has been redistributing wealth during his regime many still regard him as BossKu, a mobile ATM with his own byline of Cash is King!
Back to the policeman, it could be just an innocent gesture but where the “Government General Orders” is concerned, public display of affection for a civil servant is a big “No No”. So, heads will have to roll!
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