If you remember, a few months ago, Malaysian football was embroiled in full blown controversy. The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) was accused of naturalising foreign footballers as Malaysians—players who had no genuine ties to the country, no cultural roots, no lived connection to the nation they were suddenly said to represent. It caused an uproar. Questions were asked. Eyebrows were raised.
Then, slowly, it vanished.
What happened to that case?
How was it resolved?
Your guess is as good as mine—because I genuinely do not know. And that, perhaps, is the point.
This pattern, by the way is not unique. In fact, it is disturbingly familiar.
Take the case of Pamela Ling's disappearance for instance. To this day, no one seems able—or willing—to say clearly what happened, who is responsible, or why the trail went cold, although Pamela was kidnapped in broad daylight, in Putrajaya, the capital of the country, not very far from the MACC office, where she was scheduled for a meeting just minutes before she was kidnapped. You would think that Putrajaya, on account of being frequently visited by the head of nations from around the world, would be one of the most secure places in the country, but think again.
Pastor Raymond Koh and Amri Che Mat also vanished under circumstances so grave that the courts eventually acknowledged state involvement. Millions were awarded to their families in compensation, yet the most basic questions remain unanswered: Where are they? Who took them? Who gave the order? And why has no one been held accountable?
Teoh Beng Hock and Indira Gandhi are names Malaysians still recognise, not because justice was done, but because their families refused to let the cases die. They continue to speak, to protest, to remind the public that something deeply wrong occurred. But beyond keeping these cases alive in public memory, one wonders how much closer we are to genuine resolution. Justice delayed has long crossed the line into justice denied.
Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder briefly resurfaced in public discourse a couple of days ago, but it is hard to believe that it will lead anywhere meaningful. The public has grown tired, perhaps numb. The case has been reopened, reexamined, re-discussed so many times that it has lost its capacity to shock. Even unresolved injustice, it seems, can grow stale.
Then there is the case of Ismail Sabri Yaakob. Hundreds of millions were allegedly seized. The government took the money although it did not declare anyone guilty, and Ismail Sabri while insisting that he is innocent.
What kind of resolution is this?
The state takes the money without proving the crime. The individual surrenders it without admitting guilt. Everyone walks away, and the public is left holding a bag full of unanswered questions. It feels less like justice and more like a negotiated forgetting.
These are only the cases that come readily to mind. There are many more—each one erupting briefly into public consciousness, dominating headlines, provoking outrage, and then fading away like a sudden rainstorm on a scorching afternoon. When the ground dries, it is as if the rain never fell.
In Malaysia, it increasingly feels like the primary method of resolving high-profile scandals is not truth, accountability, or justice—but forgetfulness.
Instead of putting matters to rest by shedding light on them, we quietly nudge them into oblivion. We let them slip into the dark corners of our collective memory, hoping that time will do what institutions refuse to do. We bury unresolved questions not because they have been answered, but because we are exhausted by them.
Someone once told me that this is how dementia may begin—not as a sudden loss of memory, but as a habit of deliberate forgetting. If you keep training your mind to avoid difficult thoughts, uncomfortable truths, and painful recollections, eventually you may lose the ability to remember even the things you don't wish to forget, like how to zip your pants up.
Sometimes I wonder if a nation can develop something similar.
What happens when we keep sweeping everything under the carpet simply because we do not know how—or do not wish—to deal with it? When unresolved injustices are treated as inconveniences rather than moral failures? When forgetting becomes a civic virtue?
Do the things we bury eventually die?
Or do they remain alive, hidden in the dark corners of our collective consciousness?
Personally, I think they remain very much alive.
They linger in places where the light of probity and rationality does not reach. There, unexamined and and forgotten, they begin to mutate. Deprived of rest, they grow agitated. Deprived of accountability, they accumulate resentment. Deprived of closure, they turn monstrous in their anonymity.
They wait.
And one day—perhaps triggered by an economic crisis, a political upheaval, or a single spark of injustice too blatant to ignore—they will be unearthed. When that happens, they will not return gently or rationally. They will erupt with pent-up fury and madness, lashing out in ways we can neither predict nor control.
We will call it instability. We will call it polarization. We will call it extremism.
But in truth, it will be the return of everything we refused to confront.
This is not a future to look forward to. Yet it is one we seem determined to manufacture.
A society that forgets unresolved injustice does not become peaceful—it becomes fragile. A state that relies on amnesia rather than accountability does not achieve stability—it merely postpones reckoning. And a nation that mistakes silence for harmony may one day discover that it has been quietly laying the groundwork for chaos.
Justice does not disappear just because we stop talking about it.
Truth does not expire simply because it is inconvenient.
If we continue to treat forgetfulness as a solution, we should not be surprised when the things we buried come back—not as memories, but as nightmares.
And when they do, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@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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