Puchong Member of Parliament Yeo Bee Yin said such an odd thing today, that for a second, it really made me wonder as to how Yeo Bee Yin sees herself and the world.
For context, in response to the accusation that Umno was engaging in acts of betrayal or "tebuk atap", as we say it colloquially, for trying to overthrow the PH led Negeri Sembilan government at a time when the state was in a state of crisis, Khairy Jamaluddin, who used to be the Rembau MP, retorted, that if we really want to know who started the "tebuk atap" culture in Malaysian politics, we should go back to 2008. He was referencing Anwar Ibrahim's infamous "I have the numbers" claim in 2008, when Anwar attempted to overthrow Pak Lah's rule, following Pak Lah's disastrous showing in the 2008 elections.
Anwar even boldly set Sept 16 - Malaysia Day - as the day when he was going to bring Pak Lah's government down.
It was all so dramatic and suspenseful, but the end was anti-climatic - Anwar, despite his Tamil Movie hero braggadocio ,failed to bring the government down on the set date.
"Many Pakatan Harapan simps (both team X and team B) unleashing on Umno for being opportunistic and purveyors of backdoor/tebuk atap politics in capitalising on a crisis to stage a coup.
"I suggest everyone (especially the younger generation) to look up what was supposed to happen on Sept 16, 2008 to find out who started tebuk atap politics in Malaysia," Khairy wrote in a series of social media posts, to remind Malaysians today of what happened nearly 20 years ago.
Pak Lah , by the way, was also Khairy's father in law.
In response to Khairy, Yeo Bee Yin would say something that I found to be rather odd and amusing.
First, she said that "two wrongs don't make a right" although Anwar, the leader of the coalition that she is a member of, has never admitted that what he did was wrong.
Yeo Bee Yin is saying that what Anwar's attempt to overthrow Pak Lah outside of the ballot box was wrong, but Anwar himself, mind you, never said so - he only failed to execute a coup to overthrow Pak Lah, but he has never proclaimed that it was in anyway wrong for him to attempt the coup at all.
Later on, she would ask whether it was appropriate for Khairy, to tell young voters who were just babies in 2008, that it was fair to break a governing pact, using the "they did it first" as a reason?
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” the Puchong MP said in a Facebook post.
“Many who were babies in 2008 are voters today. Are we really telling the next generation that ‘he did it first’ is a valid reason to break a governing pact?”
The first thing that actually crossed my mind when I read what Yeo Bee Yin said was what Gandhi and Jesus said.
Gandhi said "an eye for an eye makes the world blind."
Jesus went one step further - he said that if people slap you on the right cheek, show them your left cheek too, and if they took your cloak, give them your shirt as well.
But of course, it was hard for me to compare Yeo Bee Yin with Jesus and Gandhi.
I have already gotten a lot of flak for comparing Khairy with Lee Kuan Yew. If I now compared Yeo Bee Yin with Gandhi, I will surely be doomed.
But then I realised that Yeo Bee Yin and Khairy might actually be around the same age, and that made me wonder whether all the politicians around their age, regardless of party affiliation, have some tacit understanding about how they should run politics when it is their turn, and that they are not going to run it like the older group.
When I saw it in that light, and I re-read Yeo Bee Yin's message, her message sounded to was like as if Yeo Bee Yin was telling Khairy : " C'mon bro, don't be like that. Don't use what Anwar did to your father in law as an example - let the pass go. You and I both have to bear with the antics of the older generation until they are gone, but you and I both know that what Umno did in Negeri Sembilan is not right, and we must create a better example for the younger generation, or else our country will surely go to the dogs."
If that is the case, I certainly do hope that there is tacit agreement between the politicians of Yeo Bee Yin's and Khairy's generation, because I am quite certain that the country will indeed go to the dogs, if we keep following the example of the politicians from Anwar's generation.
The batch of leaders from Anwar's generation, not only in Malaysia, but world wide, is probably the worst generation the world has ever seen.
Donald Trump, let me remind you, is the same age as Anwar.
Not only is Anwar's generation almost universally corrupt, in all corner of the world, but they might be so terrible, that they are on the brink of causing World War 3.
I really hope that politicians from the next generation - in the likes of Yeo Bee Yin, Khairy, Rafizi , Nurul Izzah, Dr Sam, Anthony Loke etc - regardless of party affiliations, will start a new way of doing things, that breaks away from the toxic and degenerate Mahathir and Anwar era politics.
I hope so not only for Malaysia, but for the entire world.
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