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I was scrolling TikTok, as I normally do every night in bed, when I came across a few videos of Malaysians praying for Najib Razak's well-being.
One woman even took off her gold bracelet to donate to Najib's Tabung Solidariti.
Another welcomed the news of his house arrest, saying she hoped life would be better for the former prime minister.
And when asked why they still supported Najib, the answer was remarkably consistent.
He has done a lot for them.
More than any prime minister who came after him.
I don't quite know what "a lot" means in this context. But I can make an educated guess.
Perhaps it means the aid. The handouts. The attention. The programmes. The feeling that their community was seen, remembered and taken care of.
And here’s the part I find difficult to understand. How do we arrive at a point where the things a leader gave us become more important than what that leader was found guilty of doing?
Najib was convicted of seven offences in the SRC International case, including abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. His conviction was upheld by the Federal Court.
Yet some people still speak of him with the affection normally reserved for a beloved uncle.
I suppose I can understand this kind of thinking if we were talking about children.
A child will always prefer the parent who says yes.
The grandparent who gives the biggest ang pow.
The teacher who lets them make noise in class and doesn't bother checking whether they have done their homework.
The class monitor who says, "Never mind, lah," when everyone skips their chores.
And of course, the uncle who arrives with the biggest, most expensive toy.
Children don't necessarily understand that the person giving them what they want isn't always the person doing what is best for them.
They just recognise “this person gives me things, so I like this person.”
But most of us are supposed to grow out of that.
Adulthood is, among other things, the painful realisation that responsibility sometimes means being told no.
That the person who makes you happy isn't necessarily the person who is looking after your interests.
That a leader's job isn't to keep handing you candies until you love him.
And yet here we are.
Some adults still seem to judge leadership by the size of the candy jar.
If a politician gives them enough assistance, enough attention, enough goodies, enough promises, enough feeling that "our people" are being taken care of, everything else becomes strangely negotiable.
Even when that politician has been legally convicted.
It is one thing to acknowledge that a government introduced programmes or provided assistance that benefited you. If something helped your family, of course you remember it. Gratitude is a human thing.
But gratitude should not become a permanent moral discount.
"I benefited from him" cannot automatically become "therefore everything he did was acceptable."
Those are two completely different statements.
And perhaps this is where we need to grow up as voters.
Stop looking for the leader who brings the biggest candy jar.
Stop measuring leadership by how much we personally received.
Stop treating government assistance as a personal gift from a politician, as though he reached into his own pocket and gave it to us. Public money is not a politician's personal ang pow. Government programmes are not birthday presents.
And the people receiving them should not have to repay them with lifelong loyalty.
Take, for example, the tau foo fah seller who recently said he owes Najib Razak 10,000 bowls of tau foo fah.
Apparently, he makes about RM1 profit per bowl. That's RM10,000 worth of gratitude.
His story is that he was detained in 2009 and, when Najib visited Manjung in 2012, he appealed for help to end his detention early so he could care for his elderly parents. Not long after, he received notification that his detention had been ended early.
Look, I understand gratitude. If someone helped you during the lowest point of your life, you don't simply forget that.
But 10,000 bowls of tau foo fah? Come on lah. Even the tau foo fah seller has gone too far.
Because this is exactly where personal gratitude starts getting confused with political loyalty.
What we should be asking of leaders is much harder.
Can they make difficult decisions even when those decisions are unpopular?
Can they tell us something we don't want to hear?
Can they resist the temptation to buy affection with goodies?
Can they put institutions, accountability and the long-term interests of the country above their own popularity?
Because sometimes the leader we need is not the one passing the candy jar around.
Sometimes it is the one who takes the candy jar away and says, "Enough. This isn't good for you."
And yes, you may hate him for it. Children certainly would.
But perhaps adulthood is learning to ask a different question.
Not "What did you give me?"
But “What did you do with the country I entrusted to you?”
Fa Abdul (fa.abdul.penang@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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