Two crests and the rain

Pak Lah, with the noble Crest of Malaysia filling the backdrop, announced his cabinet reshuffle yesterday. It was a short press conference. Simultaneously, it also had an intriguing multi-media display. I don’t imagine anybody planned it, but it graphically explained the implications of his decision.

If you caught the live telecast you may have observed one peculiar thing perhaps emblematic of the current spirit and directions of our land. The Malaysian Crest they projected onto the backdrop was tacky, heavily pixilated and fuzzy. It had poor resolution.

That, combined with recent events, made for a very clear speech.

No wonder reporters had only a total of eight questions to ask.

As he mumbled off the names of who’s going where, employees of the Guang Ming Afternoon Daily mulled a two-week shutdown, courtesy of the government for printing a picture of a person reading a newspaper with those cartoons. While the decision was dim enough, it further reinforced favouritism when TV3 was spared even though it carried the same image and reaches a far wider audience.

Silly me for thinking politicians use the common dictionary to define ‘integrity’ and ‘transparency’.

Pak Lah’s announcement reminded me of the wonderful Commencement Speech at Stanford last year by Apple chief Steve Jobs, but in an incredibly distorted and morbid way.

In parting, Jobs had said: “Stay Hungry. Say Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

The corrupted and the feudal beasts in government would certainly love that. Literally.

Is there any light to all this? A sign perhaps?

Me, I’m drawn to another crest, a seemingly unrelated event developing in Terengganu. The Kenyir Dam has surpassed the 145m red-alert level. If rains continue to pour in that region, we could see massive floods all the way to Kuala Terengganu.

Similarly, 92 percent of voters placed their trust in Pak Lah’s BN government which had promised reforms. That’s a lot of trust. Out with corruption, in with transparency, in with integrity!, the Barisan band played. Two years of unexplained exposes and unfulfilled promises, it’s beginning to feel like a dam filled to the brim. Instead of keeping to their word, they shut the 'Western-style' sluicegates of information and sound a stern warning.

In maintaining the reactionaries and incompetents in the bloated Cabinet, Pak Lah has turned his back on the wishes of the people. He may have forgotten ‘kenyir’ in Malay means ‘to long for, to desire’. The Barisan dam may be big, but it is also finite and can only hold so much.

Come elections, the rains might just render the dam useless.