2018

Sunday, January 1, 2018.

2018 is here!

We should all look forward to a "better" new year, and for that I'd received, and sent, several best wishes yesterday, the last day of 2017. I'd also won from Ismail Yassin 5 out of the 9 holes we played yesterday, also the last day of my 2017 golfing calendar. And that was with giving him 5 strokes! But I must add here, he's 6 years older. Not a whole lot older, but older, he he.

But "the future's looking dim" Cliff Richard says in his song.

We're all enclosed in an economic situation, like it or not. And that, in turn, is affected by the political situation, also like it or not. If the politics are well-managed, the economy would be, too. That seems like a truism. 

Which is why we all should pray hard that the walls crumbling around us are somehow stopped by a strong and wise government intent on saving our souls. But right now, that is not, to borrow from golf, a "given".

From the day the present government came to political power, things have been going from bad to worse. The price of goods and services, the two things closest to all of us, have gone out of control. We all know this, we are experiencing it, and I need no further illustration. The values we are taught from school - respect for elders, respect for race and religion, respect for integrity and respect for truth and all good values - are all thrown out of the window by the political leaders we had willingly or by default put into office in 2013. Scandals after huge scandals, mind-boggling in their sheer size and incredible wantoness, are exposed almost on a monthly regularity since  2013. The latest one thrown into our faces is the loss of ownership by Felda of not one, but three pieces of prime land with a commercial value of 1 billion. Having worked there for 21 years, I feel an extra pain. Older statesmen who chide the incompetence of leaders are not just shoved aside. They are not just blasted, blamed and belittled. Why, they even get their very ancestry, truthfully or made-up,  dug up, dirtied and denigrated. Never mind if one had served long and well. Never mind if you are no. 2 now. Which is a warning to current minor sycophants. If a past leader gets shit treatment now for differing opinion, what future do you have ? 

And forget about democratic values ( yes, they talk about these, and holy Islamic teachings, too, but talk, as they say, is cheap, and talking is not doing, or to use the popular parlance, "cakap tak serupa bikin"!). Criticism,  constructive or otherwise, is rejected. Parliament cannot parley. Reports are locked up. The police and the AG are servants of the leader, not the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution itself can be discarded. 

Not a very rosy 2018 outlook.

But things can be different. We all can make the difference. If we choose to.

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