Indonesian Iron Lady Sri Mulyani Indrawati

When she first became Indonesia's finance minister in 2005, Sri Mulyani Indrawati sacked 150 of her departmental staff for corruption, and penalised another 2,000. We need a strong willed lady in Malaysia, to drive our anti corruption crusade.

I believe, Malaysia's Prime Minister needs somebody like Indonesia's Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Iron Lady, to revive the economy, to stop corruption, and to jail every corrupt  person, while he/she personally takes over the responsibility  to beat this  Covid menace. 

His 70 ministers and deputy ministers are nowhere to be seen, so he should just cut their salaries, and force them to go on unpaid leave. That ought to free tens of million Ringgits to feed the hungriest of the poor, and those who lost their livelihoods, arising from these prolonged Covid lockdowns.

The Prime Minister should have used the Emergency Regulations to forge a bi-partisan cabinet, and to hire technocrats from the private sector and from overseas, to manage his critical ministries. If the deep state obstructs, simply throw them into  jail under the Emergency Regulations.

Trials for allegedly corrupt politicians  should have been fast tracked, even if it means setting up special courts under the Emergency Regulations, so these people are no longer  thorns in the  sides of the Prime Minister's administration who is trying to get us out of this Pandemic. Stop pussyfooting. Simply use the ER to muzzle them, and to detain them at his Majesty's pleasure.

If the Prime Minister succeeds in beating Covid and rejuvenating the Economy, he doesn't have to bribe frogs to prop up his government. The  people will automatically make him their next PM on merit. 

Why didn't he  leverage the Emergency Regulations, to focus on  getting the country out of this pandemic, instead of  using it only to prop his shaky government? Just show results, and he  will automatically endear himself to the people.

Sadly, I do not believe any existing politician, or any Wannabe  Prime Minister, or Finance Minister on the horizon, can have the same spunk, determination, integrity and commitment, as Indonesia's Iron Lady Sri Mulyani Indrawati, to pull us out of our misery.

May God  help my Malaysia.

Yusuf Hashim

12 July 2021

 A JOURNEY INTO ETHIOPIA  …

Six years ago on this day, I participated in an exhibition at The White Box in Publika,  Kuala Lumpur. I was show casing about a dozen larger than life sized photos, which I had shot during one of my several expeditions into the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. I thought I should just share them with you on this sixth anniversary of my last visit to Ethiopia. I hope it will provide a temporary diversion from  the filth of our politicians, and the sad suffering of Malaysians  mercilessly pounded by this  pandemic.

There's something magical about larger than life photos. And of course, photos which are printed, have a special appeal and quality to them, compared to those we see only see on Instagram, Tik Tok and FB posts on our smartphone screens. 

And to those who swear by their smartphone cameras, just try and print your tiny smartphone photos even at A4 size, and you'll see why smartphones, in my book at least, can never replace real $15,000 cameras for those who are passionate and serious about their photography. 

I'm sorry I've had to pixelate some of the more interesting bits in these photos. I have hundreds more in all their tit-tilating glory, in my hard disks. They will eventually be  included in the several coffee table  books that I'm leisurely working on, to be printed on demand. online. Lately, FB has been  banning people who post photos of mammary glands, and photos of people who walk around bare breasted in their  own country. For goodness sake, these appendages are nothing more than natural teats on breast milk sacs for  feeding  babies. Nothing more to it. It has been well proven that mother's milk is the best food for infants and toddlers. My late mommy, God bless her beautiful soul, told me that she was breast feeding me till I was almost four years old. I don't  remember much of it, and I'm not implying anything, but there must be a lot of wisdom, and much un-talked about benefits from such a practice. 

In this country, where there are many hypocrites and thieves among our politicians and the religious morality police, the Malays are being subjected to morality laws, which will make them less than equal in civil and criminal courts, compared to their non Muslim fellow citizens. So I need to exercise self restraint  and voluntary censorship, lest I step on the toes of them over-zealous religious law enforcers.

Yusuf Hashim

15 July 2015

Sorry I had to pixelate some juicy parts, but blogger.com has quite a strict policy about nudity.... not that mammary glands are anything special to hide away ...

A young man and his art, on exhibition, at the White Box, Publika, Kuala Lumpur.

This is Panel # 3, clockwise, a Benna woman, a Mursi, a Karos and a little girl from Woyeta . And sitting cross legged is yours truly. I'm in the picture only to give a sense of scale to the exhibits. These square prints are 30 inches x 30 inches. The vertical ones are 30 x 60 ins or 2.5 ft x 5 feet. All photos were shot in RAW with my 300 mm prime at f/2.8 except for the little girl from Woyeta which was shot with my 24mm also at f/2.8.

The 300 mm lens, plus my 1DxMKII, and a monopod, weigh more than 7 kgs, and when I go on my photo expeditions, my carry on board camera bag is at least 18 kg, compared to 23kg for my checked in suitcase for clothes, chargers, adaptors, tripod and monopod. I always have a hard time getting through the boarding gates. A nasty experience I had was when I was boarding a Russian local flight from Moscow to Anadyr on the Bering Sea coast. No amount of my not inconsiderable charm could stop the Russian Ground hostess from not charging me US$220 for the extra kgs in my carry on camera bag.

Photo above is a gun toting Mursi Boy with his AK47 widow maker, at the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. This photo was selected to be part of the Portraiture Collection displayed at the Louvre on 13th July 2015. There was a book they did to commemorate that exhibition. I didn't think it was worth the money they were asking for the book, so I didn't buy it. For me, it was enough that I know my humble photo, managed to make it there.

As they often say ... beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. When a Mursi girl is very young, an incision is made in their lower lip. A wooden plug is inserted to keep the wound open. Over time, a larger and larger plug is inserted and eventually a series of ever bigger clay discs are inserted. At some stage, some of her lower teeth has to be broken so that the curvature of the clay disc can be accommodated. Strange ways of looking beautiful .... — at Omo Valley Ethiopia.

Anatomy of a Mursi Woman's Face ... The Mursis are semi-nomadic people living in the Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia. Their women wear disc plates in their lips and in their ear lobes. Holes are made in the lower lip and ears when they are around 10 years old. A wooden peg is placed in the hole which is gradually enlarged as they grow older, with larger and larger clay plates. The two lower front teeth are pulled out in order to accommodate the plate. It is thought the origin of this mutilation was to protect them from slave traders.

The ornaments hanging from her ears are Hippo teeth. Both women and men mutilate their bodies as scars are considered to be decorative.

To prove their bravery, Mursi men fight each other with sticks called dongas. Often these result in serious injury and even death. Most Mursi men, women and even children, are armed with Kalashnikovs ... to defend their herds from cattle raids by other tribes.

The number of cattle a Mursi has is a measure of his wealth. About 40 heads of cattle, and a rifle, is the usual Dowry required, if a Mursi wants to marry. Photographing the Mursis can be quite scary. They usually asks for money if you want to photograph them. And you don't usually bargain with a Mursi carrying a Kalashnikov..... — at Omo Valley, Ethiopia 5°54'29" N 36°12'41" E

Multi-tasking Mursi woman - a mother, a worker, and a defender of her tribe. That lip plate is an ornament of beauty — in Bako, Gamo Gofa, Ethiopia.

Not sure what she was suggesting..... but I didn't stick around to explore the possibilities.

Two Suri children from the West Bank of the Omo River, deep in the under-belly of Ethiopia.

A senior Karos lady, a little bit past her prime, but still grand ....

A handsome Mursi young man. Those tusks hanging from his ears are Hippo teeth. The white body paint is made with ash mixed with fresh cow dung as a binder. They are usually stark naked, but I hesitate to show such pictures here as FB has quite strict rules regarding frontal nudity.

 CATCHING WILD PIGS

This story is from my friend who migrated first to Singapore, and then to Australia.

Malaysia has a lot of private universities which are twinned with reputable universities abroad. There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some foreign students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, a foreign student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter.

The student told the professor that he has a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government to install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question.

He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.

The young man said that it was not a joke.

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs will find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again, and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start eating again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up, with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom!

They run round and round inside the fence, but they are trapped and caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in Malaysia . The government keeps giving assistance to a privileged section of the population, and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of monetary assistance, programs such as special privileges, discounts, subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while they continually lose their freedoms, and the ability to survive on a level playing field, just a little at a time.

One should always remember three truths:

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably ignore this story. But please help us all when the gate behind us slams shut!

Politicians have an agenda that is focused largely on their own interest and not on the interests of the people. Many have little integrity, are without honour or honesty, and without principles.

Quote for today:

"The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living."

In addition, the suspension of meritocracy is probably OK for a limited period to help the slow learners. But at some point, sooner rather than later, you must allow only the best to rise to leadership position at the top.

Yusuf Hashim

24 April 2021

The Desert, She is Deceptively Beautiful.

Enter at your own peril. This is the Sahara, in Libya, 17 years ago, when I was a little bit younger, and the heart was stronger.

When the sun is low in the sky at dusk and dawn, the dust in the air will refract light rays of the sun, transforming the sun a near bloody red, and creating beautiful light for photography

And the photo below, are my friends Larry and Daisy, admiring the sunset in the Makgadikgadi Pans of Botswana.

Below is a caravan of camels hauling out salt slabs dug out of the salt flats in the Danakil Depression of Ethiopia, which the BBC in its documentary some years ago, called the Cruellest Place on earth.

Imagine driving across those dunes in this .... its the stuff of dreams for many a red blooded adventurer. The list of African states listed on my tee shirt says a little more. We were on a little adventure in 2011, driving from South Africa, through Namibia, Botswana, Malawi, and Tanzania to Kenya..

The photo below was in the Sahara Desert 17 years ago in 2004. That time we were driving from Khartoum in Sudan, through Egypt and across the Sahara Desert of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and over the Atlas Mountains to Casablanca in Morocco. It took just over 40 days to do it, including 3 days marooned in the middle of the Libyan Sahara Desert without fuel .... but that's another yarn for another day. Proud to say, we were the first Malaysians ever, to drive right across the Sahara Desert from Khartoum to Casablanca.

The photo below was shot in the Dunes of Merzouga, deep in the Moroccan Sahara. near the border with Algeria. We were riding camels to our Berber encampment in the desert. My ass was hurting after an hour on the lead camel of camel train #1 which I led. We were riding parallel to camel train #2 for a few minutes, which enabled me to shoot this photo as they came alongside.

Yusuf Hashim

25 May 2021

A WORD OF ADVICE FROM GANDALF TO THE GANGBUSTED

In these days of Doom and Gloom, when our politicians, and so called leaders, are incompetent, incomprehensible and bumbling in their handling of the Covid crisis, we need to think positive.

Like everything in the world, there are troughs and peaks. There will always be day after night, and after day, there will always be night again. Gandalf says, buy on the dips, set a target based on fundamentals, hang in there, don't lose your nerve, and the good times will definitely come around again.

And what do you mean we are doomed?

Look beyond the hills. There's a whole new horizon out there. Facebook was US$27 in 2012. Today its US$316. Likewise, Amazon was $179 in 2012, and yesterday it was $3386. Dump some money into FB and Amazon. Ditch the Malaysian bourse. Hang in there, and you'll be a very rich man in 2030 when you retire. And if you have the stomach for cryptos, $ADA is good to buy at $1.51 today. It dropped to $1.20 over the weekend. Based on what Cardano is doing on soft and hard forks, on DeFI and DAPPS, and its advances with the Ethiopian government in Blockchain applications, I predict $5 to $10 for Cardano, by the end of this year is not improbable.

You've never heard of Cardano?

That's your problem then.

The Chinese word for Crisis made up of two words - Wei and Ji. Those whose eyes are blinkered only by doom and gloom, will see only danger. But the wise and the old, like Gandalf, the White Wizard, will see tremendous opportunities waiting to be harvested in the present crisis .... if only you have eyes to see, the wisdom to know, the courage to act, and the will to succeed ...

Yusuf Hashim

25 May 2021

 THE EMERGENCE OF MAHATHIR's PEJUANG

I had high expectations for Pejuang, the newest Malay political party to be registered. But after listening to Mahathir's speech, all I can say is, a zebra doesn't ever discard it's stripes. Pejuang simply wants to be another Race based political party. Bersatu, UMNO, PKR and Pas too, will probably be bracing themselves for another round of frogging, as the new Malay party, will certainly try to entice toads to frog over, into their ranks.

The Malays are being further fractured, no doubt to the delight of other race based parties, mainly the DAP. As long as Malaysian politics are based on race, I fear Malaysians will never get out of the rut they are in.

I believe, not many thinking and progressive Malays, will support Pejuang or UMNO. Pejuang appears to be another reincarnation of Bersatu and UMNO, with the same DNA in the veins of its founders.

DAP and PKR should leapfrog the Race and Religion based parties, such as Pejuang, UMNO, Bersatu, MCA, MIC, PAS, PN and BN. DAP and PKR should amalgamate into one truly inclusive Malaysian party, with the emphasis on race, discarded, once and for all. I believe the reason why they are not doing so, has got a lot to do with the selfishness of their current leaderships - the LKS dynasty in DAP, and the Segambut royalty in PKR. As long as these ambitious people are around, there will never be a truly multi-racial party.

Although DAP is ostensibly a multiracial party, does the DAP dare to discard its label of being a Chinese Interest party? I don't think so. Which is very foolish and short sighted, because as long as it's name is DAP, it will always carry the ugly Chinese branding that UMNO has carefully cultivated and developed for it. And even in the minds of many progressive Malays, there will always linger a belief, the DAP, deep down, is only a Chinese interest party after all.

Unless ALL of us get out of this race construct in our minds, in our actions, and in our aspirations, Malaysian politics, and the selfishness, hypocrisy, dishonesty, bigotry, and outright thievery, of almost all so called Malaysian leaders, will forever condemn Malaysia to never, ever reaching its true potential, of standing shoulder to shoulder, with the world's truly great nations.

We are almost doomed. There are no true Malaysians - only different hues of racists, masquerading as Malaysians. Our last hope now lies only in progressive Malaysian youths, whose souls are hopefully not yet irretrievably damned into becoming true blue racists.

So listen up Old Putra Syed Saddiq. Do our alma mater proud. Make your MUDA party to be truly a Malaysian party championing truly Malaysian aspirations, without the slightest hint of racism, bigotry, thievery and hypocrisy in its genes. You are our last remaining hope.

Yusuf Hashim

14 July 2021

 THE POWER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

One of the saddest reality in Malaysia is that, not many of our mono-lingual Gen Zee kids, both Chinese school and national school educated, will ever appreciate these clever one liners.

Probably some of the International schools educated kids will. I mourn the day when the myopic powers that be, foolishly decided to convert all Malaysia's English medium national schools into Malay medium schools, which gave rise to our tri-silo system of schools, that will forever split our kids, into 3 different and disparate groups of so called Malaysians. Most of Malaysia's Gen Zee kids, will never appreciate this delightful quirkiness of the English Language.

1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?

2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes?

3. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

4. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

5. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

6. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

7. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

8. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a racing car not called a racist?

9. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

10. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

11. Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one?

12. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

13. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, dog trainers debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

14. What hair colour do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

15. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the postmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

16. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

17. No one ever says, "It's only a game" when their team is winning.

18. Ever wonder about those people who spend RM 8.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE

19. Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?

20. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhoea, does that mean that fifth one ENJOYS it?

Stay sane and have a good lockdown day everyone. In Malaysia we are having another one of our series of completely ineffective, poorly enforced, half hearted, half baked lockdowns.

Yusuf Hashim

2 June 2021

 GOODBYE MR PRIME MINISTER

I may disagree with the way PM Muhyiddin came to power, but I must give him credit for the fact that he is not interfering with the court processes, with regards to the prosecution of the alleged wrongdoers from the Najib administration.

However, I consider it wrong that he created a supersized cabinet, in a thinly disguised, unethical process to buy political support, to buttress his minority government. Our present cabinet is probably a world record, in terms of ministers to population ratio.

I was appalled that he appointed politicians, and some of them tainted politicians, to head GLCs and GOCs. It is not right to use GLCs and GOCs for political purposes. I hope any new government that takes over from PM8, will consider divesting these GOCs and GLCs, and let technocrats run them professionally, and free of political shenanigans. The Government should just govern, and let professionals and technocrats, run govt owned corporations.

I was willing to condone PM8’s proclamation of the Emergency, when it was touted as a way to control the Covid Pandemic, by reducing politicking, but unfortunately the ineptness of his ministers in battling the pandemic, leads me to conclude that we should now let another PM take over.

I will support a handover of power to a Prime Minister from among our younger politicians. I would also support a Lady Prime Minister. Anyone, except for any of the obviously selfish, greedy, toady, unprincipled, dishonest, and tainted politicians from past administrations.

Arising from the UMNO bloc’s announcement to withdraw support for the PN coalition, we are now seeing expired Wannabe PMs, like worms smelling carrion, crawling out of the woodwork to offer themselves as Interim PMs until the next GE. I would say no thank you to these wannabes. We’ve had enough of them, and their narrow racist and bigoted agendas. Let’s give the premiership to those untainted younger politicians. Also lady politicians of whatever race. The performance of several lady prime ministers from other countries, have been amazing. I foresee several of our lady MPs being quite capable of emulating, and even outdoing them.

Apart from repairing our battered economy, our new prime minister must address racism and national unity, our flawed education policy, and re-delineate electoral boundaries to undo the decades of shameless gerrymandering by previous administrations. Lets stop this undermining of democracy, and let us appoint a bipartisan committee appointed by the YDPA, to redraw electoral boundaries to restore true democracy in our country.

The new PM must also come down hard on corruption, right-size the civil service, ensure a truly independent judiciary, refocus on how to lift the rural population from poverty, and ensure that Sabah and Sarawak, are given faster and more development, and a bigger share of resources that after all, come from their side of the South China Sea.

What I would ask the present prime minister to do, on his way out of the front door, is to please approve the registration of MUDA. It is time for our youth to come into the picture, to try and undo the nonsense, havoc and harm, that all our previous racist prime ministers (specifically the last 3 prime ministers) have wreaked upon our sad country.

With the Emergency Regulations, the Prime Minster had a great opportunity to do the right things, and leave an amazing legacy. But he blew it. The Prime Minister is about to leave the stage. Let us bid a warm a warm welcome to our new (lady) prime minister.

Yusuf Hashim

9 July 2021

 INDEPENDENCE DAY

A letter for my 75-year-old classmates from the Royal Military College.

I am a Malaysian first, and a Malay second. I pray to God daily, and I believe in the hereafter where all of us will all be asked to account for what we did or did not do while we were alive. But I am not obsessively and destructively religious. I am unhappy with how my religion has been hijacked for political purposes, and I am angry with the people doing it. I am also angry with the charlatans and titled people who call themselves our leaders. I am unhappy with the creeping Arabization of my multi-racial and multi-cultural Malaysia. And I am angry with the dumbing down of the Malay rural population by politicians without integrity, without honour, without honesty and without conscience.

Being often labelled as incendiary by my classmates at the Royal Military College, I want to say something on this sad morning of the 63rd year of our independence. I do not care if you do not like what I am going to say. Most of my classmates are presently in this "waiting to die mode" and have chosen to detach themselves from worldly affairs. Some will have a slightly longer wait compared to others, but all of us will surely die. Although on future independence days after our deaths, the sun will still shine, and the birds will still sing, I say to them, do you not care what will be the state of this country that you inherited from your fathers, that you will in turn leave behind for your children, and their children and grandchildren after you?

Of course, you care. You would be lying if you say you did not care.

If you choose silence, and to die without conscience for the state of the country that we are leaving behind for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, that is your cowardly choice. I choose to say what I feel and although alone I cannot do much to change things, I hope by speaking out, enough people will have their conscience pricked, and our numbers may swell enough to outnumber the living dead. And hopefully, the enlightened will be large enough in number to make a difference.

For a start, this affirmative action policy has gone on for far too long. Although it has helped a lot of Malays, as a double-edged sword, it is starting to hurt the Malays more than it helps. It has bred a crutch mentality among us Malays, to an extent that initiative and entrepreneurship have atrophied among the Malays. We have become risk-averse. Our people have now come to believe that they cannot achieve anything without government help. Our race has become the object of derision by the more independently successful Chinese. Let us wean the Malays away from affirmative action. Let us embrace meritocracy. We need to taste hard work and some failure, for us to learn how to walk without needing crutches.

The affirmative action policy, when it was first mooted after the dark days of the May 13 affair, was the right thing to do. But half a century later, this policy has bred a cadre of Malay rent seekers and politicians, who exploit this policy to enrich themselves immorally and illegally. In the name of helping the Malays, GLCs and GOCs have become instruments to steal and to siphon money from public coffers. The positions of heads of these GLCs and GOCs have systematically been given not to capable and qualified persons, but are rewards reserved for politicians to entice them to support an immoral government and to leap from one party to another.

In addition, these positions are also dangled in front of many senior civil servants to buy their complicity in nefarious schemes to bleed the country’s coffers. At the trial of a previous Prime Minister, we heard how senior civil servants meekly carried out the orders of the sitting PM, without acting as the check and balance that there were intended to be. No doubt they were eyeing titles and cushy positions at GLCs and GOCs post their retirement from the civil service. I say GOCs and GLCs ought to be privatised. Government should only govern, and the private sector should be tasked to do businesses. This will remove the insidious opportunity for politicians to use the GOCs and GLCs as a political tool.

The effects of this disease is so entrenched today, that we are now derisively labelled as the country with the biggest kleptocracy in the entire world. One of our past Prime Ministers have even been convicted of felony, and yet the dedak infused still kiss his hands and scream, what is there to be ashamed about, whenever he makes his police escorted rounds. What have become of these people?

I worked in the oil industry, and I know that Norway and us started developing our oil and gas industry at about the same time. In fact, both Norway and Malaysia have about the same size of hydrocarbon reserves beneath or land and our seas. But while Norway managed their bounty carefully, and today they have one of the world’s largest sovereign fund from oil and gas resources, exceeding one trillion USD in value, Malaysia has a sovereign debt exceeding one trillion.

I remember 55 years ago, one of our Prime Ministers booted Singapore out of Malaysia. I remember clearly watching LKY crying on black and white TV after that announcement. I remember that in the few years after that event, how we got one Singapore dollar at the Caltex station just before the causeway, for only 90 Malaysian cents. Today, the Malaysian Dollar and Cents have been renamed Ringgit and Sen, but the Singapore dollar is now worth 3.2 times our miserable Ringgit and Sen. And Singapore with no natural resources at all, except the perseverance, the will, and the ingenuity of its people, and the strategic thinking of their leaders, is today one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP at least a dozen times more than ours.

We are proud to have a national language which is Malay, but the policy of closing English language schools and converting all schools into Malay medium schools, and leaving vernacular schools in existence, has led to disunity among Malaysians, because our children are now educated in silos, unlike my generation who were educated differently. Our diversity should have been an asset. Instead it is highlighted to divide us. Malay was never legally removed as the national language of Singapore, but the pragmatic and smart Singaporeans encouraged the study of English and Mandarin as these two are the leading languages for commerce and science in our part of the world. So, our nationalists and leaders have not been very clever. They have not managed the issue very well. I support Malay as the national language, but I have only contempt to the politicians who caused us to lose the advantage we would have had on the world stage with a population that was multi-lingual.

I feel sad today in seeing how a section of our Malaysian population is being made to be the bogey for all the failures and weaknesses of another section, the privileged section of the populace. Yet, against all odds, like the people of Singapore, this bogey section of the population are the owners and drivers of the commercial and industrial engines of this country.

IMHO it is our selfish, dishonest, and immoral leaders who are to be blamed for the mess our country is in, in this 63rd year of our independence. Even as our country bleeds from the Covid calamity, our so-called leaders, are still prioritising politics over focusing on saving the country, just like the proverbial Nero still playing his harp while Rome burns. The Malay proverb, “Harapkan pagar, pagar yang memakan padi,” is appropriate, in the case of our Malaysia.

So, the question is, what can we do to pull ourselves out of this cesspool we are all in?

For a start, let us start seeing the elephant in the room. Let us openly talk about our issues and our problems. To my 75 year old classmates, I say, let us pause a while in our preparations for the hereafter, and try to find a workable solution to this problem confronting our nation. If we do not talk about these issues, if we are silent, no solutions will be volunteered. I know it is difficult for those aboard the gravy train to talk about these things. But the rest of us who are not, should make ourselves heard. It is too much to expect the dedak infused and naïve rural folks to see the light at this stage, because for a poor family earning just RM2000 a month, a BRIM gift-payment of RM2000 of taxpayer's money, is a powerful incentive to continue voting with their pockets instead of with their heads. It brings to mind the story once told about Stalin.

As a lesson to his followers, Stalin once ripped all the feathers off a live chicken. He then set the chicken on the floor a short distance away. The chicken was bloodied and suffering immensely, yet, when Stalin tossed some bits of wheat towards the bloodied chicken, it followed him around whenever he tossed wheat to the chicken. Stalin then said to his followers, "This is how easy it is to govern stupid people. They will follow you, no matter how much pain you cause them, as long as you throw them a little worthless treat, occasionally. One of our past and disgraced PM, who championed the policy that Cash is King, probably learned it in England where he went to school.

In conclusion, I leave you this little anecdote, lifted from the book “Atlas Shrugged“, written by Ayn Rand in 1957, the year we gained independence from Britain.

When you see that to produce, you need permission from men who produce nothing.

When you see that money flows to those who deal NOT in goods, but in favours.

When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull, than by work.

And your laws do not protect you from them, but protect them from you.

When you see corruption being rewarded, and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice,

You will know that your society is doomed.

Selamat Hari Merdeka Tahun ke 63.

Yusuf Hashim

31 August 2020

WHITHER ART THOU HEADING, O' MY MALAYSIA

I'm 76 years old and a grandfather of 15. When I was younger, Honesty, Integrity, Honour, Selflessness, and a fear of God were virtues.

Today, we seem to have lost all of those that we used to hold dear.

The outgoing Inspector General of Police made some worrying allegations. If the chief of police made those allegations and he couldn't do much to stop the rot during his tenure, where can we look for salvation?

Malaysians are tired of the antics of their politicians, and the people they voted, or were appointed to lead this country. Most of the stewardships our GLCs and GOCs are political appointees, and they appear to be not the best qualified Malaysians to run these mega corporations. Several of them are in courts today, charged with abuse of power, and outright criminal pilferage.

In our courts today, many of those being charged for cheating and for corruption, are titled people. What is incredulous is that, even though some of these people are already convicted, many still continue to worship them. I wonder why.

I wonder too, what are the criteria for awarding these titles. Perhaps we should have a country-wide moratorium for awarding titles for a few years, until the powers that be, can root out the rot from within their ranks. Can we even halt the rabid manufacturing of titles?

I believe, Racism, Corruption, and bent Politicians, will eventually kill Malaysia. And shelving meritocracy to help a lagging group of our population may be tolerable for a while, but if meritocracy is set aside in perpetuity, in the service of race, for sure we will be heading towards mediocrity as a state.

And at the root of many of our problems, is our silo system of education. And I do not see any tangible moves being made to address this issue.

Sadly, I believe that today, even if flawed policies are somehow reversed by the Captain of the ship that is Malaysia, the Deep State, with a mind of its own, will certainly resist any reformation.

I think my Malaysia is in trouble.

Yusuf Hashim

3 May 2021