It is painful to attempt comprehension of recent events. I have always been under the notion that public servants and public figures are at the end of it all accountable to the public; although eking out a frugal existence I have always believed that effort and perseverance would eventually lead towards success; I have always hoped that the men who lead us and who serve as the caretakers of this our nation are men with conscience who have placed limits to their excesses and place the wellbeing of this country and it’s people above all else.

It is incomprehensible what we as a people have become in the span of two decades. We have condoned through our apathy the measurement of our country’s wellbeing to be based on brick and mortar, it’s people led by the lure of money and status, we have abandoned what has been our inheritance, our strength, our source of pride passed on to us by our fathers and to them their fathers, our culture, our values, our beliefs;  all in the name of progress. We have looked on as we and our children have been corrupted to the extent that morally  wrong can now be deemed as socially acceptable in this day and age.

Let us not talk of the obvious, the corruption, the brutality, the opportunism, the injustice for these are blatantly visible, so visible that even a blind man can see all, even a deaf man can hear all. Let us instead ponder the changes in ourselves, once so idealistic, so compassionate, so caring, so courageous.

Now we huddle in shadows too afraid to consider the truth, to state the truth, consoling ourselves by turning impossible to highly improbable to improbable to probable to yes! their right, there is justification to persecute, to harass, to detain, to beat, to destroy.

Now we talk in whispers, for it is wrong to talk of rights, of values, of decency, it is wrong to contemplate conspiracies against the people for now we have ascertained that this rabble comprising of a vast cross section of society from academics to politicians to students to retired civil servants to civil servants and even secondary students are mindless persons fully capitulating to the lies of an individual, obsessed with power.

Now we anticipate economic recovery, real or otherwise, and with the signs of the good times coming back, the new protons, and matchbox homes, the karaoke sessions, the billions and billions in contracts to be handed over, we laugh at these mindless people with their outdated notions of fairplay and justice, we snigger at the innocent whose lives have been destroyed, whose blood stain the streets where we now partake in the gluttony of consumerism.

Now we will never be able to realise the yearning for the people of this country to work together for a common cause, the Malay, the Chinese, the Indian, the Eurasian, the Portugese, the Iban, the Dayak, the people.

Now we will never prove the cynics and fearmongers wrong, that we as a people can rise above our communal and religious differences, our fears, insecurities and anxieties to strive hand in hand for a better place, a better future for all.

And in the years to come, we can only reflect on what could have been.
 

source :Azhar.TQ