Change it must for Malaysia!

If a gov't won't change, it must be changed

Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II political drama seems scripted to end with his being behind prison bars. It doesn't look good for the government and its boast of judicial and other reforms that now look incredibly superficial and hollow. Anwar won however you look at it though justice delayed is justice denied. Malaysians must be sick of the sodomy side-show and those behind the unsavory plot. Yet again UMNO’s infamous Datuk 3T want to destroy him with yet another Sodomy III.

The real pressing issues of judicial and electoral reforms and other bread-and-butter issues are skirted over or simply ignored. Even its own politicians are critical. Former minister and veteran UMNO leader Abdul Kadir Sheik Fadzir, in a Malaysiakini interview, said, rather poignantly, "But what I don't see... while I appreciate all these beautiful announcements, is implementation, which seems lacking. Then, the sincerity of the reforms becomes questionable." As for other Malaysians they hear the talk but they don't see the walk.

When a politician promises but does not deliver, it is like a rogue leading a woman down the garden path. It ends in utter disappointment and unhappiness.

If a government won't change for the people then the people will change the government. This is political history, not a wild opinion.

If Karpal Singh is seditious then all of us who want change are seditious including those in government. Karpal deserves better, he is a politician, not a seditionist. No Malaysian who speaks the non-violent language of change can ever be accused of sedition.

Nothing has changed in Malaysia said Human Rights Watch and the promises of democracy and freedom from oppression remain unfulfilled like the other empty slogans. There are lessons Malaysians may learn from a country that has trodden a similar path and that public pressure yields results when a government is on the wrong foot and walks the slippery slope.

Sometime in the 1990's, the West Australian newspaper damned the former premier of Western Australia, Carmen Lawrence, with a bold front page headline ‘LIAR.' The Marks Royal Commission into the Penny Easton affair had found Lawrence guilty of lying. It was a time when the integrity of governance was found wanting and politicians failed moral character tests.

Concerned citizens there had become so incredulous of their politicians that even Carmen Lawrence's own brother, Bevan, started a group called People for Fair and Open Government to expose the shortcomings of his sister's embattled administration.

Like Bersih they took to the streets with moms and dads and ordinary West Australians demanding for their rights and trying to save their state from the political ‘mafia.' It resulted in a royal commission exposing the fraudulent and criminal relationship between government and big business and several high-fliers including local hero-tycoon Alan Bond who won the America's Cup, were jailed.

The former Premier of Western Australia and political godfather, Brian Burke, and his deputy David Parker were also charged, convicted and jailed. The WA State Superannuation Fund had gone under because of mismanagement, when the people's pension money - like our EPF - was unethically invested in crony-owned failed projects.

Queensland had its fair share of political scandals when the police and state government were unholy bedfellows. The police were exposed and many corrupt police officers were incriminated by the Fitzgerald Inquiry. The Joh Bjelke-Petersen government was booted out of office.

When you act like a renegade in democratic Australia, eventually the media, the voters and the law will catch up with your wrongdoings and you will be made to pay for your misdeeds.

Yes, there are corrupt cops and corrupt politicians and corrupt business people in Australia but be sure they will exposed and dealt with by the law and they do not enjoy political impunity. Their peer politicians will be the first to condemn them, not rally around to shield them and defend their wrong-doings unlike Malaysia Boleh.

If you live in a misguided democracy when accused of wrongdoing, you sue your accusers, and a ‘fixed judge' will take care of the rest because someone else has taken care of his written judgment for him. Fancy that. Outsourced. Think of VK Lingam and his famous Korek! Korek! Korek!

The reform agenda is about making Malaysia a civilised and democratized country ruled by just laws - definitely not the UMNO and BN political ‘gangsters' assisted by ‘mobsters' who resort to thuggery.

The Australian ‘WA Inc' experience shows that people power can turn the tide against the political ‘mafia' who give their political party a bad name. The moral of the story of the Little Dutch Boy is that if you put your finger to plug the leak, others will join in to plug all the other leaks, and together everyone can avert a national catastrophe.

If you want change you must put your finger into the hole and get others to join in and soon there will be a peaceful revolution for change and reform. And if it is near election time all the better because then you may get instant change and not be frustrated from casting pearls before swines, as the saying goes, and have to wait and wait. In the end nothing happens.

It is about people power and I doubt all the jails in the world can hold a nation's citizens on the political warpath against gross injustice and corruption. The people's passion for justice and rage against corruption and dishonest governance cannot be contained. But lone voices and uncoordinated acts fall off like water on a duck's back. Every concerned citizen must play their part and lend a helping hand to their downtrodden compatriots. The bullies must never be encouraged to get bolder.

One poignant lesson from the Costa Concordia luxury liner tragedy is never to trust those who tell lies because you may lose your own life too. "Everything is under control," said a female staff member who urged everyone to get back to their rooms and for cold comfort, told another lie, "the electrical problem will be fixed." But now the world knows she lied and so far sixteen bodies have been found dead.

On May 13, 1969 many innocent Malaysians lost their lives because they placed their trust in those who were supposed to protect them – the politicians and the policemen - but let them down. If in fact thugs hurt people at the ABU and Hindraf ceramah why are the police telling us a different story? When politicians and the police report fiction as facts and connive with each other to lie and cheat us of the facts, it is the time to save yourself and your country.

If you continue to listen to the lies and don't abandon their sinking ship you may perish because your captain has already saved his own skin and left you to die alone. Nothing is as dangerous to the truth as those who know the lie but do nothing about it.

"Where do we go from here?"

The answer is simple: Go to the ballot box and vote out the liars, the corrupt, the thieves, the rapists, the plunderers, the cowardly captain of the sinking ship and all those who have abused the powers you gave them. Put right what you did wrong.

But keep the honest politicians. Indeed. But there's something we need to mention: how to keep the bastards honest, as they say in Australia. For this you need unbiased, proper and fully independent public institutions and an accountable and responsible government where the rule of law is uppermost and justice is taken as fairness. As for the state structures of power: all excesses of power will be checked and exposed if only public institutions are founded strongly on the principles of independence from the state and the executive. For this we must include a completely free media that is independent of any political and corporate interference. Without these institutions, change is impossible no matter how many times one votes in a year. Question is: does Malaysia have the resolve to change?

"Darkness cannot change darkness," said Martin Luther King Jnr. But enlightened voters for change can do away with darkness because they know the promise-breakers have been given too many chances. How many chances does a bad politician need to prove he can make your life miserable and your country corrupt?

Change depends on the people's votes.

Make your vote count because if you don't, a corrupt government will make sure you as a citizen don't count. There is no greater satisfaction for a citizen to know he or she made the difference in the society he or she resides in because they delivered what the government failed. When a government fails the people, the people must not fail themselves.

It is the boldness and courage of the people to dare a change if the government fails or disappoints them.

Are we now prepared for a change of government?