The Traitors Among Us

It is very difficult to find a voice of reason amidst all the hullabaloo following the recent fuel price hike.

Nobody really wanted to listen to what Petronas president, Tan Sri Hassan Merican, or Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister, Dato' Shahrir Samad, had to say even if what they said made a lot of sense.

Who wants sense and sensibility? Where's the fun if everything makes sense?

Hardly surprising, considering it has been open season for "bantaing" the government since the conclusion of the last general elections.

Very few people want to hear the truth; it is more convenient to rile at and knock the Establishment. That's the new Malaysian way.

Gratitude, by the way, has become a precious commodity. Saying thank you is passe. It's no longer hip to be be grateful.

So what's the truth? The truth is that there has been no price increase. Read my lips. The government did not raise fuel price.

What has happened is that the govenment has done away with fuel subsidy, which naturally raises the fuel price up to a realistic market level. That's the truth, unpalatable as it may be.

Alas, when the people were enjoying low fuel price for umpteenth years due to the subsidy, nobody saw it fit to credit the government for it.

Even when the subsidy benefited our neighbours up North and down South across both borders, we didn't bat an eyelid either. Generous, weren't we?

And that was OUR subsidy that they were enjoying. It was only when the perk was taken away that all hell broke loose.

So spare me your self-righteous pontifications, please. I am sick to the core with it. Just give credit where credit is due.

Look around us and see where we are today, compared to the time when we had just achieved nationhood.

It is a sad day indeed when we have one of our own giving his own country a lowdown in the company of strangers abroad.

It is even worse when the one doing it doesn't even qualify to vote in his own country anymore, having married an orang putih and taken foreign citizenship in the name of worldly wealth.

I have a few choice words for these kind of people. Traitor. Petualang. Ingrate. Ass-kissing lapdog.

I am not oblivious to the country's political scenario and its many ills. I know a wrong when I see one and there have been many "wrongs".

But I have also seen many "rights" which, sadly enough, are not acknowledged and given their due recognition because it is more exciting to diss the Establishment.

Twenty-two years of Dr M and four years of Pak Lah - and the latter is taking all the crap from a bunch of pseudo-politicos determined to play to the galley. How sad.

They say there are neither friends nor enemies in politics. Yesterday's bitter foes can be today's bosom buddies. How true. It's part of the game.

Make no mistake, though. The corridors of power, on whichever side of the divide, reek with stench. It is the devils' playground, a place where angels refuse to tread.