Our country is facing its worst ever crisis.

By Bilal Chin

Dear Fellow Malaysians;

Our country is currently embroiled in its worst ever crisis.

It is a crisis that is now clearly spiraling out of control; one that might just impact the lives of everyone in the country in one way or another, from the very pinnacle of the country’s top-most leadership, to those overly excited individuals scheming within the various interest groups busy battling one another all-out for leadership of the country and their many rewarding positions, to the ordinary citizens on the street, and all the way down to the most unfortunate segment of our society desperately struggling to make an honest and better life for themselves and their families. This is a crisis that could only hurt this nation and the majority of its people for the ungodly gain of the few – a crisis that would set the country back only God knows how far.

Every loyal Malaysian who loves this country and concerned for its well-being can only be worried beyond words with everything that has been happening the last many years; and had now worsened to a point of no return, and still daily continuing to just get worse.

Rightly, all Malaysians should be in this category. All, or at least very much a near-total majority of us,who genuinely love this country, sincerely concerned for its well-being, and are truly loyal to this nation should be fearful seeing what is currently taking place in the country; and should indeed rightly be in this very worried category.

Yet somehow and rather strangely, this is not the case, or just does not seem to be the case. The near-total majority of us had not really made our voices heard and our stand clear; unless of course, we have already been won over by the creeping new ruling-norm of totally freewheeling “power-grab, abuse, and greed” and have generally begun to accept what comes with it. Otherwise, our nation that has now been crowned the undisputed global champion of corruptions would not have been so openly and dismissively dubbed by the world at large, would it? And we, the Rakyat, would not continue to remain nonchalantly silent and,seemingly, totally indifferent, would we?

The majority Rakyat of this country cannot be the most corrupt people on earth by any comparison or any measure; not by a long mile! Still, we, the Rakyat, every one of us, as the legitimate and undisputed owner, power, and the final authority of this motherland can never abrogate our responsibility and pretend we are not in any way involved or any less implicated in the conduct and wrongdoings of our nation.

Unless and until all those individuals who were directly responsible for causing the many wrongdoings and in bringing such vulgar disrepute and indignity to this nation are fully and appropriately brought to account, we, every one of the citizens of this country, as the legitimate and rightful owner of this land would have to equally share and bear the ignominy of what these miscreants had uncaringly created.That, inescapably and unfortunately, is the onus of ownership. In the final analysis, we, the Rakyat, have the responsibility to make sure every wrongdoing is accounted for, and every wrongdoer rightly and appropriately made to account for it – if we still have any pride and dignity left in us as a people.

Unshackling this national shame from the more than ninety-nine percent of Rakyat who had nothing to do with what had caused this horrible national stigma is a must in order to not allow our nation’s dignity, conscience, and soul to be forever blemished in history. Thus, when obviously all the safeguards for our nation had proven to be dangerously inadequate or are being thoroughly abused, and the country is in a chaotic tailspin, the people should and must, step in.

There must come a time when the rightful owner of this blessed motherland will have to act, in whatever way and by whatever means, in order to save the nation from needless ruin through the shameless greed, uncaring neglect of responsibilities, and the violation of the sacred oaths of office of those who had been entrusted to manage and run the country.

Today, we do not even know what is really happening or actually taking place within the country. We cannot any longer readily tell what is true or fake; what is in the interest of the nation versus what is in the individuals or factional interest no matter what is being claimed; who are sincere and who are less so, or outright traitorous; who are being truthful or who are merely reading from a memorized script to further a planned and clandestine agenda; who are worthy of our trust and who are not; who is planning to jump ship and to forge new alliances for personal gains; who is backstabbing whom and who is proxy for whom? The list of unsavoury and mindboggling intrigues, maneuverings, spins, deceits, the shameful display of ambition and greed, and the increasingly reigning confusion and uncertainties goes on and on; and would likely not end unless we, the people, make our move to stop it.

While about everyone and every faction that have been increasingly battling out tooth and nail for supremacy to “lead” the country claims he, she, or they are only fighting for the interest of the people and the nation, and are doing so with the best of intentions, they all cannot possibly be pursuing the same honourable and sincere end and yet be totally and thoroughly at odds even in between them.

This is perhaps the dilemma for some, if not even for many of us – whom or which group or platform to believe and trust. How do we go about deciding how we might even begin to try helping the country redeem some needed stability for a start?

Still, this should only be a minor problem and cannot be a real and valid excuse, given the dire straits the nation is in. After all, we are the legitimate owner, authority, and power behind this nation – something seemingly totally forgotten by the ruling elites and those battling to join their ranks. Assuming the more than ninety-nine percent of the innocent majority are still generally not affected by the new destructive norm, and are still holding on to their bedrock principles based on righteousness, honesty, sincerity, good conscience, unflinching loyalty to thenation, and everything that is fair, just and noble, this should be no more than a minor and insignificant road-block.

How about, as an immediate first step,for us to not even bother trying to decide who or which faction is right or wrong, but just making it clear to all and sundry by whatever means and whatever it takes, that the Rakyat are totally nose-deep fed up, marah semarah-marahnya dan meluat semeluat-meluatnya, and are totally repulsed by all the antics of just too many of our leaders and the rubbish they are continuing to uncaringly heap on us and the country? And we had better mean every word of what we communicate.

This first-step of making clear how we, the generally innocent Rakyat, strongly feel and are committed to, is intended to clearly communicate the stand of the more than ninety-nine percent of the citizens of this country who had nothing to do with what had brought about this horrible stigma and ruinous threat to this nation – and just as importantly, to fully ram home the fear of God down the throats of these less than one percent responsible for the present chaos and all their equally wayward supporters, who surely themselves must know who they are and the extent of their wrongdoings and the exact nature and extent of their participation, despite all their langkah silat, conmanship and outright denials.

These minority wrongdoers need to be made thoroughly convinced that we, the more than ninety-nine percent who had no hand in bringing about this national shame, and who are the country’s innocent majority and legitimate owner, authority, and power behind this nation, are now no longer willing or prepared to continue putting up with their crap and self-serving waywardness – that we would not condone any abuse of positions and authority by anyone, or any party, or any institution;that we would never be derelict in ensuring the well-being of our homeland, and that at some point would demand and thoroughly ensure the appropriate and fullest accounting of any and whatever waywardness or wrongdoing.

This is the message that would need putting across to the whole nation immediately as a first-step if we hope to re-establish the ground rule and foundation for our recovery.

Regrettably and very obviously, this message clearly can no longer be left to anyone or any other entity or authority to convincingly and effectively put across and be taken seriously –not the King, or the entire monarchy, or the non-royal Heads of States, or all of them combined; clearly not the PM and his overly bloated Cabinet; and not the hundreds and more of the so-called “Pembesar-Pembesar Negara” who have so far been mutedly silent; certainly not the many and still daily growing number of political appointees; not the many enforcement agencies; and growingly it would seem, not the judiciary and it’s retinue of honourable upholders of the law – and, as we have been painfully and agonizingly witnessing for a lot more than a decade, NOT EVEN all of them combined. Otherwise; we would not be where we are in the first place, would we?

Perhaps only the people en masse might be able to put this message across and be seriously taken note of.

All the structures, organisations, and positions that we have just enumerated and the many more others were duly and formally created and blessed under the overall framework of the constitution; and the individuals duly appointed along the established mechanism for each – all in order to ensure the smooth and effective management and the running of the country; and beyond that, the hope and expectation of its people in seeing the nation moving to its rightful place on the global stage. These and many more make up the administrative and governing elements and hierarchy of our total government machinery in whom the nation’s well-being had been entrusted to. 

Those in the leadership positions had everything they needed in order to do the job; and to do it well. They had all the needed resources, latitude and freedom, time and space, authority and power, the necessary formal and legal provisions, and so much more, to do and undertake anything and everything that they had been entrusted to carry out within the law. Every one of them within those structures including even those at the lowest of the rung were already being at least fairly and justly rewarded, while beyond that, most if not every one of those at the top or are reasonably high-up were also enjoying various unbelievable all-round added gratifications, way beyond anything even imaginable to the struggling majority in our society.

And yet today they have grossly and uncaringly failed to deliver anything; even the tiniest sliver of hope and warm feeling. All we have are partisan squabblings, back-stabbings, manipulative underhandedness, intrigues, propaganda, lofty and high-sounding words and empty promises, lies and bigotry virtually at every level of the country’s leadership.

Even those at the very top who are sworn and expected to be totally above and beyond partisanship and, when needed, should be interceding conscionably and righteously, only and purely and always in the best interest of the nation and its people and nothing else, seem to be indiscreetly and unwisely taking sides. Our leadership and the total governing hierarchy, over the last many years since the country began its downslide, had not even been able to make us feel anything close to being reassured of the well-being of the future of this nation and that of our coming generations of Malaysians.

More and more, by the day, it is beginning to seem the people’s strong interjections of bipartisan guiding views are clearly needed – something the leadership might still ignore at their peril and the nation’s certain demise, in which case we might just have to escalate the effort and means until we are listened to and the message fully and truly taken note of. This might be the only hope left to help salvage the situation and get us out of this worsening quagmire. If we can manage this, we might even convincingly prove to the world that we know what needs doing at the right time and under the needed circumstances; and that as a nation we are clearly not anywhere near where the world now think we are.

For now, as of today, what a pathetically sad and sorry state our country is in. No longer can we even glance sideways at some of our neighbours without some degree of envy; and no longer can we even feel remotely anywhere close to near being well-positioned among our many peer nations in the race to developed nation status – something we once many years ago had felt and seen so much more than just the glimpses of its real possibility. Today we are only left with the grudgingly envious and sad memory of what was once an inspiring and very proud phase of our nation’s development and progress.

Where do all these leave us, the likely more than ninety-nine percent of the innocent Rakyat of this country who had been cruelly betrayed of their hopes and future, and who had absolutely nothing to do with causing this looming disaster – a disaster that would cause severe pain to virtually all of the innocent more than ninety-nine percent of us, but would make many luxuriously and unsightly rich from the ranks of the totally and uncaringly guilty among the much less than one percent. 

Even just contemplating this unbelievably huge lopsided equation, both from the perspective of its sheer ratio and accountability, is more than enough to make for contemplating the totally unthinkable!

Clearly as a first-step this common stand of the majority must be resoundingly established, one way or another, and by whatever means, if this nation is to get out of this worsening ignominy and recover the pride and dignity it once had. Only after this stand had been made thoroughly and unequivocally clear to the whole country and the line clearly drawn, can we realistically move on.

An almost opening message and reminder very early in The Holy Quran in Ayat 11 and 12 of Surah Al Baqarah, immediately after Alfatihah, should provide us with the needed advice and caution in proceeding thereafter. The translation of the two reads, “And when it is said to them, ‘Do not spread corruption (and cause disorder on earth)’, they say, ‘Indeed we mean well and seek to set things right’ (11). But beware! It is they who are the ones who spread corruption (and cause disorder on earth), and yet they do not realise (the damage they had caused and done)”.

The Almighty had endowed us with the ability to think way, way, far superior to any living creature on earth and had also assured us we will not be burdened beyond what we can cope with. Clearly what The Almighty had given us, in terms of our ability to think, is the most likely real recourse we have at this present stage. Perhaps the two Ayat even reinforce what is probably expected of us by The Almighty under the present circumstances – that we have to sincerely make the most of all that He had given us in overcoming our problem.

We would have to think long and hard without any bias, and above all else with all honesty and sincerity, and conscionably, about everything surrounding what had led to the present sad state of our nation and (for the Muslims perhaps with whatever accompanying du’a and Istikharah to help us) draw our own conclusions fairly and judiciously. Based on this sincere and thorough soul-searching, we can then make our stand and voice our views; and with a clear conscience do whatever and everything within our every means as a people to bring an end to this self-inflicted and totally undeserved catastrophe tearing our nation apart – a worryingly less than stable situation that had been brought about mainly and uncaringly through the ill-conceived ambition and unbridled greed of our own leaders, totally contrary to what any religion teaches and expects of us.  

As repeatedly emphasised, the people are indisputably the true owner of any country. They are also the real power and authority behind any nation – and they are also the final bastion and guarantor in ensuring the well-being of the country. In the final analysis it would be the people that would have to ensure the nation remains stable and would continue to function effectively within the bounds of the law, fairly and judiciously, and always in the interest of the nation and all its citizens, without any compromise.

Malaysia is not, and can never be, any different.

If only every one of them who had been in any way guilty for our present chaos had been read the Riot Act much earlier, made fully and thoroughly convinced of the uncompromising stand of the legitimate owner and the real power and authority behind this nation, likely none of them, would have risked going as far as so many of them had shamelessly gone in pandering, perhaps even outright nurturing and giving free rein to their many human failings without the slightest regards to any moral codes or religious tenets, as if totally without any God-given conscience.

In a sense, as such, we the people have also been remiss whether directly or indirectly. Our silence could have created the impression of accepting, or at best being totally indifferent, to the new culture within the ranks of our leadership.

We have been remiss, as the majority in this country, in our seeming to readily tolerate such values and conducts, perhaps even unwittingly encouraging these people to pollute our society to some extent with this blatantly emerging “power-and-greed-culture” and allowing it to gradually seep downwards into our society.

Certainly as the overwhelming majority of the people, we had never fully made our stand clear, perhaps even making them believe outright that the whole nation is no different from them. Such being their likely interpretation and impression of our likely stand, they might have even assumed the whole country would readily understand, tolerate, and accept whatever wrong they should embark on and should decide to do – something that had over the many recent years grown to become the rampaging monstrosity now threatening to destroy our nation.

How else can we possibly explain the sheer daring of the many perpetrators and their growing associates in trying to do the impossible? How could they possibly dare to freely embark on trying to fully satisfy their unbridled ambition, ego, greed, selfishness, arrogance, high-handedness, and cruelty– the devil’s own bottomless traits that can never be fully satisfied in the first place? And how would we explain their daring betrayal of the people and the nation, making mockery of our systems of governance and our laws as openly as they did virtually in full view of the entire world?

Their every waywardness was at the expense of the nation and its people – all of us. And even as these super reckless daredevils in high positions were blatantly creating new norms, they continue with ignoring the people’s rights, mandate, and increasingly carrying on with many more such obvious departure from the accepted and expected conduct. How can such daring and uncaring madness be otherwise logically explained if not for our seeming acquiescence?

That, as regrettable as it might be, was the likely message we had given these people, even as the creeping waywardness was beginning to take roots well over a decade ago – and we have been generally silent ever since, even until today. 

Very clearly in a sense, we have been no more than an absent, uncaring, and less then responsible owner and guardian of this motherland through our silence and inaction, and have unwittingly allowed these traitors, for all their intents and purposes,to do whatever they like with total freedom and impunity. And just as the uncaring and absent owner of a flourishing estate might end up being left with a horribly-abused property, we now have our once flourishing country turned into a horribly-abused nation.

Looking way back into the distant past, we have perhaps conducted ourselves no differently than the Malays of old; during the time of Hang Tuah and the Melaka Sultanate many, many centuries ago. They were blindly, unthinkingly, and totally loyal and could never see or say anything wrong about the Ruler. This had led him, the Ruler, to think and believe that he was totally untouchable, completelyabove the law, and could say and do anything and whatever he desired, fancied, or that pleased him no matter how unjust, brutally cruel, outright despicable, or plain stupid.

Eventually the Ruler’s conduct and his cumulative actions, clearly at least in part as a consequence of the seemingly total acquiescence of the overly submissive and blindly loyal Rakyat, sparked a one-man rebellion by Hang Jebat who had to be finally put down by Hang Tuah himself. Although many others among the common folks and even some Pembesar-Pembesar Negeri were in truth grudgingly unhappy with the conduct of the Ruler, they remained merely silent spectators well on the sideline and were totally irrelevant and of no consequence.

Isn’t our present situation somewhat, if not even overly, reminiscent of this situation in Melaka at that time – perhaps a telling indicator of how much we had moved on, or not at all, since then?

Could it also be possible that some, if not many, are even right now going through that same emotion that Jebat very likely did, leading to that breaking-point? How can we tell if the devil in each of us would not succeed in thoroughly fanning the fire in some of us all the way to that breaking-point as it did with Jebat? How can we even know where that point might be? Could it already be very close for some if not many – or is it even already past that point for a few but held painfully in check until now with grudging difficulty?

In short, could we actually be sitting on an explosive keg, indifferently unaware that is warming up to its flash-point? And this brings us to another related concern – one with spine-chilling possibility.

What happened in Melaka those many centuries ago was a one-man amok, one person wielding a Keris not much more than a foot long; and creating total and unspeakable mayhem that will forever live in our history. Should the same thing happen today, it would clearly be quite different – not only in the weaponry but also the strategic and tactical sophistication; everything.

When super-sophisticated weapons, including the numerous makes of sniper-rifles ranging from the basics to those that could literally take out a moth from half a mile away, which can be found and sourced from anywhere, and which with some inducement can also very easily cross borders, imagine what just one disgruntled and vengefully desperate mind past that breaking-point can do. With so many already established and well-identified guilty targets in his mind to work on; some of them still arrogantly and openly strutting around carelessly showing off their ill-gotten booty making the headlines every other day, while just as many are aggressively claiming and acting as the country’s anointed saviors when even the whole world knows perfectly well they are no more than merely cunning and outright unprincipled opportunists, this one vengeful and desperate mind past that breaking-point might just have a super bang-bang-away field day.

Now; double or treble the number of such cases – and, God forbid, what if a whole group of similarly grudge-driven minds should decide enough is enough, and resolve to outright organise themselves into taking matters into their own hands?

Avengeful mind might also not just settle for vengeance on the primary targets but could also randomly take advantage of the many and perhaps more exposed related opportunity targets; and some non-or-much-less-guilty family members might also just end up being random targets as well. This would even be more likely and also deliberately planned still, if the key primary target itself, for whatever unrelated cause or sheer misfortune, should have an unexpected earlier exit from this world even before such crazed mind or minds could get his or their due vengeance.

Just imagine what would be going through the hearts and minds of those likely to be targeted or themselves suspect they might be targeted – blighted and haunted by the almost certain concern and fear not only for their personal and individual selves, but also the added burden and likely guilt in suddenly and shockingly realising just how their earthly wrongdoings and sins had imperiled not only themselves but possibly also some of their family members, even perhaps after they are gone? Even those who were not in any way involved and would likely never be in any real danger or get into any line of fire unless by sheer accident, would likely still also be worried and fearful.

Once this organised cleansing takes off who knows where it would end and what the final cost and the overall ramifications might be. This is clearly a possibility we need to avoid, or at least forestall, to allow the needed room for winding down the rampantly growing anger, sense of betrayal, grudge, disgust, resentment, and the near-total distrust of the masses towards the many that have already been clearly identified within, or associated with, those of the many guilty ruling elites. 

Just how more spine-chilling can the scenario get no matter how guilty and outright traitorous some of the targeted Individuals might be; or however no longer totally reliable or had been rendered outright impotent our systems of justice these traitors to the nation had managed to effectively compromise or corrupt?

As morbid and outright sickening and sick as this line of thoughts and speculations might actually start to sound, it is not outside the realm of possibility, as they had happened in some other places. Such eventuality might even be more than a possibility, depending on the gravity of the sins and the number of the people being gravely sinned against; the victims. And clearly, this betrayal of the trust and hope of more than ninety-nine percent of the population who had nothing to do with this ongoing downward slide of the nation makes for both a lifetime dastardly sin, and against a massive and hugely telling number!

There are obviously some very significant lessons in our situation to seriously ponder, both for those in any way leading and running the country as well as the general population of this country at large. One is the folly of the people sending the wrong message to those in leadership positions and running the country, and in them believing leading the nation is just a lot of politicking with great gains and fun, and that they could do anything and get away with it, and eventually ending up on that ignominious path many of our leaders had clearly and uncaringly taken. Another is that the people cannot be treated as if they are stupid and can be continuously and uncaringly taken advantage of. And another is that trust, goodwill, tolerance, patience, and silence do not necessarily add up to stupidity or cowardice. Yet another lesson is that the people’s tolerance level has limit.

And yet there is another lesson still, perhaps one that is the most obvious and dangerously significant. This key lesson is that when the overwhelming majority of any grouping or organisation had been blatantly and seriously wronged by a very small minority just to serve its interest, no matter what high and mighty office they might hold, it would just be a matter of time before retribution catches up– otherwise without doubt mayhem will follow, and whatever existing understanding, arrangements, structures, systems, and or privileges currently in place might just end up being revisited anew and possibly totally dismantled or modified. And this can be just as applicable to any nation, including ours.

If we know exactly where we are on this growing scale of unhappiness along the hierarchy of these several lessons that we should rightly ponder on, it might be of some help. It might give us a likely indication of how far or how close we are from that likely flash-point we have to try and avoid at all cost.

As much as we might not want to lose or change whatever systems and arrangements we currently have within this nation, even with some of their more obvious weaknesses and failings, the lurking and giggling devils inside and among us might think differently and might have other ideas. It would be mouth watering for them to see the people of this nation, especially those so-called leaders within our present system, whether hereditary, appointed, elected, nominated, or through power-grab or outright bribery, throw caution to the wind and uncaringly continue as we have been doing, and still this minute continuing to do.

As the final bastion and guarantor of the nation’s well-being, we the people, and especially the innocent more than ninety-nine percent who had nothing to do with the present painful reversal of this nation and do not deserve the needless shame and pain, would rightly have to step in to ensure, by whatever and every means we have to, that everything we have speculated on do not even become likely possibilities.

The fast spreading flame had better be brought under control before it becomes a raging inferno that would consume all in its path, except perhaps for the many honestly and rightly super-rich, and almost certainly for the many super-guilty-and-filthy-super-rich traitors who could and would most definitely try making their getaway well ahead of time, when that flash-point happens, leaving this homeland they had selfishly raped and damned for the rest of us and our future generations to contend with, and to continue struggling painfully with its needed rebuilding.

IS IT NOT TIME WE DO WHATEVER THAT WE RIGHTLY SHOULD, AND MUST DO, BEFORE OUR COUNTRY GETS TO THAT STAGE?

(The views expressed are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rebuilding Malaysia.)

More from the author, Bilal Chin.

Dear Fellow Malaysians;

I humbly apologise for sharing my honest and sincere views on the critically worrying situation in our country today exactly and as plainly as I see it, perhaps even way beyond being brutally and candidly blunt. It is motivated purely by the growingly brazen and unpalatable trends in our midst causing such concern for the continued well-being of our country, and which even now is still daily worsening – a growing real worry increasingly shared by a fast-growing many.

I also apologise for not signing off openly with who I am for reasons that many, under the present climate, hopefully might understand and appreciate.

After having seen much to be very proud of as a nation on its way to charting its own course and what we had been able to achieve before this totally undeserved downhill slide, I wish and pray for nothing short of our getting completely over this present crisis and regaining our once very stable and respectable footing once again, whatever it might take. I would rather, as such, not risk being harassed in any way from continuing to do whatever I might be able to still do that could perhaps help salvage our situation, no matter however small and insignificant my effort and contributions might be.

In any case, what had prompted this sharing of views – love and concerns for one’s homeland, resolve, sincerity, good intentions, and truths – need no declared and advertised ownership; something clearly none of them will be any less without it.

May the blessings of The Almighty SWT be upon us and this motherland – and my humble Salaam and sincere best wishes to all my fellow Malaysians.

Bilal Chin