ABOUT KEBERSIHAN

Today, my friend in Eastern Europe passes the doctor a cash-filled envelop before the doctor would lift a finger to save her dying dad. It all takes place in an open ward.

Also today, governments sitting on oil beds send students abroad. Badge after badge, students share the habit of knocking at their professor's door every week for signed letters -- to certify that they are eligible for extra pockets of money from their sponsor due to reasons U, V, X, Y, Z. Corruption runs in the blood, everyone does it, they justify.

In Wales we used to (half-)joke that you'd find people in pubs not just Thursdays or Fridays but anytime of any day because everyone lived on benefits (kebajikan funds); no one needed to work. Ok, half-jokes aside, you get the hint. Our colleague who had a decent full-time job was on not one but multiple packets of benefits; his fellow countrywoman was on the verge of reporting him.

So why so many Malaysians react as though they have never seen corruption before?

Kebersihan / cleanliness, kesihatan / health / jiankangjiaoyu was a compulsory subject in the Primary One curriculum I studied at Yuk Choy, Ipoh. It was always tightly paired with civics / gongmin, taught by the headmaster himself. I remember raising my hand asking him whether I was Chinese or Malaysian.

By the way, I grew up discovering, many years later, that the worst corruption has nothing to do with money.

SUPPORTERS OR MILITANTS?

What worse tranggression can we expect? A group of people rise up against the Elections Commission demanding fair elections, and next, they proceed to take elections in their own hands, ripping their neighbours of the freedom to vote. (The same group of people rise up against the racist quota system, and then proceed to replace that gap with a new gap dividing the nation between X's supporters and Y's supporters.)

The problem is these supporters are not registered with any political party. More often than not, they have no clue about politics, democracy, ideology, revolution and reformation. What is the difference between supporters and militants? Supporters express their decision at the ballot box; militants attack and incite hatred. Supporters vote as gentlemen and ladies; militants ambush and attack. Supporters decide for themselves as to whom to vote for; militants decide for the country. What we ae seeing is a looting of voting rights: men and women on the street take advantage of a lack of general order, and decide to steal from each other.

If one really cares for the country, one would sit down, consider the local context and formulate lessons we can learn from the many reformations here and elsewhere, now and throughout history. Without equipping oneself with the relevant knowledge -- chewed, digested and contemplated upon -- a process which takes time and patience and dedication and sacrifice -- he is not fit to try teach others how to vote.

A RELATIVELY LIGHT BAGGAGE

Let us now switch to the psychoanalyst's language and search our past, our childhood. If we count the skeletons in the closet, we shall find that we do not have that many after all. Malaysia's baggage is relatively light. We have neither the Hiroshima nor the Auschwitz patch; we were neither the aggressor nor the victim.

Yes, earlier generation(s) did suffer the Japanese occupation, but that was brief and nothing of Rwanda's magnitude. Yes, we were colonised, but the British was not the worst coloniser. Indeed, there was bloodshed during May 13th, followed by a prejudiced quota system in the years to come, but that was far from apartheid of any shape and form. Those who call it apartheid can go somewhere like the Richmond Slave Market, sit there and meditate for a few hours, come back and tell us what slavery and apartheid mean.

If we recollect our own personal experiences of being forgiven, we would find no motivation whatsoever to hold that grudge.