After centuries of colonisation, our nation achieved sovereignty, free from the incursions of foreign powers. But we still have minor incursions, threatening the peace of the nation internally and from the sea. How we deal with it should be a lesson to the international community.
The recent news on break-ins and incursions is not going make our country look good. You see, Malaysia is often observed as, well, a nice guy in the international community. In the hustle and bustle of the international scene, with genocides on one corner, and cold war on the other, we are like the jazz quartets that everyone respects, professes to like, but no one listens to.
But we are not without issues in our own backyard. Problems, turbulence, predicaments, and concerns like running out of chicken. Yet, we deal with it in the most gentlemanly way.
You see, not to be left out in filling up headlines like our neighbouring (bigger) countries, we do have the standard robberies, state-of-the-art murders, heinous rapes, traffic offences, disabled folks attacked by bodyguards and missing proselyting religious men. Just like any advanced nation.
Serial Liars
As a developing nation, though, we don’t have pillaging or burning of the villages, but we have ascended gloriously up the international statistics platform with mass corruption and car crashes that kill thousands every year. We don’t have terrifying serial killers roaming the country, and we make up for it by constantly electing serial liars. It’s a small price to pay.
Aside: We have been a developing nation for far too long, I wonder if we are suffering from dwarfism. End of Aside.
Yet, the headline mongers got a thrill recently, concerning a curious case a few weeks ago, when a police station in Johore was broken into and the news was most talked about by Malaysians, noisy enough that it got itself quite a bit of a meaty Wikipedia entry. Just as the Malaysian film industry tries to glamourise cops and authorities, real-life criminals give the cops the middle finger. Not to mention that this one was especially a blow to my home state, which often wins the best Laksa argument.
There was a U-turn done by the cops when originally the attack was linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, then watered down the accusation to a “lone wolf” attack. Possibly, as the column here argued, the dilution of the seriousness of the event is due to the current government’s fear of losing confidence among voters. Yes, the same voters who made a guy who made a career of exposing confidential matters as economy minister. Oh, the irony.
Incursions Elsewhere
And, in an attempt to, as we say here, tumpang glamour (bask in the glory), Singapore stepped up its security measures, especially at the checkpoints, after the event in Ulu Tiram. That’s Singapore to you. Always up to mark, spick, and span, securities are as tight as an ancient chastity belt. Being curious, I scrolled down the island’s media to scan for nasty incidents happening on the paranoid island and came across one report that a man was arrested for threatening to bomb DBS bank headquarters. Not bad, they are catching up. Still, no matter how hardcore they try to be like our Mini-Me, it has been proven that their Roti Canai is inferior to ours.
And, oh, speaking of Johor, there was this news about some guys who tried to trespass the Istana Negara, where resides the current Agung, formerly Sultan of Johore, as they tried to enter with a… parang. A local machete. They were simply there to meet the King, apparently, and probably to help clear the bush behind the palace. Or whatever. But we are talking about His Royal Highness, who, with his family, once gave hard time to none other than the owner of the ultimate iron fist, Tun Mahathir, for a long time, so much so that the latter initiated legislation to remove some of the immunities the royalties had. You can read more about their love affair at that link. I just brought this up as a “by the way” sidetrack and did not connect the mummified former premier, who is currently being investigated by the anti-graft body, MACC, for some wrongdoing or another, with the breaking in. What do I know?
If trespassing in the country is becoming, well, not rampant, but seems to be hogging the headline, what about the international waters? For a small country, we do have a pretty long coastline—4675 km to be exact (no innuendo please). That’s like having a small house but a large land with orchards around it, which means anyone can jump in the fence and steal our durian.
Trespassers
Which is why news of ships trespassing our coastline has been making the news again, and again. In 2019 and 2020 alone, Chinese ships have trespassed a total of 89 bloody times, according to this CIA report. But we can’t shoot down durian thieves, can we?
That’s because our nation’s father of independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman, helped the country gain independence through diplomacy and table talk. When Singapore was making too much of nose when they were part of us, Tunku just let the little brat go. We are generous, that way. There is no way we are going to start aiming our torpedoes at the Chinese ships. It’s up to them if they volunteer to become global jerks, competing with the bigger jerks that’s busy mollycoddling the tiniest pr*ck in the Middle East. There’s a whole territorial dispute about the area that China is claiming possibly because the sea is named after the country. They are already patrolling outside of our coast like psychotic mongrels.
I suppose we are better off just managing incursions and intrusions inside the country with the best diplomatic solutions. Let the dogs sleeping outside lie. The whole point is that, like our founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman himself, our country is the gentleman of the country club, even if the nation that coined the word gentleman used to be the biggest bully before the Second World War ripped them apart. They may have “civilisation,” but we have something better. It can’t be translated properly for the Western barbarians. It’s called “budi dan bahasa.” – NMH
A movie buff, as opposed to film connoisseur or aficionado, because the last two words are hard to spell, Rakesh has been in the field of writing for more than two decades and hopes that one-day movie “buff”ing is lucrative enough to afford him a Batmobile, the Michael Keaton one.
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