It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions. – Johann von Goethe, German statesman
The Global Competitiveness Report 2002-3 defines governance as the exercise of authority through formal and informal traditions and institutions for the common good. Note the emphasis and focus on ‘common good.’
The NDB permeates every democratic institution of the common good camouflaged in a bewildering array of government policies that serves the unique purpose of raising voters’ rage levels. The quintessential playbook for politics that very few savour.
The moral anguish caused by the NDB is a tireless, ceaseless, careless, callous, unstoppable, incorrigible and uncontrollable Frankenstein created by a legislature of sorrows.
Cultural revolutionaries in society doggedly work as psychologically-born wordsmiths to tell the bold and ugly truth with the fervor of ‘do with your pen what would in other times be done with a sword’. But a blunt pen is worse than a sharp sword.
For all intents and purposes, the NDB seems innocent and innocuous, helpful and accommodating to the general public. The British civil service system and the rule by law aphorism insults the Malaysian ethos.
Waking people up at 3 am to execute a warrant for arrest is an illustration of the dastardly rule by law. Spectators and bystanders sit in quiet rage quite helpless to the vindictive drama.
A sophisticated genre of NDB is evident in the British common law tradition which is a powerful indictment for constitutional supremacy in that judge-made law becomes the law of the land to improve on a written constitution.
When the callous legislature realises that its powers were usurped by the judiciary, newer legislation emerges to baffle and stun the citizenry even more. Suddenly, we are assailed by more codes, laws, rules and regulations granting the NDB a dangerous trend-setting manifesto.
And then the judiciary gets its opportunity to review ‘upstart legislation’ to determine its repugnancy level to the written constitution. This permanent trend was firmly entrenched in Anglo-American jurisprudence when the US Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison, (1803) 5 US (1 Cranch) 137.
The civil service is another unassailable bastion where the NDB operates. Bribe-taking has weakened the sanctity and integrity of good government where honest services are a piped dream. The system is collapsing, and nobody in positions of power are able to stop it.
The bureaucracy is the main degenerative root of the NDB destined to corrupt all the sprouting shoots manifest in state and federal elections, and political appointments to both the public and private sectors. It is a toxic disservice to the profession or calling of politics when tyranny sparks disrespect and protest.
William Cobbett on the NDB: “Good government is known from bad government by this infallible test: that under the former the laboring people are well fed and well clothed, and under the latter, they are badly fed and badly clothed.”
Not to be outdone, George Soros spewed his own version of the NDB: “Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on.”
Soros with his usual penchant for unveiled prevarication meant ‘currency manipulation’ when he mentions ‘and so on’. There are corrupt experts who are the real generals in the standing army for the NDB ready to throw legal hand grenades.
The NDB has permeated every segment of society and every institution designed and structured for the general welfare of the people. Some decided to stay off the grid in the US when some 85 million eligible voters stayed home in the 2016 elections.
Confucius explains the NDB with a fable upon encountering a weeping woman in the mountains. She explained that her husband and son were attacked, killed and eaten by tigers.
He asked her why she did not want to relocate to the valley where most people lived. She replied, “There are no tax-collectors here in the mountains.” Lin Yutang expounded that “a bad government is more to be feared than tigers”.
The only known way to demolish the National Demolition Brigade is for the people to protest on a regular basis — from replacing bad roads to reinventing government. It’s a formidable task. Malaysian NGOs do what they can to write, complain, fret, and worry endlessly, to no avail.
But that is the extent and range of their righteous rage and justified indignation. Nothing seems to shake up the slumbering Rip van Winkles who make sure government gets from bad to worse.
One un-awakened semi-conscious professional ‘advised’ me that as long as we enjoy good fortune and can ‘make money’ why even bother? This unfortunate excuse for humanity who breathes free oxygen was more into his brand-new BMW and his eight-bedroom mansion than planning the demise of the NDB.
There are many such people who unfailingly contribute to the growth of the NDB. When will the rakyat be intoxicated with some semblance of victory? The rakyat are never consulted excepted to be insulted every five years at the hustings.
Perhaps Goethe was a bit out of alignment when he observed that bad people don’t cause revolutions. Truth be told, bad choices cause revolutions.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
