The Fatal Curse of Tempurungism (reprise)

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop and this is especially evident in the case of Malaysian bureaucracy in general and the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli in particular.

I have resided in and around Kampung Pertak since 1992. During this period I have witnessed how the Orang Asli Affairs Department favors diabolical initiatives that strengthen their psychological and political control over the Orang Asli - while creating opportunities for stuffing their own pockets.

Whether it be logging concessions, dam projects, turning ancestral lands into leasehold lots, or tarring roads that lead nowhere (except to environmental degradation), the JHEOA invariably finds a sneaky way to corrupt, oppress, intimidate, exploit and ultimately devour the Orang Asli.

Sagong Tasi of the Temuan tribe wins a landmark lawsuit (courtesy of Suaram)

The JHEOA ought to have been dismantled and abolished 20 years ago, following the surrender of the Malayan Communist Party in 1989. Instead, it became a tool to assimilate the Orang Asli into mainstream Malay culture - by pressuring them to embrace Islam and systematically pillaging their ancestral lands under the guise of kemajuan or “progress.”

Recently there has been talk of the JHEOA being “corporatized” into the Perbadanan Orang Asli (Orang Asli Corporation) using the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) as a model. Blurring the boundary between business and politics facilitates hanky-panky on a massive scale. As we have seen in the case of FELDA, feudal-style top-down management by aristocrat-politicians results in the ignorant peasantry being robbed totally blind without their knowledge. In most cases the public only finds out when it’s already too late because the thefts occur in remote rural areas.

Photo: Colin Nicholas/COAC

This, of course, has been UMNO’s modus operandi since the era of Mahathir and Daim. Leveraging on an atavistic appeal to bangsa and ugama to promote the fascistic notion of Ketuanan Melayu, UMNO warlords have siphoned off a great deal more than 30% of the nation’s wealth since the nefarious NEP was launched in 1970.

The JHEOA – like so many government agencies – has long served the UMNO agenda instead of the Orang Asli’s genuine interests. That’s nothing new. What has become alarmingly obvious is that they no longer bother concealing their narrow self-interests and their deeply ingrained racism.

Photo: Antares

During the Ulu Selangor by-election that ran from April 17-25, 2010, the JHEOA openly stage-managed the Barisan Nasional campaign in Orang Asli communities throughout the region. In one or two villages the Orang Asli batin (headman) called the police to prevent Pakatan Rakyat campaigners from entering their settlements.

In Kg Pertak the JHEOA facilitated the entry and encampment of dozens of UMNO campaign workers recruited from various ethno-fascist groups like Pekida and Perkasa. They were annoyed to find Pakatan Rakyat insignia proudly displayed in a couple of houses. What irked them even more was that a bunch of pro-Rakyat bloggers were comfortably embedded in Kg Pertak’s “diplomatic enclave.”

The JHEOA/UMNO faction reportedly handed RM7,000 in cash to one of the village security officers with instructions to distribute it amongst 70 registered voters as incentives to vote BN. I later heard complaints that the money never left the security officer’s pockets. This is how UMNO corrupts the Orang Asli via the JHEOA – by dragging them into the politics of greed, betrayal, and xenophobia.

Photo: Max Koh

On the eve of the by-election, the UMNO contingent instructed a few young Orang Asli to set up a roadblock at the entrance to the village. Later a skirmish broke out and one of the pro-Rakyat bloggers was assaulted by a Pekida thug. When the police arrived on the scene 30 minutes later, the UMNO thugs were nowhere to be seen. This small outbreak of violence was reported in Malaysiakini the next morning. In terms of negative publicity, JHEOA/UMNO came out with a black eye and began plotting revenge.

Xenophobia can also be called tempurungism – a regressive psychomental condition akin to acute jingoitis that commonly afflicts those who have never left the provincial and parochial confines of a monolingual, monocultural matrix. Those suffering from xenophobia have great difficulty accepting people with different linguistic and cultural imprints as close friends or family. They tend to label others as pendatang (immigrants), orang asing (outsiders), or Mat Salleh (Caucasians).

Working through a couple of Orang Asli agents, the JHEOA reactivated its xenophobic agenda by pressuring Asli families who had rented out their houses to “outsiders” to evict their tenants. The Asli were given to understand that the houses they were living in was government property – when in truth it was the dam developer that built the houses.

What the JHEOA had done in 2004 was to cheat the Orang Asli of their ancestral hunting grounds by issuing them 99-year leases instead of formally gazetting the whole area as a permanent Orang Asli Reserve (as promised in 1965). The Orang Asli have never seen a land grant in their life – nor have their ancestors. They don’t understand what a 99-year lease means – but they do know they have very little power over their own destinies as long as the JHEOA exists as an extension of UMNO.

[First posted 2 August 2010]

RECOLONIZING THE NATIVES (revisited)

I UNDERSTAND the colonial mind extremely well. That's because the memory of having been a series of megalomaniacal empire-builders remains vividly imprinted in my deep psyche and prompts me to do everything in my power to warn the present generation against the insidious dangers of attempting to impose a rigid control grid over forces beyond our comprehension.

Perhaps this explains my visceral rejection of all forms of bureaucratic arrogance and misguided efforts to "civilize and domesticate" the natural world. Much as I love my sister, daughter #1, son-in-law, granddaughters, and all my beautiful nieces, nephews, cousins and grandnieces in Singapore - I'm always loath to visit the so-called Merlion City with all its infamous restrictions (no smoking in public places except where specially designated; and, in the old days, no longhaired men which necessitated my buying a shorthair wig just to gain entry).

In November 2009 I had a close encounter with bureaucratic heavyhandedness which left a slightly sour taste in my mouth. It all arose over the hoo-ha a local businessman raised about the illegal road upgrading project in Pertak Village. This guy happens to be a member of PPP (People's Progressive Party) and a close friend of Dato' T. Murugiah (left), deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department who oversees the Public Complaints Bureau.

I was surprised to receive a phonecall from T. Murugiah's personal assistant, a very pleasant lady named Shamini Bhaskaran, asking me for some background to the situation. So I wrote her a long email detailing the scenario and, before I knew what was happening, was informed that Dato' T. Murugiah was planning a visit to Pertak Village to see for himself what was going on. But before he could do so, he required a formal complaint to be lodged with his department, so I accepted the role - since Murugiah's businessman friend was unwilling to expose himself to the risk of losing the support of local bureaucrats who largely remain loyal to the Barisan Nasional.

On 15 September I had been visited by three Special Branch officers who informed me they were investigating a police report lodged against me by one Rapi Bata Abdullah - an Orang Asli Muslim convert and Umno member who had written a letter to Kuala Kubu Bharu state assemblyman Wong Koon Mun (right) requesting that the old logging trail through the Pertak forest reserve be asphalted.

To legitimize his request, Rapi had persuaded Bidar Chik, Batin of Pertak, to sign the letter. According to the SB officers, Rapi Bata had accused me of "obstructing" his road upgrading project (and thereby opposing "development" for the marginalized Orang Asli). He also alleged I was an agent of Western environmentalists and was harboring "Mat Salleh" activists - that's right, who are all jealous of Malaysia's success (yup, Mahathir has certainly left his indelible mamark... oops, I mean, mark on an entire generation of civil servants)!

This was followed by a visit from several high-ranking officers from the Selangor JHEOA (Orang Asli Affairs Department) who gently reproached me for bypassing them and going straight to the Public Complaints Bureau. I told them to their face that if it were up to me I would shut down their department without hesitation. Of course, I'd ensure that the people who worked in JHEOA would either be reassigned to other departments - or be given a generous payout so they could start their own businesses or acquire some useful skills.

Murugiah is crowned King of PPP in a party coup staged in May 2009

Dato' T. Murugiah's visit, originally scheduled for 30 October, was postponed for a week (his p.a. called up at the last minute and apologized on behalf of her boss, saying he was under the weather). My cellphone began ringing non-stop on the morning of 6 November. Reporters from the national news agency Bernama and Utusan Malaysia (Umno's much-maligned mouthpiece, famous for its acute ethnocentric halitosis) called up asking directions to Pertak Village.

It was amusing to see the media circus surrounding Dato' T. Murugiah's official visit. YB Wong Koon Mun was there accompanied by a cadre of MCA flunkeys in their North Korea-style paramilitary uniforms, along with reporters from Sin Chew Jit Poh and possibly Nanyang Siang Pau too. The New Straits Times was represented by a friendly but understandably jaded hack, while NTV7 sent a mobile unit and a very gung-ho crew to cover Murugiah's historic visit.

Even the district police chief, Supt Norel Azmi Affandi Yahya, was present with a platoon of senior officers (including the delectable Inspector Yusnita Samsudin who had "interviewed" me at the KKB police station at 11pm the night before, having sent a vanload of bullies-in-blue to summon me to her office).

When I was given the chance to speak, I voiced my indignation at the rude behavior of the policemen who had arrived at my residence at 10:30pm, demanding that I go down to the station to record a statement - and threatening me with arrest if I didn't comply.

They had clearly exceeded their authority in so doing, since I had commited no offence - and the urgency of the matter was entirely due to their dragging their feet on this case till the very last minute. They could have telephoned me anytime over the course of six or seven weeks, politely requesting that I come to the station at my own convenience to tell my side of the story.

In response, Supt Norel could only brag that the police in their zeal to perform their duties do not observe office hours. Such a smug and pompous old-school cop, he certainly would look the part better with a 19th-century-style handlebar mustache.

All in all, I estimate a total of 90 people were involved in this public relations exercise which was essentially an attempt to justify the RM200,000 roadworks through a forest reserve - and demonstrate how caring and generous the Barisan Nasional government was towards rural voters like the Temuan of Pertak Village.

My original complaint focused on the possibility of hanky-panky involving the misuse of public funds. YB Wong Koon Mun is, after all, a contractor and entrepreneur with fingers in many pies; and his Umno cronies have never been known to be overly concerned about how the Orang Asli are faring (indeed, the only thing that interests them is whether there are any logging concessions or resort projects they can apply for). Furthermore, Wong had instructed his contractor to start digging without obtaining the necessary permits from the District Office and Forestry Department.

When the Selangor state government learnt about this, a stop-work order had been issued through district councillor Chua Yee Ling - but, as to be expected, that only delayed MCA Wong for 3 or 4 days - the time it took for him to erect an official signboard announcing the road upgrading project.

This was clear proof that the Pakatan Rakyat state government is being undermined every step of the way by deadwood bureaucrats who haven't yet understood that Barisan Nasional wasn't appointed by Allah to forever misrule the country and enrich itself at public expense. It's a very serious issue that must be addressed. But how? Only a complete change of government at the federal level will resolve the problem.


Nevertheless, if an expensive "infrastructural upgrade" could be conjured out of thin air, these Barisan Nasional types become suddenly very anxious to help their indigenous brethren assimilate into the modern world (never mind lah that most of them remain stubbornly heathen) And, of course, what better emblems of modernity than asphalted roads (complete with speedbumps), cellphone towers, and - serunai fanfare plus a brief burst of kompang, please - STREETLIGHTS! Yes, the very things one requires to live comfortably at the edge of a forest. [Note: in 2016 the Orang Asli Affairs Department suggested that a toll-gate be constructed so that all visitors to the popular picnic area could be charged RM1. The Orang Asli seem quite happy to follow suit and become rent-seekers, albeit low-end ones, but making visitors pay a toll just to commune with nature has certainly degraded the magical feeling people used to experience upon arriving at this scenic spot.]

MCA Wong described my protest as Greenpeace-inspired activism. Thanks for the compliment, Wong!

Rapi Bata Abdullah was the featured guest star of the day - a showcase Orang Asli with all the correct-correct-correct attitudes. First he had become a Muslim (at least in name); next he had joined Umno and seen the light. He understood all about commissions and cost overruns and how to instigate environmentally ruinous projects. Above all, he was loyal to the Barisan Nasional government and was aware that "militant tree-huggers" like me are the Enemies of Progress (as measured in the shallowest and most superficial terms).

In his desire to be seen as "progressive" Rapi had unwittingly turned himself into the Orang Asli version of an Uncle Tom. For a few official favors (and some quick bucks by way of payoffs) he had severed his own ancestral connections to the sacredness and inviolability of the land and was proud to be paraded before the crony media as an Orang Asli ready to embrace "modern values" - as represented by physical trappings such as asphalted roads, piped water, electricity, satellite TV, mobile phones, streetlights, neatly-mown lawns, even a toll gate - and endless bills to pay.

The way the mid-level bureaucrats fawned and fussed over the visiting deputy minister, one would have imagined him to be at least a royal emissary, if not a king.

A century ago, T. Murugiah would probably have arrived on elephant back, with a full panoply of ceremonial guards and a bugle brigade. He would have been carried in a gilded palanquin to inspect the roadworks whilst being fed exotic tidbits by native girls bedecked with multicolored hibiscuses in their perfumed hair.

This is precisely what's wrong with the Barisan Nasional misgovernment. They're too enamored of pomp and circumstance. They love a splendid display of extravagance (city streets festooned with flashing lights and giant ketupats every Hari Raya) and, of course, the demonstrations of almighty grandeur and worldly power the Sultans have made their royal trademark.

(courtesy of SabriZain.org)

Can I blame the Brits for this, I wonder? After all, it was they who handpicked the most corruptible and compliant amongst the contending Malay chiefs to be crowned as Sultans (an honorific conveniently borrowed from the Turks). It was in their own interests to cultivate a narcissistic, self-serving species of native leader who would be so aloof and detached from their own subjects they would pose few problems for the colonial masters, who would then supplant the Sultans as the real government of the land.

When the Brits created a Malay political class to take over the lower echelons of bureaucracy, they taught them how to keep the hoi polloi at arm's length and present an unassailable façade of divinely ordained authority. Indeed, if you observe how Barisan Nasional ministers like to be fêted and fawned over wherever they go, you will certainly conclude that they all believe that being voted into public office gives them the divine right to be treated like pseudo-royalty. Hence, they view it as their religious duty to squirrel away massive amounts of non-declarable lucre in some offshore account whilst keeping just enough to set themselves up in palatial style.

And now, some 60 years after the Brits have returned to their swiftly shrinking, once-great imperial home, their political heirs, the Umno fat-cat bureaucrats, are faithfully maintaining the colonial legacy by recolonizing the original natives of this fair and bountiful land.

If the Orang Asli Affairs Department is allowed to continue existing, it wouldn't surprise me to find a future generation of Orang Asli behaving as corruptly, myopically, and arrogantly as their Malay mentors. By then they would willingly have exchanged their Orang Asli status for the dubious privilege of being lumped together with the Sumatran, Javanese and Bugis descendants of brigands, pirates and refugees from tribal wars.

As for Dato' T. Murugiah himself, I found him fairly intelligent and suave, oozing with effortless charm and self-confidence - but, alas, too typically a Barisan Nasional politician to be taken seriously as a human being. A few weeks after his visit to Pertak Village, I read in the news (online, of course) that Murugiah was in the process of being thrown out of the PPP. Should that happen, he would become a partyless deputy minister, and therefore vulnerable to vicious attacks from his cannibalistic colleagues in the increasingly irrelevant, insufferably arrogant and irredeemably corrupt Barisan Nasional.

Indeed, Murugiah might even lose his cabinet seat. Well, if that does occur, his p.a. has my phone number. I'd be happy to offer him some counseling on how to regain his human core and child-like spontaneity - and charge him ten times my usual fee.

[Originally posted 6 December 2009. Reposted 1 March 2018]

The politics of xenophobia (or the short happy life of a dog named Senget)...

This is the tale of an odd-looking little dog I rescued from the street early in 2010...

I saw this rat-like creature running on spindly legs after a motorbike. A few moments later it was chasing a 4-wheel drive in the opposite direction. It must have got separated from its siblings and mother, I thought. So I picked the critter up and took him out of harm's way, intending to investigate where he came from and return him to his family.

Prudence, one of the Magick River bitches, had just given birth to eight healthy pups - actually seven, as she slept on one of them overnight and the poor thing suffocated. The spindly-legged mutt was about the same size as Prudence's own pups even though his features looked more mature. Prudence herself had been rescued a year earlier from Kuala Kubu Bharu where I'd spotted her with a noose around her neck, being dragged along the road by a fireman. I stopped and asked why he was using a noose on a puppy and he explained that the dog was pissing inside the fire station, so he had to drag her as far away as possible before releasing her. The noose on a stick was improvised so he could handle the mutt without touching her.


Two of my dogs had recently been murdered by some drunken Orang Asli, so I decided to adopt this street urchin who looked like a Prudence to me. Roger was delighted to welcome her into the menagerie and treated her like a princess, constantly grooming her. Anyway, as it turned out, Roger didn't get to deflower Prudence. Mary's macho dog Baggins got in first.

And now, Prudence had her full quota of eight pups again. After rejecting the newcomer initially, she relented and allowed him to join the other pups whenever they suckled. A few days later the foundling appeared sufficiently well-fed, so I took him over to a neighbor's house where a few spindly-legged pups had been spotted. It was obvious that the runaway had been part of that litter. However, the neighbor vehemently denied that the pup belonged to her. Looking at the four other pups under her house, it was impossible not to conclude they were from the same mother. Yet, this woman was telling me an outright lie without flinching.

Sad to say, there are lots of people who tell lies as a matter of course. It's a survival mechanism young children acquire to avoid punishment or deflect responsibility. Those who become compulsive liars often believe their own lies, once the tendency becomes ingrained in the chromosomes. Hence we have to deal with entire communities of congenital liars who assume everybody else also lies, and that's it's perfectly okay to lie. When their own tribal chiefs are in the habit of lying their way out of tight spots, honesty becomes an extremely rare commodity. But I digress.

After asking around and getting no satisfactory leads, it became obvious that we were stuck with the little foundling. He adapted fast to his new reality and soon charmed his way into Mary's heart and onto her veranda and furniture. She named him Senget ("slanting" in Malay) because he had a habit of looking at people with one ear up and the other down.


While Senget was happily romping with the other pups, the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (now renamed Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli or JAKOA, in line with Barisan Nasional's policy of sneakily acquiring control of all Orang Asli Reserve Lands) was working overtime doing what they do best...

In April 2010 JAKOA had been busy campaigning on behalf of the Barisan Nasional (anyone who feels government agencies should be politically neutral might wish to consider migrating - unless we succeed in forcibly removing these deadbeats from the catbird seat they've occupied for 60 years through an electoral force majeure). They had arranged for Umno members and pro-Umno NGOs to encamp themselves for nearly a whole week in Pertak Village just prior to the 25 April by-election.

During the campaign period JAKOA was acutely irked by the fact that a couple of houses at the far end of the village were proudly displaying Pakatan Rakyat insignia.

Traditionally, all Orang Asli communities could be counted upon to vote Barisan Nasional - they really were given no choice, since JAKOA officials physically escort them to their voting booths - and pay them a cash incentive in two instalments - one before casting their ballot, another afterwards, provided they voted "correctly."

The Batin or Headman of Pertak Village was incensed that this time around the Barisan Nasional had totally bypassed him and handed at least RM7,000 to one of the junior village officials under the JAKOA's tutelage. The money was supposed to be distributed amongst 70 registered voters to reward their voting for the political status quo. There could have been an extra RM1,000 to buy his personal loyalty and support. However, the guy decided to keep mum and pocket all the cash - and that's what infuriated the Headman, not the fact that serious corruption was involved. RM100 can buy quite a few bottles of unbranded whiskey.

Barisan Nasional won this by-election (by hook and by crook) and that's when JAKOA began plotting to pull out as many thorns from its side as possible. They filed a report to Selangor JAKOA complaining that "outsiders" were influencing the Orang Asli against the government. Some of these "outsiders" had actually embedded themselves within Pertak Village by renting a few empty houses from Orang Asli families.

I got wind of this (and a rather stinky wind it was too) when a Special Branch officer called me, politely inviting me to have a friendly chat with him and his colleagues. From this I learnt that JAKOA had been unhappy about the presence of large numbers of "outsiders" in what they continue to view as their fiefdom. Apart from the anti-BN campaigners during the by-election, they also disapproved of the constant stream of "Mat Sallehs" arriving and departing from Magick River.


JAKOA were referring specifically to the Love Bus, who represent all the positive human qualities they themselves desperately lack. The Love Bus phenomenon is, in effect, part of the manifestation of Heaven on Earth - and this really scares all those who have been programmed to serve as mindless agents of Hell on Earth (any reality where you can get thrown in jail for 20 years for eating pussy, sucking dick, or lubricating your butthole- and risk getting caned for knocking back a couple of beers or getting clobbered to death in police custody for being dark-skinned - is undoubtedly Hell on Earth).

That's right. It's really all about marking one's territory and protecting one's own culture from deleterious western influences, isn't it? Every redneck rabble-rouser knows how to scare his rustic audiences into fearing the pendatang (immigrant) bogeyman. What JAKOA has been systematically doing over the last 60 and specifically over the last 30 years is to encourage the new generation of Orang Asli to think and feel and react like pathologically insecure and aggressively territorial Umno Malays.

The embracing Islam bit is difficult to pull off as no Orang Asli will ever give up eating the flesh of recently killed wild boar. Nor are the menfolk likely to become teetotalers. Indeed, alcoholism has taken a turn for the worse since one of the villagers began selling cheap plonk at RM3 a bottle. In the old days, they had to go all the way to town (8 miles away) to replenish their supply. Now they can score another round of brain-pickling brew just by staggering a few yards up the road.

This is the generation of Orang Asli that grew up being entertained by TV3 and RTM instead of listening in rapture to grandmother and grandfather's stories. All the young ones now own cellphones and motorbikes; a few drive secondhand Proton Wiras, Nissans, and even Pajeros (if they happen to have worked in JAKOA and acquired the art of pocketing commissions from loggers and developers).

Long story short, JAKOA instigated a small cabal of Orang Asli in their mid-30s into putting pressure on my brother-in-law Ali to terminate the rental agreement that had existed since 2003 with friends from KL who appreciated access to an idyllic weekend retreat. They also browbeat another family into not accepting rent from a Canadian musician who had been using one of the houses as a Southeast Asian base for a couple of years. The families were informed that these houses belonged to the government - and the Orang Asli required clearance from JAKOA if they wished to sublease their homes to anybody. Complete crap, of course, since the Orang Asli have been issued 99-year leases on their homes and they are at liberty to sublease any houses they don't actually occupy.

Anoora Chapek with Colette Paterson, who was part of the Love Bus

The upshot of this sudden surge of xenophobia and unfriendliness towards orang asing (literally, "aliens") was that the house next to mine was handed over by the JAKOA to Wati - a single mother who reportedly converted to Islam a few years ago. I've known this woman since she was 13 years old and she has always been friendly and sweet-natured. However, she met an Orang Asli guy named Man from a different village about a year ago and he moved in with her. They now have several kids and two houses in the same village. I didn't know Man was a Muslim convert till I saw his wife and even their young daughters wearing hijabs.

Within hours of becoming our neighbors, Man began to cause ill feeling. Every time any of our dogs barked at him, he would confront them with maximum aggression rather than attempt to befriend them. Orang Asli are used to dogs. They have kept dogs for thousands of years. Surely they know that dogs react to body language. If they show no fear and send out friendly vibes, the mutts will immediately regard them as persona grata. Whipping out a can of insect spray and blasting the vile poison in the dogs' faces is certainly no way to establish good relations with one's new neighbors.

One morning I heard a loud yelping and as I went out to investigate I saw Senget running away with an intensely traumatized look on his face. Man was holding a catapult, his face contorted by unmitigated hate.

"Why did you shoot the dog?" I asked and he gestured towards a small tree he had just planted in the front garden. "The dog was disturbing the plant," he muttered. Well, there was no plant in that spot the day before, so how would any of the dogs know to avoid running into the tiny tree? He could have put a low fence around the seedling to protect it, which is what anyone with a functional brain would do. I shook my head in utter disbelief that this guy could be so dumb. It seemed as if he was going out of his way to be a hostile neighbor. This had never happened in the village in all the years I had lived here.

A few hours later my wife announced that Senget had died. I found him rigid beneath a clump of banana trees. His tiny body was already in an advanced state of rigor mortis. We found no visible wounds on his body, so Man must have aimed for his head and released the stone from his catapult with such unrestrained violence the dog suffered brain hemorrhage and collapsed. Senget was buried just before dusk. I felt angry and sad that he had been so cruelly punished for doing what any young dog would do. We discussed the possibility that Senget might have been a nature spirit in a dog's body. When Mary saw Man walk past the next day, she asked if he knew he had killed our dog, and he just turned his head away without answering. He has avoided looking us in the eye since. His wife informed me she had scolded him for being such an unthinking hothead.

Not much good that did. In the following weeks Man persisted in antagonizing my mutts by coming home tipsy late at night; waking me up with his bushcutter on a Sunday morning, and conspicuously leaving a tiny clump of grass uncut just because it was growing a couple of feet on our side of the garden; and, saddest of all, advertising his poor choice of role models by sporting a Barisan Nasional T-shirt. [As fate would have it, our Neighbor from Hell was forced to move out less than a year later - after he attempted to rape my wife's 11-year-old niece.]

All this negative energy that has been injected into what used to be a fairly contented and peaceful village can be felt throughout the entire country. The insidious pall of dark energy became a tangible sense of evil in early 2009, when an innocent 20-year-old named A. Kugan was pummeled to death in police custody and the entire government went into overdrive to cover up the atrocity. Nothing has been resolved.

Within weeks a popularly elected state government in Perak was toppled by utterly devious means (with royal connivance); and on April 3rd, a pink-lipped crime minister and his ruthlessly ambitious wife were foisted upon us by 191 Umno division chiefs (again with royal acquiescence). Three months after that, a 30-year-old political secretary named Teoh Beng Hock was found dead outside the Selangor headquarters of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission after a totally unjustifiable late-night interrogation over a RM2,400 accounting discrepancy. Nearly eight years later, nothing has been resolved either. The MACC officers who "interrogated" Beng Hock to death weren't even sacked. Indeed, their leader was transferred to another state and promoted!

Indeed, if you consider the unfortunate turn of events that have befallen this country since 20 October 2006, you're likely to conclude that the ghost of a brutally murdered Mongolian woman will not rest until she sees justice done - and that won't happen till all the thieves and murderers are removed from public office- and all the bigots too.

Thanks for the fond memories, dear Senget.

[First published in September 2010, reposted 4 August 2013]

Lady Baba meets Lord Greystoke III...

I only just viewed this third and final episode of Lady Baba's amazing adventures in Hulu Selangor... and was thoroughly thrilled, not least because I'm in it! :-)

Check out the first two episodes...