COMMENT
| 2020 is a prelude to the shape of things to come. If you thought that
this year was crummy, what we have to look forward to is the
consequences of the pandemic and of course the coup, in 2021.
My
top five news has always been an annual roundup of what I thought were
the most important news items that were covered by the press and more
often than not, what I consider āimportantā are news stories that are
submerged in the news cycle but points to the dysfunctionality of the
system.
I
do think that 2020 is the culmination of the old maverickās vision. The
seeds he planted a long time ago are now the fruits of his labour, of
his wayward political offspring, the vast bureaucracy, and the deep
Islamic state.
Aided by the ineptitude of the opposition,
what we have witnessed are the convulsions of the mainstream Malay
political apparatus heightened by the vagaries a worldwide pandemic
brings.
As Singaporeās Foreign Minister Vivian
Balakrishnan, said, āIn fact, this is an acid test of every single
country's quality of healthcare, standard of governance, and social
capital. If any one of this tripod is weak, it will be exposed, and
exposed quite unmercifully by this epidemic.ā
While I depart from
some of my fellow op-ed writers who claim that Malaysia failed miserably
in handling the pandemic, the reality, is that this pandemic did reveal
how we function as a society and the old demons which never left us.
The following news stories, in no particular order, reflect the fault
lines in our system that in my opinion were unmercifully exposed by this
pandemic.
Ku Nanās pocket change
Former federal territories minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansorās rather cavalier statement
of a couple of million ringgit being pocket change to him was even more
insidious now that thousands have lost their jobs and many more are
living rough because of this pandemic.