What do Ling Liong Sik, Anwar Ibrahim, Marina Mahathir and Mahathir Mohamad have in common?
Answer: they are all self-serving jerks. Of course, it may be argued that to be self-serving is a natural human tendency, if not a base one and none of the aforementioned individuals can be faulted for being self-serving. Well, that’s the wrong way to look at it, a slavishly servile way, as a matter of fact.
Ling Liong Sik, in and out of cabinet, apparently had never expressed any unhappiness to any particular portion of the Official Secrets Act, under which all cabinet papers are rendered classified. But now that he is in a spot of bother over the PKFZ case, a magical volte-face has transpired. He now wants cabinet papers to be declassified, specifically the ones to do with the case. Yup, all the secrecy and keeping the public in the dark are quite alright... unless and until that very secrecy is not proving helpful to get oneself off the hook, in which case, the right thing, or more accurately, the self-serving thing to do is ask that the secrecy be lifted.
Anwar Ibrahim when he was a senior member of the Mahathir administration was complicit in the various abuses and misuses of instruments and institutions of state and public life – the judiciary following the Salleh Abbas dismissal, the AG’s Chambers, the police force, the Elections Commission, the media. But of course, after his falling out with Mahathir, upon which he bore the brunt of the abuses of the instruments of state in Mahathir’s persecution of him, his was the leading voice in denouncing the corruption and rot of those institutions, a situation that in no way can he conceal or deny his own role in contributing. It is inescapably self-serving, whichever way you want to look at it.
Marina Mahathir was so, so upset when some years ago an article she wrote was spiked by the Star newspaper. This was during the Abdullah Badawi administration and the newspaper concerned, as is the wont with the local mainstream newspapers, was afraid of upsetting the then prime minister. Never mind that she is the daughter of an ex-prime minister, what she wrote was deemed offensive to the current prime minister, so into the dustbin went her article. Which sent Marina boo-hoo-hooing all over town about how freedom of speech is non-existent in the country. Nary a word from her about all those other folk who suffered the same fate as her when her dad was prime minister. No sirreee. It acts self-serving, it looks self-serving, it sounds self-serving, yes, it is self-serving.
But of course, the biggest self-serving jerk, the daddy of them all, is Mahathir Mohamad. Reading his blog, one gets the impression that either he, in the senility of his twilight years, has forgotten that he was the prime minister of this country for 22 years or he is doing his very best to make people forget that he was prime minister for 22 years. He writes as if he bears no responsibility whatsoever over anything whereas just about everything that he expresses displeasure over, post-retirement, had its roots during his tenure as Numero Uno. Which leads any person reading the Mahathir rants to scratch his or her head and ask, “So what did YOU do about it when you were PRIME MINISTER for 22 SODDING YEARS?” Increasingly and transparently self-serving, his public comments have taken on the tone of one who is worried about his place in history. The way things are going in this country, history is not likely to judge him kindly.
The most glaring observation that makes it accurate to describe all the jerks above as self-serving is that never once has any one of them repudiated, repented, confessed, owned up or admitted that what had gone on before (that is, before they ended up at the sharp end of things) was wrong or unfair or unjust and that they regret or are sorry that they were once party to or in support of those unjust things (pay particular attention, please, all you Anwar supporters). Nope, they complained or criticised only because they got to be at the wrong end of the stick or the victims of the unjust system with which they bore complicity.
The point of all these is actually simple and straightforward, one which has been taught by all religions and moral systems all through the ages: we should speak up against injustices or unfairness of any kind, irrespective of who is at the receiving end. If we spoke up only when we ourselves became victims, then we are a nation of self-serving jerks.
