“Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as a governing principle.”

― BR Ambedkar

COMMENT | In his rather downer New Year’s Eve speech, former (twice) prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as reported in the press, said “…politics in Malaysia had become 'bad', and that the country was on track to becoming a failed nation”.

Well yes, the country has been on that track for some time now. It is pointless going over who put us on this track because the fact remains there has never been a political coalition that wants to get us off this track.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then this yearly hoping for change from the political establishment (which includes the opposition) is well, insane or maybe just a comforting delusion that the political class encourages and certain voting polities eagerly cling too.

The reality is that Mahathir (above) is right, little will change or rather little will change for the better. The change if any is the accelerated dismantling of our civil, economic and social rights under the guise of Malay/Muslim social, political and religious cohesion.

False narrative

If there were a central historical narrative as to why this country failed, it would not be because of corruption. It would be that our public institutions, our private and public spaces were overwhelmed by toxic religiosity that enabled a class of potentates free from the sanctions of secular laws – unlike the tenuous grip such laws now have on the ruling class...