COMMENT | In the ending passage of his short story “The Dead”, James Joyce writes with delicious detail that the newspapers were right: “The snow was general all over Ireland, falling everywhere on the bogs, the hills, the Shannon, the church steeples, the graves of the dead and on the living.”
Here in Malaysia, we have been spared the cold and the snow but not the ill wind of corruption blowing into every nook and cranny of the land, their ugly and misshapen swirls all carrying the same sinister message that gratification is good; that greed is great.
Day after day, it blows through our border posts and checkpoints; our airports and our seaports; our timber-rich hills and our fish-filled seas; and our GLCs, our hospitals, our schools, our agencies, our departments and our ministries. Through every one of them.
This ill wind of corruption has in the past whistled past the cracks and crevices of our courts, that last bastion of our rights, turning them into a pliant tool of powerful men chanting the mantra of race and religion to hide both their greed and unbridled lust for power.
It is this same ill wind that has made hordes of pious officials corrupt to the core and whose prayers now have become pleas to the Almighty to spare them from being prosecuted while other men in uniform muscle and hassle petty traders, hawkers and lorry drivers for a bribe.
But these minions are no match for the well-connected bigwigs, lurking in the shadows, who peddle influence to obtain huge cuts and commissions, “fixing” government contracts be they small, medium or large: a village road, a rope bridge in the rural area, a large government complex.
And what of the millions of undocumented illegals and thousands of trafficked persons exploited in the fields, factories and construction sites of companies led by our captains of industry who speak of good governance and the rule of law while the authorities look away?
Yes, this ill wind of corruption has also spawned an “untouchable” nexus of devious politicians and crooked businesspersons who get away scot-free building slanted houses with cracked walls and leaky roofs and reducing listed companies into penny stocks by cooking the books wilfully.
And why should we be surprised that some top dogs have avoided paying taxes for years and years? Or that government contracts have ridiculously fat margins; or that waste is dumped into our rivers; or that arriving tourists are fleeced and that work permits need middlepersons?
Everything is up for grabs
Like the falling snow in “The Dead”, corruption is general all over Malaysia and sits on the top of all things like an apex predator, making the rich, richer and the elite, more elitist. It is the devil in the machinery of government that will not move unless greased and gratified.
Projects will only be approved by first feeding a part of the spoils to this predator. And often there is more than one within the bloated machinery of government that dances to the tune of the politicians. Later still comes the “all-expenses-paid” trips, meetings and eating.
Finally, the negotiated tender, the contract, the bid for flood mitigation works or the mining of sand or of bauxite is approved. Ditto the procurement of hospital equipment and supplies and the purchase of a fleet of luxury Wellfires for the whole exco. Everything is up for grabs.
Even the subsidies meant for the rakyat will not be spared. Like a pack of hungry hyenas, the warlords of the ruling party will take the first bite, leaving the rest as handouts for the hardcore poor. And the warlords will then proclaim with pride: “Aku buat bisnes!”
All told, this ill wind of corruption stirred into life a dozen or so years after Merdeka, wafting down the corridors of power, insidiously turning the highest echelons of our civil service into mere pawns of politicians who saw themselves as “saviours of our people”.
The transfer of wealth from the so-called “haves” to the elites among the “have-nots” ran into the trillions. Then came the inexorable slide to crony capitalism, monopolies and APs (approved permits), dispensing with the need for any toil, perseverance and application.
This corruption, now general, will not spare anyone - not the dead, the living and the yet-to-be-born future generations. And let’s not fool ourselves by saying corruption happens the world over and what does not kill us will make us stronger; that we are indeed stronger now.
No! No! No! Not when corruption has become the way of life, the way our economy works, the way politicians see things, the way ordinary folks wait for the trickle-down effects of corruption running on steroids as in countries that are failing or have already fallen.
Perhaps it's all too late for we may already be “The Dead” of Joyce's sombre story.
MURALE PILLAI is a former planter and now runs a logistics firm.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
