opinion
A mansion was sold in England this month, announced to be the most expensive property in England. The buyer is a Malaysian, the Tengku Mahkota of the state of Pahang. The cost of the 30-bedroom mansion is 70 million pounds sterling, which translates into RM370 million in the prince's local currency.By the 2000 census, there are in the state of Pahang 63,000 households, containing 283,000 people. Simple arithmetic reveals that the Malaysian prince has just spent enough money on himself and his polo ponies to give every family in Pahang half a year's income. This is enough to make a 25 percent down payment on a new house.
Think of it, a wonderful new house for every fourth family in the state of Pahang, lost to buy a polo mansion in far-away London for the son of the Sultan. The annual maintenance on the estate is estimated at RM5.3 million, well above the budget of professional people in Pahang.
One may reflect on the economic benefit to the people of Pahang if the Raja Muda directed his efforts to the care of his neighbors rather than to himself and his horses. He is instructed by his faith to take care of the people, not make of himself an example of vulgar greed and excess in the conspicuous spending of unearned wealth.
He plays polo with English royalty on distant turf, while the people of Pahang struggle to keep a day's supply in the family rice bowl.
Demanding mistress
This prince of Malaysia is a polo friend of Prince Charles of England. Polo is a demanding mistress, and there is scant time for royal duties or preparation for future leadership.
Perhaps, in kindness, there is, as the late US radio personality and horseman Arthur Godfrey once said, "Something about the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man." He refers to putative benefits to physical health, and its contributions to longevity. It seems to do nothing for compassion.
The ministers of the ruling party in Malaysia, though not royalty, also have large houses. Many have expansive estates of many hectares, surrounded by high thick walls and elaborate wrought iron fences, with British-trained Gurkha security guards, imported from Nepal, guarding the gold-gilded gates. They prohibit photographs.
Two northern states in Malaysia, Kelantan and Terengganu, have governments operated by the PAS political party, and the real estate holdings of the two state leaders provides an interesting contrast.
Both PAS Menteri Besars live in modest village houses where they lived before their election. They spurn the expensive and luxurious life style of their predecessors in the previous government. In the case of Kelantan, this has been the policy for over eleven years, and the new Menteri Besar of Terengganu demonstrates he has a similar style.
Telling contrast
In Kelantan and Terengganu, Friday is a holy day, or holiday if you will. People dress in their best clothes to drive downtown for the morning kuliah , a spiritual address given by the Menteri Besars themselves.
They fill the auditorium and put down mats in the streets. They come with their children by the hundreds and thousands, to sit in the hot sun for two or more hours to hear the message. They bring the children because they want them to have the spiritual benefit of the experience. They are smiling and happy, not a sad or cynical face among them. There is a pervading sense of spiritual richness.
It is an amazing thing to witness, the streets filled wall-to-wall for blocks, whole families engaged in the humble and diligent enjoyment of peace of mind and spiritual fulfillment. The kuliah is nowhere to be found in the south.
One seeks in vain a leader with sufficient charisma to draw such a large and admiring crowd. The contrast is telling. In the North is spiritual richness in poverty; in the South there is material wealth amid spiritual poverty.
The buyer of the mansion in England, when first announced, was conjectured to be a Middle East Sheikh, based on a history of English country house sales, funded by that other abused natural resource, oil. But no, it is a Malaysian Prince, another hereditary scion taking personal benefit from the natural resource of his region.
This time the timber takes the tumble. The trees fall in a crashing cacophony, the true tropical symphony of the new millennium.
Poor shooed
The previous Chief Minister of Pahang has had a hand in the handsome harvest. Though now a Federal minister in Kuala Lumpur, he is called to account by an abused member of parliament, who threatens to offer up his seat for a by-election if the matter is not resolutely addressed.
But there is silence in the Federal capital, Kuala Lumpur, and in the state capital, Kuantan. All the noise today is from the tropical rainforest, as the towering trees topple, one by one, to build the mansions of the ministers, and the keepers of the faith.
The Gurkhas shoo away the curious poor. The polo ponies pound the puddles of privileged and protected ground, carrying supercilious men leading powerful superficial lives in chase of a little white ball; the coloniser and his puppet prince, cozy to the last.
A Malaysian minister announces 46 new dams to be built, at least two in Pahang. For these projects the trees will fall first, to bare the delicate breast of soil to the tropical downpour. The rivers of Malaysia have long been muddy and brown, and will remain so.
The Malaysian ministers call it development. It is necessary to keep the polo turf in jolly old England green and bright, carefully curried by the keepers of the faith.
HARUN RASHID is a scientist avidly interested in the application of Islamic principles in international affairs. The promotion of goodwill through civilisational dialogue motivates his writing. His Worldview column is a personal analysis of Malaysian affairs from a global perspective.
