Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely

Malaysia’s political, social and economic landscape well fits the tale of the rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief analogy. Here is the rakyat’s discourse – simple minded but relevant for further serious thinking.

Why is BN – more so UMNO, so adamant, determined and dead beat on retaining governance even to the extent where one of its coalition member party had openly taken an oath to kill and maim if need be to retain PutraJaya?

It is because of the’ rich man’ syndrome - rich in terms of enjoying the spoils of the nation’s wealth and the addiction to power. The well worn cliché fits perfectly well here, namely, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Having tasted power and control and the easy wealth that comes as a package, as is well known in all third-world politics, UMNO in particular is not going to give up these five decades of partying in the skies so easily.

Can you imagine someone who lived in palatial-like comfort and adorned all those expensive jewelry and frolicked, shopped, and dined across the globe’s finest destinations and had slave-like servants and subordinates at the snap of a finger would ever want to move over to a modest home and end up holidaying in Port Dickson?

Oh no, what an acrimonious thought. Not even in the rich man’s nightmare can that be allowed.

Certainly the generations old family cartels that are synonymous with Malaysian political history will not want to lose all these social and economic privileges that come with their entrenched political right-of-way.

The ‘thief man’ would be all those who are politically and socially connected to the Who’s Who within the power corridors. They have amassed incomprehensible wealth and pride themselves within the hallways of the Rich and Famous (should be infamous actually). Their wealth comes from concessions, APs, IPPs, monopolies and questionable Tender qualifications, to name a few.

The ISA and the OSA will be fortified even further to ensure that the thieves have things their way. The rich man grouping will be happy to protect the thief-man’s interests as long as the rich-man entourage stands to remain rock solid.

Likewise, another grouping of thief man are all those who have pawned their souls to the devil. They will do anything and everything just to profiteer along the way. The range of sins is wide from manipulating the weighing scale under their tattered pasar malam stall to importing and reselling big time in dubious manners or engaging in slave and flesh trading. To these thieves, their mantra is: who cares mate, if they can do it why can’t we.

Meanwhile the poor man is the band wagon of opposition political parties and NGOs associated with fighting for social, political, economic and environmental rights and justice. They get the consent of the voters to rule some states but suffer from strangulation as the Federal Government remains within the clenches of the rich-man. They get the mandate and support of their members to march in protest or rally to show displeasure at a gross injustice despite being hauled up, locked up, beaten, or even ending up dead.

It would take the poor man group tremendous energy, innovative resolve and god-fearing fidelity to keep going the distance. And because they remain poor without the financial pipeline on the nation’s wealth, the rich-man will go marching with the credo that the poor man cannot perform.

And in the process the poor man misses his real target and ends up back-firing his own commrade. And the other compounding factor is that there is also the defecting within the poor man's team - all because its the poor man.

Poor man! Not his fault. Not his own doing. But because he is the poor man.

And who then is the beggar? We, the rakyat.

Unable to give the poor man the magic wand of power to govern; crippled into propping the rich man all the way; and being a slave to the thief, the rakyat are lost in a sea of hopelessness.

Each time a State election or a By-election makes its round the beggar raises his or her hope. But that hope gets mauled either by the rich man’s antics, the thief’s ringgit power or the beggar’s lack of will to shift and the poor man’s lack of financial resources to combat.

And now the beggar has the GE-13 to pine for. Will the much touted GE-13 make a difference to the beggar man? Or will the beggar man make the GE-13 any different?

Therein then lies the challenge for the rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief. So stop blaming others. Stop blaming God. It is we – the rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief, who are to blame for the mess this nation is in.

By J. D. Lovrenciear