Pollution, politicians and polemics

The haze that’s shrouding Malaysia is no joke. But it’s not just the pollutants in the air. There so many other things that are just so hazy now

IT’S been really hazy, hasn’t it? It’s so hard to see what’s up ahead.

In what is the worst period of haze in a decade, we have already had an emergency declared, hundreds of schools closed, dozens of asthma cases in hospitals, and multiple cloud-seeding efforts to try and salvage the situation.

Even Wednesday’s Malaysia Day celebrations were muted and taken indoors. The sky in Kuching did clear up on the day, only to get hazy again a couple of days later.

Life is tough for the people affected. But Malaysians are taking it in their stride, even with a sense of humour.

There is a joke going around about a man who is caught by his wife hugging another woman. When confronted, the quick-thinking man tells his wife: “I thought it was you. I couldn’t tell because of the haze.”

It’s sexist, but at least it was a little funny and had me smiling. Some jokes, however, give us little reason to smile.

At the recent Umno general assembly, there was this guy who thought he was being funny when he made a joke about a Catholic priest and a nun. He even came up with a distortion of a psalm.

Unsurprisingly, no one found it funny. His party president, too, laughed about the body sizes of two leaders, one a woman and the other a man.

Again, not funny.

The president’s daughter had to apologise for him. And the one who made the joke about Catholics? He apologised too, but many are not convinced about his remorse.

Politicians often consider themselves jokers. But the truth is, they usually end up being jesters.

We all know US President Donald Trump is one such person. He often says the darndest things.

He even had the Japanese Prime Minister dumbstruck with his reply when asked why the US did not inform its allies about its military strikes against Iran.

“We didn’t tell anybody because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour?” he asked the stunned Prime Minister.

More recently, he joked about why he would not deport British royal Prince Harry at a time when mass deportations were ongoing in the US.

“I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife – she’s terrible,” he quipped.

No wonder then that Harry, his missus Megan Markle and their children are back in the United Kingdom now.

If Trump was joking about the royals, our politicians are not. And they are not leaving them alone. There is a right royal mess unfolding in Negri Sembilan.

On Malaysia Day, an unsigned letter purportedly from the state executive council made its rounds, saying the exco has recognised a proclamation dethroning the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of the state.

The Mentri Besar has now endorsed the letter. It looks like another royal personage, who was “elevated” to the throne in April, would be recognised as the Ruler.

There are several questions that arise. Does the exco have the right to remove – or recognise the supposed removal – of a sitting Ruler?

Considering that the exco members themselves were sworn in before the very same Ruler in August, and well after April, are their positions legitimate? Was the dissolution of the state assembly even legal?

Is it a properly constituted state government if the Ruler before whom it was sworn in is not recognised? These are all questions that have left many wondering.

It’s a Catch-22, with experts and even the Attorney General saying the exco has no locus standi to do what they did, while politicians push ahead anyway.

And there is no telling what lies ahead.

It’s sad. The state just held its elections a month ago, and what it needs now is good leadership and a clear vision, not this hazy state of affairs.

We already have enough problems as it is.

There is the rampant entry of illegal immigrants, drugs being smuggled out, even by pilots who then got caught in other countries, sex scandals, all sorts of scams, a flagging education system exposed by Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores. The list goes on.

We are also seeing another rash of investigations and prosecutions involving millions lost from government coffers. It’s just the latest of so many.

Some estimate the total amount of money stolen from Malaysian coffers is about RM4.5 trillion.

You read that right: RM4.5 trillion! That’s three times our total external debt of RM1.5 trillion.

If true, the stolen money could pay off all that debt – and still leave us sitting on a big pile of money.

Yet there are people who still laugh off this blatant thievery.

A video going around shows a few women from the same Umno assembly, all claiming that the recent Tabung Haji prosecutions are just acts of political revenge and do not mean anything.

No outrage, no shock, not even curiosity about the lost billions. Just a shrug of the shoulders.

That has to be the real joke in the country – that people cannot see the corruption, the wrongdoing, and the greed even when it is in front of their eyes on a clear day.