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| Republished from New Straits Times, Dec 4, 2021, with the author’s permission. Read the original here. |
MY late mother, from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, in southern China, Low Ah Hup, had this advice for me to survive the rat race, bracing for life’s challenges or tip-toeing on social etiquette: choot moon thai theen sek, yap moon thai min sek.
It simply meant when going out the front door of a house, look at the colour of the sky; when entering a house, assess the colour of the host’s face.
How right she was! If we see dark skies, then we ought to be prepared and bring an umbrella in case a thunderstorm starts.
The second part of her tip was even more telling: if we enter a house for a tete-a-tete with someone, it’s time to vamoose to avoid overstaying the welcome, lest we see scowls or dark faces.
The most “celebrated” case we’ve seen so far was the riot on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Jan 6.
That was when a mob of unruly supporters of former president Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol building to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election by disrupting a joint session of Congress to count electoral votes that would formalise President Joe Biden’s victory.
Amid the shocking scenes, the Capitol was locked down and lawmakers and staff evacuated, while rioters assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalised property and occupied the building for several hours.
What was bizarre was that Trump resisted sending the National Guard to quell the mob and again asserted that the election was “fraudulent”.
But, common sense later prevailed when the Capitol was cleared to allow for the counting of electoral votes, which was completed in the early hours of Jan 7.
Much has also been happening in Malaysia since May 2018 and even right up to about a month ago in Melaka, when politicians schemed to regain or stay in power, depending on how one looks at the convoluting scenarios.
After all, American diplomat, Walter Annenberg, did say that “the greatest power is not money power, but political power”.
Over the last 50 years or so, we’ve seen what political power can do for the political elites in the name of grandiose-sounding policies.
This is especially so when political power easily translates into money power.
And this fact has not been lost among non-politicians as well. Many dishonest leaders of non-governmental organisations, charity foundations, trade unions, cultural federations, clan associations and vocational trades guilds, especially those with plenty of lolly in the kitty through subscriptions, endowments and fundraisers, have been known to follow the rule book of double-dealing politicians.
An ongoing case in point revolves round a state clansmen association for the Hainanese community, a Chinese dialect group noted for its civility and politeness (besides their chicken chop and chicken rice).
But, temperatures among some of them have been rising when key office bearers allegedly sought another another three-year term by amending the association constitution.
These people, who’ve led the association for two terms, claimed they wanted to complete the association’s “unfinished business” as they were stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But, their detractors begged to differ, as they claimed that one shouldn’t measure one’s life by its duration but by contributions to society.
One of them said: “Individuals, no matter how powerful or popular, cannot be indispensable. When the time comes for them to take a back seat or retire, they should do so with dignity by welcoming the next generation of leaders who can then emerge with fresh ideas and even bring about new changes to augment the good work undertaken by the elders before them.”
The association’s annual general meeting is, surprisingly, scheduled over Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Let’s hope good sense will prevail among members without sparks flying or punches being thrown.
- Datuk Yong Soo Heong is a former chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of Bernama. Read more about him here.
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