Manifestation Of Our Collective Desperation

A Kadir Jasin

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FIFTY seven years after independence, we are in a state of collective desperation although many may not realise or feel it.

Those in power are desperate to portray that everything is fine. Those who are powerless are desperate because things are not like what they are being told.

They are desperate that despite repeated promises and better-than-expected key performance index (KPI), crime rates are still high and other aspects of daily existence seem to be getting harder.

So they do what they can. The rich barricaded themselves behind high walls, wired their palatial homes with motion censor alarm systems and CCTV cameras. They hire Nepalese guards and guard dogs.

Nepalese guards are our new protectors

The not-so-rich dig into their pockets to erect barred wire fences and check points and hire guards to protect their un-gated properties.

If we are not residents, we are viewed with suspicion when we enter these makeshift gated areas. We are issued with passes, our identity cards or driving licenses are inspected and our cars are videotaped.

Of course you will not experience such indignities if you are the Prime Minister, the DPM and other privileged VIPs with outriders and fierce-looking bodyguards.

Those who can’t afford guards, barricade their houses with metal grills and reinforced doors and windows. Even my mother’s kampung house feels like fortress. Metal grills all around, locked doors and windows. Gone were the days when doors were hardly ever locked and windows were always open to let in the air.

Can’t blame them when common items like fertilisers, padi seeds and old bicycles are regularly stolen. Drug addicts, small time village hoods and besi buruk traders are the new scourge.

It’s ironic. Mosques and suraus are filled to the brim for Friday prayers. Literally everybody wears the lebai skullcap. Adherents of every religion and faith appear to display a greater degree of piety than ever before.

So it does not come as a great surprise to me when the Penang state government set up the Penang Voluntary Patrol Unit and, understandably too, it incurred the wrath of the federal instruments, including the police.

There is no need for me to discuss the pros and cons of the voluntary unit or the war of attrition that is being played out now. Suffice to say that it is yet another manifestation of our collective desperation and the failure of the establishment to live up to its promises.

What I like to say is the Penang’s voluntary patrol unit is neither new nor unique. It had been preceded by a similar vigilante force, albeit more restricted in nature, established by the Selangor government under Muhammad Muhammad Taib.

Much to the chagrin of the federal government and the police he set up something akin to an Islamic moral police force called Badar, purportedly to combat “maksiat” (sins).

Its disbanding soon after was made easy when several of its members were caught red-handed extorting money from foreign workers.

The vigilantes, the barricades, the Nepalese guards, the brisk sales of security equipments are the manifestation of the rakyat’s despondence with the existing law and order mechanism and the ineffectiveness of such community based initiatives as the Rukun Tetangga and friends of the police aka Rakan Cop.

Nepalese Gurkhas during Malayan Emergency

The situation today reminds me of the Emergency days (1948-60) when villages were barricaded and the Nepalese Gurkhas (soldiers) were a common sight.

Alas, because we never learn, history repeats itself. Today we have to employ children and grandchildren of the Gurkhas to protect us once again. 

Wallahuaklam.