The Malaysian Dilemma

" I got out on the 26th of September 2005 afternoon on bail. I was driving past the Kuala Lumpur Twin Towers on at night and I thought to myself, it does not mean anything anymore. I used to be proud to be Malaysian, the twin towers used to be a source of pride. But now, all my nationalistic pride is gone, I had just been treated like a criminal by my very own country. A country which I loved… Used to love. I used to think that this country was beautiful. But now all I see is a country so currupted [sic] and so dirty. No amount of washing will clean away this feeling. "

-- abettermalaysia

abettermalaysia, a malaysian blogger was recently arrested in a drug bust in nightclub in KL after preliminary test identifited him as a suspected drug user. ABM was put into lockup for almost 2 days and was only released when more comprehensive blood tests proved that he was drug-free . Through his blog, ABM documents his harrowing experience in lock-up and exposes the overt police corruption he and his fellow detainees saw while in custody.

beyond the alleged atrocities of the entire incident, the most telling aspect of the blog was how ABM -who claims to be very proud malaysian before the entire incident- relates his feelings in the aftermath of his arrests, and more pertinently his disillusionment at the state of corruption in the police. and judging from the comments on his blog, it is a point of view that found solidarity amongst other malaysian blogders.

i remember having a chat with a couple of my malaysian frens here in uni and all of them remarked that they had experienced demands for petty bribes at one point or another, either from the traffic police or from their driving test invigilators. they even went as far to say that it had become a 'neccessary cost' to incur just to dispense with the various inconveniences associated with not-resorting to bribing. According to Jerm n Chris, not bribing the tester is virtually means that you're doomed to failing your driving test. It's rather lamentable to know that such a vice has actually become something that is to be tolerated rather than curbed.

It is not my intention to disparage malaysia or nor to condescend the malaysian bureaucracy by comparing it to that of singapore's, for the simple reason i do not have any first hand experiences with bribery in malaysia so it would be uninformed and unfair of me to draw such a conclusion. (In fact bribery might actually be still pretty prevalent in singapore too albeit in less conspicuous form, considering how certain popular primary schools insidiously request donations to the school building fund from desperate parents who seek to enroll their kids into such primary schools.) Rather it is my belief that an exposé should deserve a wider audience and that those who are unfortunate enough to face the brunt of the scourge of such sytemic injustices shouldn never be afraid to speak out for fear of any backlash.

"I have also gotten a letter from a fellow detainee who's girlfriend was one of the 8-9 girls. She was proven innocent too, but I was denied the permission to post the letter. I will try to meet up with her and guess we'll take thing from there. From the letter, it could be seen that some of the girls were guilty and that they were jailed and that they were caught for drugs abuse before.

The letter was not written by the girl itself but by a friend of hers because she was too traumatised to write. Not many of us are as strong and as bold as some of the people that were listed on the comments of this blog. I'm not, Jack's a little stronger, and most of the rest just really want to get back to their lives and I don't blame them. Because so do I."



I did try to recommend this blog to tomorrow.sg about 3 days ago (since it has a tag on malaysia and has a fairly large malaysian readership), but it appears that the editors over at tomorrow.sg seem to have a greater penchant for more innocuous articles like knowing 'what malaysians think about shopping centres in singapore' or 'reasons why MRT rides are not boring'. Well i guess I can't fault that for that. After all, the recommendation disclaimer on tomorrow.sg did say that it seeks '...Internet content about Singapore or by Singaporeans' and being singaporeans, it would be inappropriate to post anything remotely critical about our northern brethrens ala Zoolander. Censorship is perhaps one of our defining traits as Singaporeans haha.

Sadly, abettermalaysia's blog isn't gonna be up for long. as ABM mentioned in his latest entry:

" But for reasons I do not believe many would understand, I may be shutting down this blog on Wednesday. Though I would like to see justice and to continue telling my story, my family cannot suffer because of me. I won't let that happen. "

Self-censorship motivated by the fear of persecution prosecution .... perhaps our malaysian brethren really aren't so different from us after all.

It should be noted that it was never the intention for abettermalaysia to demand or exact any form of retribution on the corrupted individuals. all he sought was to tell his story, and ultimately seek closure after the whole shebang.

" So I will be making a lot of noise. And hopefully the news would travel to somebody with the power to change things and justice can prevail. How many were there before me and how many will there be after me I will never know.

But a better Malaysia begins with me. And with my friends and fellow blogger’s help, hopefully this country would just be that little bit better. Do forward this link to everybody you know, as everybody deserves to know. "

Let us give him the recognition he deserves before the demise of his blog....