The post-apocalyptic pillbox?

 

T junction - Semenyih, Hulu Langat Batu 18, Genting Peres.

This junction had seen better days. Weekends and holidays used to be marked with a hive of activities, loud banters and laughs. Streams of cyclists enjoyed the mild temperatures, the greenery and the challenge of steep hills leading to Genting Peres. This is the once busy T-junction of Batu 18 Hulu Langat leading to Peres and beyond. Now it stands a sorry sight of the testimony of all the putrifying underhand dealings that had been happening right under our noses.

Used to be a family heirloom, now a staircase
to nowhere.

To me, this reminds me of my own imaginary vision of how the world would be after the apocalyptical World War 3 - a pillbox amidst the man-made ruin, standing proud as the last man standing, a symbol of victory after a zero-sum game.

To the outside world, it was a front for prosperity. Unbeknownst, behind the row of lush greenery that paved the web of highways lay hidden hectares over hectares of government-sanctioned logging to line the pockets of political ballcarriers. As if a signed document can cement the ecosystem that Nature took generations to reach a steady state. 

As a near sexagenarian, looking back at the repeated faux pas that put our nation in the international media for all the wrong reasons, I realise my generation and the generation before me have blood in their hands.

Nowhere in the world would Forces of Nature
systematically slice timber! Yet the authorities
denied issuing any logging licences. Of course,
the issuances were legitimised at whim.

First, they told us the majority of the country held only 5% of its wealth. Let us all prosper together, they said. What was kept away from us was an accurate breakdown of the distribution of wealth. Somehow, statistics from Government-linked companies did not make it to the public pool. Then they said affirmative action would only last 20 years. But then, a cat fed milk daily would shy away from catching mice! Then race supremacy, and religious hegemony ensued. Rubber barons ruled the roost under the cloak of official secret and siege mentality. A halo of grandiosity was painted on its citizens. Like an Emperor with his new clothes, only we were proud of our perceived achievements even when meritocracy took a backseat and the floodgates to brain-drain laid bare open.

The leaders who we thought would take care of various interests either slept on the job or were bought over. Yet they keep painting a rosy picture despite the parched desert terrain that we see. We sensed a feeling of unease when two strange bedfellows, politicians and businessmen, were screaming 'win-win'. Little did we know that 'win-win' never referred to the nation and its citizens but upon themselves!

Meanwhile, as the economic pie got smaller, accentuated by a worldwide pandemic by years of sweeping under the carpet, the stench from years of decay is finally seeped out. It took a global jolt to expose the shortcomings. Do we need another cataclysmic catastrophe to change this crony capitalism, nepotism and unashamed corruption?

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