RIFLE RANGE BOY

Man On The Run ( Documentary, Netflix;  2023) Director:   Cassius Michael Kim We all know the drill. We have heard it all before. The Government started a novel project selling government bonds to buy oil fields in Central Asia. With the returns, the Government, via its subsidiary, 1MDB, would pour money into the country, which would help improve the living conditions of its citizens. The trouble was that the same who applied for the money from the Government approved the loan, executed the loan, received the loan and received the returns were all the same person. Najib Razak is the 1MDB Chairman, Minister of Finance and the honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia. And there were no oilfields that were bought. Still, the whole exercise saw many people making loads of money, enjoying obscenely decadent parties, and the Malaysian taxpayers paying exorbitant amounts of money as interest to international players. Even though the local journalists kept crying foul and were brave to p...

Nile Hilton Incident (Arabic/Egyptian; 2017) Written/Directed: Tarik Saleh Every time a new law comes into force, guess who the happy people are. No, not the law-abiding citizens or the patriots who want to see rule and order respected in this country. It is the lowly local enforcers - the front-liners who are there to ensure that the law is respected. There are the first to detect any wrongdoing at the ground level and could squash a ticket, at a nominal fee, of course.  Everyone is happy. The poorly paid constables and local council employees get on by tying up loose ends - maybe a child's birthday present or that emergency trip to the hometown.  The problem is that this kind of 'closing an eye' or 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' attitude has infiltrated all strata of the civil service. What we see now are the accusations of so-and-so of the higher pecking order being charged for siphoning off funds and dishonestly performing their civil duties. Invariably...

The Night Manager (S1E1-6, TV series; 2016) Adapted from a novel by John le Carré The more we read history, the more we realise that things remain the same. If, during the era of imperialism, colonial powers took all it took to pin down their subjects into economic hopelessness and total dependence on their masters. Slowly the natives wised up and reclaimed the place in the sun. Just when they thought the world had turned into a level-playing field, the reality finally hit them right smack on their faces. The rapaciousness of the West to subjugate their former colonies continues. If during British Raj, the British used Indians as proxies to fight with each other. Unknowing to both of them, the skirmishes weakened both parties, making them vulnerable to foreign powers to exert their influence. These powers just walk in, shake their heads in the devastation and trap the savaged into various debt traps. The next step is to dictate terms of how to rule and handle the economy. Look around. ...

FIFA Uncovered (2022) Miniseries (Netflix; 4 episodes) Direction: Daniel Gordon. It is the same story all the time. Something starts small with noble intentions but ends up filled with filth so much that it hits the ceiling so high that its stench fills up to high heaven. We are aware of the Indian Congress Party, which the British Raj established to give the natives a false sense of control of their administration, who steered the nation towards self-rule and have, over the decades, become a self-destructive political party. In the 21st century, its place in society is suspect.  In the same vein, UMNO (United Malay National Organisation), which had a pivotal role in claiming independence from the British, is now a power-hungry, corruption-ridden tyrant out to mill the country.  Of course, naysayers would insist that these parties were connivingly handed the rein of the country purposefully. The British still wanted to hold the purse strings of their former colonies and exert ...

I used to be fascinated with the term 'money laundering'. At face value, it looked simple enough - to cleanse money obtained via unsavoury means and to put them in circulation whilst giving them a legitimate source of origin. Was it a coincidence that Al Capone used a laundromat to store and 'cleanse' his ill-gotten gains during Prohibition?   As the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup is in progress, another word frequently mentioned is 'sports washing'. Traditionally sports have been utilised to cement friendships between nations. It has also been used to spur nationalism among its own citizens. For years despotic regimes whitewash their sins with the glamour of sports. During the 1936 Olympics, Hitler tried to paint a new image of a rejuvenated Germany after the humiliating defeat in the trench War and to prove his supremacist Aryan race theory. Sadly, Jesse Owen's achievement simply threw dirt on Hitler's face. Then it was the Argentinan junta who tried to whi...