Higher the call, so is the fall!

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 publish the shenanigans, the powers that be managed to keep a tight lid. People in enforcement and investigation positions were hushed. A young prosecutor was even buried alive in a concrete can. Things only started moving when the US Department of Justice charged Goldman Sachs with foreign bribery.

With a provocative title like 'Man on the Run', I would like to find new scoops on Malaysia's most infamous fugitive, Jho Low. Nothing. He was nowhere to be found, without an interview or anything new about his whereabouts. With extensive narration from The Edge owner Ho Kay Tat, ex-MP Tony Pua, former AG Tommy Thomas, Clare Rewcastle of Sarawak Report and whistleblower Xavier Andre Justo, nothing new actually surfaced. Perhaps the most ridiculous interview was given by the big kahuna himself, Najib.

In an interview three months before his guilty verdict, he is comically seen lamenting the fact that he had been victimised. In a system where he is supposed to be protected, the system lets him down. He griped that the officials appointed to protect people like him did not do their job well. They, instead, should be the accused, not him. I thought Najib was losing the plot. He is not a monarch who inherits the post by birth. For heaven's sake, he is a leader of a democratically-elected government selected by the people to serve the people. The power that was wielded to him comes with specific responsibilities. A politician only lasts until the next election. Can he be so naive? Does he don the Emperor's clothes? Is he surrounded by sycophants who boated his ego so much that he thinks he need not be accountable? The whole 'speech' reeks of entitlement. Accountability and responsibility do not fall into the equation. It is mind-boggling to see so many who still think he is innocent and is a victim of political sleight of hand.

The whole imbroglio paints a very bleak picture of the Malaysian democratic process. It is as though we are a banana republic where law and order are only for show. The high-heeled can scoot off with millions right under everybody's noses. There is a glaring lack of checks and balances in the system. Too much legislative powers are given to the ruling party. The executive powers are too timid to carry out and enforce laws. The national coffers are made to be like the leaders' kitty. The judiciary arm and even the fourth estate are toothless.

The presentation needs to be more comprehensive in its coverage. Many of the key players and beneficiaries of 1MDB refused to be interviewed. That would include the self-proclaimed First Lady of Malaysia, Rosmah Mansur, representatives from Goldman Sachs, and the makers and cast of the movie 'Wolf of Wall Street', who were paid from proceeds of 1MDB.

Is this the watershed moment of Malaysian politics? Will its citizens awake from their slumber to ensure such blatant abuse of trust does not repeat? From the recent turn of events after the last elections, I seriously doubt it. Too many schisms and fractures have developed in the country, once earmarked as another Asian tiger. Look at it now. It is just a paper tiger lantern that could be engulfed by the fire ignited within its confines.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In God's hands?

Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife (2023)
Documentary

Perhaps the media is the one that needs to take the blame. It may be people's fascination with the high life and their gullibility. Or the society's rules on the confidentiality of information or the restriction. Some have perfected the art of staying in the limelight to awe others with their stories so tall that they cannot be refuted. These do not make sense, but watching Dr Paolo Macchiarini's shenanigans, they would. 

Dr Macchiarini is an Italian maverick surgeon employed at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, between 2010 and 2013. With a long, impressive CV, including a stint as a visiting Professor at University College London and multiple revolutionary discoveries in regenerative medicine in Russia, he hit the headlines performing groundbreaking trachea replacement surgery using a plastic mould and stem cell technology. 

At the height of his success, he meets journalist Benita Alexander. She is swept off her feet, love blossoms and wedding bells will soon be rung. Everything is going well except for his frequent absence. After all, he is a globetrotting star surgeon flying from country to country, performing avant-garde top-notch operations. On top of that, world leaders like the Clintons, Obama and the Pope have Macchiarini on their speed dial. He is their personal physician.

The wedding is planned to happen at the Vatican itself, officiated by, of all people, the Pope himself. Yes, the Pope also does weddings.

One by one, news of botched surgeries comes to the open. His credentials turned out to be fraud. His colleagues at Karolinka start an investigation. An investigative journalist is roped in. Somehow, because the World Wide Web is in its infancy, the information from one part of the world either does not reach or is falsified when it hits the outside world until ... 

Benito Alexander, the journalist scheduled to marry Macchiarini, catches him having a wife and children. She exposes him in an article in Vanity Fair. Thus came the surgeon's downfall. One by one, Sweden charges him in court. He is presently serving jail in Sweden. Macchirianno used Benito's position as a journalist to springboard his own publicity. 

It is funny that at the dawn of the birth of information technology, we were promised knowledge accessible to all. People would be more empowered to make informed decisions after accessing all sides of the multifaceted monster called truth. Surprise, surprise. Humans can still hoodwink the system and abuse the system to fulfil nefarious personal interests. 

Information platforms further help these people to peddle fake news and whitewash things. Bragging and broadcasting tall stories have become much easier. 

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It is charisma, baby!

Dropout (Miniseries; 2022)

Netflix

Look at the following examples.

When the people of the 13 colonies were desperate to be cut off from their colonial masters, they wanted a leader. They saw that in George Washington, a 6 ft 4 in the son of a wealthy Virginian planter who rode on the expensive horse on the land. His marriage to the fairest and richest widow in the land also aided this. (By the way, the State of Virginia was named after the English Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I). Even though Washington was quite a disappointment as a soldier. He failed to get to be an officer with a King’s commission in the regular British Army. In the Independence War, Washington bungled up too. He was party to war crimes, killing his own men. He was implicated in land scams. Even as the first President, he blundered. His own Federalists Party came to nought because of its own doing. The only thing that kept him going was his charisma.

Then there is Napolean Bonaparte. At a time after the French Revolution, as the French were trying the real meaning of democracy before they found liberty, equality and fraternity, they discovered Bonaparte. With his sidekick, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, he gained the reputation of being a great diplomate and a master tactician. But we also know of many colossal failures. The protracted Penisular War in Spain and his ill-thought attack on Russian soil at the heights of winter are two glaring examples. The English language got a new word from his disastrous defeat at Waterloo. His post-exile fight for power from the island of Elba was also ill-thought. If he envisioned a legacy of succession, that too proved futile. So what secured this man a place in history? I guess it was his ability to recoup, rejuvenate and re-brand to stay relevant.

In the same, a certain carpenter from Galilee was an icon to resist the iron-fisted rule of Rome through their governor. The revolutionary had only charisma to offer to his followers. So did eccentric holy men like Jim Jones of People's Temple and David Koresh of Waco, who managed to charm their followers to give up the agencies.

The common trait of all these leaders who had their followers lose their minds to the twidle of their leader's fingers is charisma. Having charisma is not quite the same as being charming. From an etymological sense, charm comes from the French charme, from the earlier Latin meaning song or enchantment, praise of God. Charisma arises from the Greek kharisma meaning divine gift.

A charm is a form of attraction. It's an allure, a delight, a grace. Charisma is a form of influence. It's a magnetism, an ability to draw and hold someone's attention. 

This miniseries is based on the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford University dropout, and the youngest female entrepreneur and CEO in the USA. She tried to push her health technology company, Theranos, which she claimed would revolutionise the health industry. She claimed her machine could detect a myriad of illnesses from a single drop of blood. Holmes managed to draw big investors into her company and even conned the FDA to get her devices approved. Big names had no qualms associated with her despite all the dodgy dealings going on below the surface.

It is mind-boggling to imagine how such big shenanigans could go on under the watchful eyes of a first world's supposedly efficient enforcement machinery!

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Blurred line between fact and fiction!

Inventing Anna (Miniseries, 2021)

Netflix

Believe it or not, this miniseries is based on actual events. Between 2013 and 2017, a young German heiress of Russian descent by the name of Anna Delvey was seen in the social circles of New York. She was moving around the company of who's who in the art scene and the rich and famous. Everybody was excited about her ambitious plan to create an ultra-exclusive club where the exceptionally wealthy clientele could partake. Soon every banker, lawyer, designer and leeches was dying to be in her company. The only perennial problem is that his apparently flamboyant young lady has problems mobilising her money from Germany. Her strict father is insistent that Anna earns her every single penny herself. 

People soon realise that Anna was spending way too much than she actually managed to show. Not wanting to be embarrassed, her many famous socialites and supporters of Anna's plan to build a foundation instead stay anonymous and would not like to be associated with her. This was discovered by a problematic journalist who decided to investigate Anna. She has to finish her investigations in record time as she is due to deliver her baby anytime now.

The story of Anna Delvey @ Anna Sorokin peels open the problems with modern living. Money begets money, and affluence pulls influence. Creating a persona is so important these days, and the ultimate tool to create a fake narrative is social media. It paints an illusion of prosperity and contentment when it is just a smokescreen for the ugly backdrop that lurks in the background. It is the gratifying playground of narcissists. The story is so hyperreal that it alters reality which is not so rosy.

Outstanding achievements are achieved from dreaming, but building sandcastles in the air does not hold water. One lie to cover another only gets one entangled in a web of deceit that will only reveal itself on its own finally.

Are parents really responsible for the mess that their offspring create? Can they be blamed if their children create mayhem in society? Do children come from parents or merely go through their parents? At a time when parenting is outsourced so much to nannies, schools and cyberspace, who knows who creates their personality and values? Nobody listens to their parents anymore. The children have a legitimate excuse for all their follies and failures - overbearing parenting!

It should be pretty apparent that it is a priority to save big conglomerates whenever there is an economic downturn. The justification for this is that the collapse of a large corporation has a spill down effect on the small people and the country's economy at large. The push is there to ensure their continuity at the expense of the rest of the country. The same things happen in the legal system. The average man-in-the-street will never be able to afford to appoint the shrewd legal eagles to seek justice arising from the inhumane and unscrupulous criminal antics of business concerns. The current turns of events in many high-profile cases are indeed proof that there is an invisible hand from above (definitely NOT the Hand of God!) that is controlling the narrative. By no means, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one can confidently assume that there are two sets of rules of law (not justice); one for the corporations and another for the little men (and women).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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So much for 'rule of law'!

420 IPC (Hindi; 2021)

Director: Manish Gupta

So that is how it is. Everybody claims to be adhering to the rule of law. For a simpleton like me, that sounds like sound advice. The law is there to protect the little people against the tyranny of the deep-pocketed. I was nurtured to believe that the Truth will always prevail in the end. Lady Justice is supposedly blind to coercion, they say. As I grew older, I realised that all these are just bunkum. 

The people who frequently invoke the phrases 'rule of law' and 'by the book' do not mean what they say. What they actually mean is that they have masterminded the nooks, corners and loopholes in the legal system that they can literally get away with murder. They can legitimately proclaim that they can legally needle themselves away from being caught in a comprising position. They have got all their sides, frontal and posterior, all concealed.

When and if ever they are queried, they have the fortitude to use the same law used to persecute them to shield themselves instead. No matter how hard truth tries to prevail, nothing can challenge the best brain that wealth can purchase. The way law can be interpreted as much as the defender can afford to pay. Top dollars can buy top lawyers. 

Law is written, and its execution is as good as the words and nuances it is written. Words can be manipulated. The first teachers of this art were the sophists. Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato did not have any nice things to say about them. They were viewed as prostituting themselves by selling the art of speaking and providing wisdom to convince the impossible. They must be the first to have sold ice to the Eskimos.  

This is an engaging film about a seemingly small-scaled chartered accountant, Bansi Keswani, who is initially arrested when his client is caught for money laundering. He is discharged, but Bansi is re-arrested for stealing some cheques two months later. This time around, he has to face the whole brunt of the law. Why would an intelligent accountant do something so amateurish like stealing cheques and falsifying the issuer's signature in such a novice way? The defence digs deep into his sleeves and all roads plainly seem to lead Bansi to a lengthy jail term.

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Dead Man walking?

Kaagaz (Paper, Hindi, 2021)
Directed by Satish Kaushik

We all have the frustrating experience of dealing with the 'system'. How can we forget how simple technicalities cannot be just changed because red tape prevents them? Everybody in the system can 'see' the problem, but nobody can do anything about it.

With the widespread use of AI and chatbots in daily dealing, the situation is becoming more chaotic. We, the end-users, are made to deal with idiots. No amount of 'I want to talk to your manager' will move the system. 

Lal Bihari of Uttar Pradesh had first-hand experience dealing with this madness. He had to prove to the Indian bureaucracy that he is alive. It all happened when Lal Bihari, a farmer in real life, was declared deceased by his relatives who swindled his share of the family inheritance. He spent a good portion of his life between 1975 and 1994 going up and down courts to prove his existence.

Lal Bihari Mrithak (deceased)

In the movie version, Lal Bihari becomes Bharatlal Bihari, a bandmaster, was coaxed by his wife and friend to expand his music business. For that, Bihari approached a bank for a loan that needed collateral. He remembered an old inheritance, a small piece of village land that he could use for that purpose. Unfortunately, when he enquires about getting the deed, he finds out that his relatives had declared him dead and had usurped the land.

In a comical way, the film portrays how Bihari becomes a pauper with mounting legal fees. His existence is questioned, his marriage is in shambles. His wife is supposed to be a widow, but how can she be dressed as a widow when her husband is beside her. Bihari tries to kidnap a kid to be arrested. He thought that by being arrested, the legal system would charge him. If he is charged, then he exists! That also does not work. Finally, he started an Association of Dead People, participated by hundreds of people around India who were in the same boat. 

Bihari finally proved his existence in 1994. He even tried to stand, unsuccessfully, against Rajeev Gandhi in 1985 to prove that he is alive. The height of his 'career' is when he was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in 2003. The Ig Nobel Prize is a parody of its namesake for unusual achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". His association has about 20,000 members now.

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All you need is a pretty face and the media.

Just to drive home the point of how media sells ideas and influences our way of thinking, look at Elizabeth Holmes's case. At 19, she dropped out of Stanford in 2003 with a one-tracked mind to prove to the world that her painless blood-testing device was going to revolutionise laboratory blood testing. Equipped with only computer knowledge without a medical background, she proceeded with her plan despite the detractors' scepticism. From the get-go, she was faced with opposition from the senior partners and staff employed in her company, Theranos.

Through the benefit of her charm and goodwill, Holmes' company managed to secure close to $6 million in funds through crowdsourcing. The trouble was that the machine that Holmes was selling was not working. It gave wrong results most of the time, and the company ended up using other devices to do the tests instead. Workers who complained of its unreliability were sacked and were required to sign non-disclosure agreements to safeguard company secrets.

The young lassie was actually committing fraud on a large scale. Her reputation, on the contrary, was flying sky high. Her work appeared on TV channels, and her pretty face adorned front covers of business magazines. The fact that senior politicians and Clinton Foundation endorsed her work just added its value. At one time, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. In 2015, the Theranos machine even got FDA approval.

It took a Wall Street Journal journalist and a disgruntled former laboratory director to bring the company's unsafe and unethical practice to the fore. Slowly the investors pulled out, then came the court trials, then the sentencing. Holmes was barred from positions of power in any public company for 10 years.

The media still made a killing. They ran hours of the court cases' footage, interviews with so-called 'experts' on relevant topics related to the Theranos scandal. It went on till the next news that raised the curiosity of the public surfaced.

All you need is a pretty face, a convincing story with a gift of the gap and media coverage, you can sell ice to Eskimos.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes 

Courtesy HBO

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.