Turn hunters to the hunted.

Nayattu (Malayalam, The Hunt; 2021)

That is how the world is today. One day you are doing all the dirty job, not because you like to do it but because you are part of the system. It is not within your capacity to change the status quo but just follow through as you have been doing all along. You know that the battle is unwinnable. You oblige as there are down lines who depend on you. Your leg is so deeply entrenched in the muck there is only one way to go, to get dirty. 

You perfected the system. You wanted it to work for you to serve your masters. It only strikes you to realise what a monster that you have created when the system is used against you when your masters are angered with your actions. 

Most Indian movies highlight police brutality and try to put the police personnel in poor light whilst the laypeople go around with their heart on their sleeves to prove their innocence. In Nayattu, the role is somewhat reversed. 

A sub-inspector and two of his subordinates are accused of drunk driving and killing a motorcyclist. The trouble is that the dead is a goon who works for the local politician, and the three of them were not driving. The driver, upon realising whom he had knocked, fled the scene. Because the local elections are days away and the victim is from the backward caste from which the local politician relies on votes, there is a dire need to apprehend the perpetrators before balloting day. The incumbent leader wants to show the public he has the gravitas to put things in order.

The accused have no chance to prove their innocence. Under the instruction of politicians who hold the strings of administration, their seniors deceptively decide to put an all-points bulletin on them. The accused are hot on their wheels, trying to disappear at least until the elections are over. 

Everybody agrees that for a democratic society to function optimally, there must be the separation of powers between the legislative (law-making body), executive (puts the law into operation) and Judiciary (interprets the law and settle disputes) arms of administration. This division of powers is essential to ensure checks and balances. No one man is yet to born is beyond reproach in carrying his duties without an error of omission or commission. Of late, we have seen how the Legislative part of the country tries to influence and control the other branches of power. And we know what devastation happened in the 1988 Malaysian Constitutional Crisis. We also can see how political leaders use and abuse the executive and judiciary arm of the country. The pandemic, the control over media and utilisation of cybertrooper facilitate them in their endeavours.  

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Thick as thieves?

The Post (2017)

The ongoing saga involving the former seemingly unassailable Prime Minister of Malaysia and its sovereign fund is a stark reminder that the world is ruled by an unholy union of politicians who conned the public, bankers who finance the whole fiasco, lawmakers who put a legal jargon to all these. Trailing them are a thick band of thieves, yeomen, hyenas and a slew of servants who would die or kill for their cause under the banner of nationalism. Depending on the setting, servants of God would get their hands dirty in the cookie jar to give a divine seal to all these shenanigans. 

In an environment of each wanting to fend for himself, in a world where 'The Truth' does not always prevail, and victors decide justice, the losers are the general public. Repeatedly the laypeople fall prey to the 'powers' of the day's sweet promises. In pursuit of happiness, they sacrifice my sweat, blood and tears.

They say we, the people, choose our leaders and the fate of our country. The politicians are at our mercy and not the other way around. But, increasingly, opposers to the status quo are cowed into submission by fear of harm and lost opportunities. The ongoing 1MDB trial opened the putrid cane of worms where civil servants are treated as lapdogs and rubber stamps for the ruling party. Amongst all these traitors emerge a lowly administrative officer, Nor Salwani Muhammad, who had the foresight to slip a recording device in her superior's pencil box to record certain vital proceedings.

I don't know him!

In a civil society, the last bastion of hope seems to be the media, the third force of resistance. Even that is a threat in many authoritarian societies. Press is no longer the purveyor of the truth but increasingly become mouthpieces of their financial masters.

The Washington Post is usually associated with the Watergate Scandal and Nixon's subsequent resignation as the US President. In 1966, an American State Department military analyst felt that the USA was misleading the public by convincing them that the war in Vietnam was proceeding well when, in reality, things were pretty bleak. The thought of the unassuming public sending their youngsters to be slaughtered in tropics pricked his conscience. The analyst decided to go public with documents that would prove the hypocrisy of three decades of US administration (post WW2) that had been hoodwinking the American public.

Even though it was first exposed to the New York Times, the filmmakers decided to tell the story from the viewpoint of the Washington Post who was struggling with a lady leading the helm as its publisher. The Post was the second newspaper that was approached to publish after the AG office shut down publications of the New York Times for articles deemed threatening national security.

The Post, a political thriller, shows the trials and tribulations of the journalists trying to fight for free speech, The First Amendment. After the mumbo-jumbo of legal threat and repercussions from the Nixon administration, the Supreme Court decided to allow printing of the controversial news. Its justification was that the papers worked for the governed, not the governor!

Lesson learnt: The citizens decide the path of the country. Its leaders should lead their subjects towards this end. They serve the public, not themselves or some uncertain promise of the future. It is difficult, however, when the people are lulled and stupefied by years of indoctrination and self-aggrandisement.

https://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/503023

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Don't be the Dog in the Manger?

Plough deep while sluggards sleep! 

It is quite comical to see sycophants struggling to have their voices heard over the mainstream. Perhaps because they have been so enthralled basking in the glory of the flashing lights that they feel naked without being in the limelight. 

When the going was right, they were so full of hot air that their feet were off the ground. Now, reality has struck them, and they had to sing for their supper.

It must be fun to see these goons rising early to the dew of the morning sun to hunt for the worms. Or maybe not, they may still have their henchmen running around to have their outsourced work done. 

You do your thing, and I do mine?

Perhaps that was the wisdom Amma was telling us to be. Aim just high enough, be satisfied with what you have but strive higher nevertheless, the higher the rise the painful the fall, live within your mean, waste not; want not and save for tomorrow as no one knows what tomorrow may bring seems to be lessons that stuck with me. 

Now the so-called management gurus sing a different tune. They say 'no pain no gain.' Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you will land among the stars. Every failure is a lesson learnt. If you are not willing to fail, it means that you are not ready to succeed. Inventors, iconic figure who turned the path of our civilisation never had their tracks paved with gold. It is the product of a labour of love, insanity, the fire, and the obsession to prove their point. Even prophets swam against the current of thought of the day to revolutionise humankind.

So, do not pity the downtrodden? There may be a pot of gold at the end of their journies. Hopefully, it is not fool's gold. 

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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