The joke that didn't land?

It has nothing to do with mocking the duly departed. No doubt we do not poke fun at the dead. Jocelyn Chia did not ridicule the victims who perished in MH370. She sneered at the country's citizens whose image bearer in the sky went down without a trace of existence. In the same skeet, she peeled bare the impotence of the government, which had lost in the global fight to stay prominent. Whilst the rest of the world is busy improving the saleability of its country and drawing in foreign funds, besides improving human capital and intelligence, Malaysia's leaders are content in drumming the past century's tune of race and religion. The leaders make their gullible subjects feel special when they are merely donning the Emperor's new clothes.

So when Jocelyn haughtily flaunted Singapore's first-world status after being jilted from an intimate relationship, during which the Prime Minister had cried about an uncertain future, she knew her country had done well. Speaking from a standup comedy stage in New York, embraced by the biggest economy in the world, she knows she has bragging rights. After all, the caustic world of standup comedy allows her so, burns, vulgarity, warts and all.

So the high offices of her former country have apologised. Of course, they did. They need the goodwill of their neighbour to oil the nation's machinery and food supply. More than half of the country's think tanks have roots in Malaysia anyway.

If Jocelyn Chia had mocked the falling of the Twin Towers or Pearl Harbour, the US would flip. So the IGP making an Interpol report to locate her will be about to nought. The US is not bothered about hurting the sentiments of a despotic third-world nation. It has to be seen as the purveyor of what it preaches, free speech, freedom of expression and pursuit of happiness.

It is all about playing the victimhood. It has nothing to do with sneering at something of a taboo subject. The recalcitrant son who cut off his umbilical connexion had all reasons to fail and had paradoxically proved his father wrong. Instead of crawling home all scrawny and embarrassed, poor and hungry, the rebel became more prosperous. The old folks, set in their ways, only spiralled down the path of self-aggrandisement. Excited over minor achievements, they praised themselves for newer, trivial, insignificant achievements. As if rubbing salt into an open wound, the Malaysian ringgit hits an all-time low against the Singapore dollar.

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