AsH balik kampung for Hari Raya in Kay-El and discovered Malaysia Baru - New Malaysia - hence my makeover spelling for the capital of a New Country.
With a memory like an elephant, a septuagenarian elephant at that - it reminded me of the landslide victory of Tony Bliar (oops Tony Blair) and the Labour Party in 1997 after a long period in the twilight zone when Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party held sway from 1979 to 1997 with her free market, capitalist, monetarist policy.
Eventually, the British public had had enough of Thatcher and her cronies in the privatised Conservative culture.
Tony Blair came along like the Avenging Saviour for the weakened Labour Party caught in the shenanigans and mire of 'Socialism' and Trade Union politics. He modernised the Labour Party and stitched up a synthesis between capitalism and socialism and called it NEW LABOUR. It worked especially as it kept the middle class happy and Blair (and the Labour Party) ruled the roost from 1997 - 2010. Like Ronald Reagan he was a teflon leader because political dirt could not stick to him - especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003. AsH also believes Malaysia has a good share of teflon leaders!! We Malaysians are as good as the West where modernisation is concerned.
If I had been in Malaysia Lama (or Malaysia Buruk?) on May 9, 2018 I would be utterly confused as to my choice of vote. Deciding between BN and PH is really no choice at all. It's like deciding between LABU and LABI, between the hantu or the jembalang.
Yang Mana Satu Idaman Kalbu??
Again our magnificient P. Ramlee has pinned the situation right down to a T.
Tukang masak aku tak sudi,
Tukang cuci menyakitkan hati.
As for misai tebal, ular sawa : as my dear ole mum would put it - selisih malaikat 44!!
But Haji Bakhil has hit the nail right on the head. Tak habis habis asmara chinta (asmara politik?) Lagu nasihat lebih baik - bagaimana datang duit, darimana datang duit, bagaimana nak jadi orang kaya...
But that is what Malaysian politics has been all about for the past 50 years or so - the actors in Parliament, the protagonists in the social media, the (political) sifus and warlords, the taukehs and tycoons, the bankers, the lawyers, the academics, the CEOs, the Immigration Department, the handbag purveyors and the financial movers and shakers. P. Ramlee could see all that coming - bless his cotton socks! In my book he is the most Eminent Person that Malaysia did not have. After all, if fate had not taken away his life too soon, he would be only 89 today - just a few years younger than the PM of Malaysia Baru.
I must admit that in this GE 14 I am on the same wavelength as Haji Bakhil's daughter : Hati dah bosan. Tidak berkenan sebab perangai tidak siuman.
And so in abject despair AsH has to submit to this ultimatum.
Biarlah setan atau pun hantu
Cukup bulan makan batu.
Biarlah hantu atau jembalang
Balik kampung, tanam kacang.
And here's the grand denouement :
Macham mana aku ta' makan, says the Snake.
Sudah memang makanan kami.