Devastating Disclosures

Tim Leissner’s revelations under oath in a court of law in New York must be troubling and traumatic for some families in Malaysia. It also shows how sensitive and easily riled we get as a people to any implied or direct criticism of people we hold in high esteem.

How our Malaysians, including well-placed ones, carry themselves in pursuit of their private agendas, ambitions, greed, lust, anger and the need to be popular with others sometimes distorts one’s judgment. When this happens, anyone can be compromised somewhat easily.

Roger Ng’s is not the first major trial going on abroad that involves well-known members of prominent Malaysian families. In the 1980s during the trials of the Carrian affair there was much unhappiness about revelations made in court in Hong Kong about Lorrain Osman by George Tan. These events were reported by Rita Gomez for the Straits Times. On the basis of these revelations, there will be other inferences and innuendos

The high authorities in Malaysia disliked it so much that they even criticized our own esteemed Auditor-General Tan Sri Ahmad Noordin Zakaria for observations that coincided with Tan’s testimony. We used all sorts of excuses to explain the loss of US$1 billion in Hong Kong, trying to deflect attention from the avariciousness, incompetence, and misadventure of Lorrain, Hashim Shamsuddin, Rais Saniman and Ibrahim Jaafar. None of these men were married to Malay women, and they had got accustomed to high living, luxury, frequent overseas travel, and easy illegal gains in breach of their fiduciary functions.

Leissner’s testimony has implicated some members of the new generation of Malay women. This is unfortunate as it threatens the moral fiber of our society. They may be isolated patterns of poor judgment, but they also show a bigger crisis of treating everything that glitters as gold. It would seem they had let down their guard with a seemingly moneyed man who came across as vulnerable, charming, a Casanova and voyeur. But he had ulterior motives. In the IMDB case too, a former central bank governor’s husband is also implicated, obviously with her active or passive complicity.

Issues that impinge on the National interest have to be accorded the highest security, care, sensitivity, should stand up to transparency and scrutiny, and have to be treated as a sacred issue of trusteeship.

We need to recreate, recognize and reward people of the highest integrity, intellectual honesty, loyalty, and moral courage like Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, Tun Ismail Ali, Raja Tun Mohar, Raja Tun Muhammad Alias and Dato Rastam Hadi.

Our younger generation of Malaysians must be taught about the fundamental importance of courage, integrity, and straightforwardness to these men and understand their sense of personal sacrifice and high sense of duty. Loyalty to the nation is what matters, not to individuals who hold high office.

Santhananaban M