Where did we go wrong?

Selamat Pagi Malaysia.

How, when, what and where did we go wrong as a people and as a nation?

How is it possible that the country that once talked about muhibbah, tolerance, and pride itself in how we visit each other's houses during festivals, and our ability to understand and respect each other's way of life and each other's culture, is now a country where race, religion and the politics that one does, divides and destroy all that once matters so much to all of us?

When did all this curse of race, religion, and politics begin to creep into our once carefree and wonderful lives?

What caused this decline in the way how we lived our lives?

Where did we go wrong?

Why is it that all the options that are open to us...be it political parties, individuals, or even what is on offer to us all in the future...why do we have to make a choice between the bad and the not so bad, between those who are corrupt and those who are not so corrupt? Why is there no one who is not tainted in one way or the other by the things that have been done in the past? Why is there not one person out there whom we can choose to lead us who is without any blemish on their character or is without a questionable past?

If you are true to yourself and if you are brutally honest with yourself, the answer to all of the above is: "I don't really know!"

What is now happening to our people, to our country, and the doom and gloom that foreshadows our future is an accumulation of many things. It started from the time of Tunku. As beloved as the Tunku was as a leader, the flaws in his personal and public life, will never pass closer inspection in the times that we now live in. Social media will out the Tunku for his questionable personal idiocies and lapse in judgment for the things he does as a human being and as our prime minister.

The same for all the leaders that came after Tunku with the probable exception of Hussein Onn, for in Hussein Onn we probably got a leader who is a saint...and, if truth is to be told...not a leader worthy of any mention for the things he did as a leader - though I am sure there will be many amongst you who will agree to disagree with me on this....and maybe you should, and maybe you should not....but Hussein Onn was a good man. On that, I think we can all agree. But a good man sometimes does not make a good leader.

We, who are now living in the present, are now faced with having to deal with and discard all that has been allowed to fester into a monumental den of misdeeds and corruption within Umno for the past seven decades. Seven decades of vested interests, entitlements, rent-seeking mentality, money politics...every evil that is possible when politics goes rogue ...all that and more, has been perpetrated by those in Umno upon the greater humanity that is within now our wretched nation.

This is an almost impossible task to do because the evil that is within Umno is also the evil that besets our people and our nation today. If we are not ourselves corrupt and care too much about our own vested interests than the interests of others, we know family, relatives, friends, or someone who is corrupt and care only about their own vested interests in everything they do. Everywhere we turn, be it in our lives, work, or in our time for play, we are confronted by the unpleasantness of having to deal with race, religion, or politics in the most annoying of ways.

Do you want to have a drink? What do you want to drink? Where do you want to drink? Haram or halal? Will you have that drink at a place that will help your own race because you are told not to drink at any "unclean" place? And why drink at a place that will help the non-Malays or the Malays or any other race? The same when you want to eat! Anything you do is now clouded by those kinds of thoughts that put pressure upon you to conform or face the censure of others - in almost everything and anything that you do!

Living in Malaysia today is not much fun anymore. You may even be arrested if you say and do the wrong things. Once arrested, getting a fair trial costs you money. Getting a fair trial depends on who you are and who you know. Getting a fair trial depends on how you kautim your case with the authorities. And worse of all, what you think is your right to do as a Malaysian is not a matter for you to decide, but for the corrupt powers that be to decide. And of course, it depends on what race you are, what religion you practice, and what politics you do.

It has become so bad for some of us that the only option left for many Malaysians today is to leave Malaysia and live elsewhere. Anywhere! Singapore, Australia, UK....anywhere that will accept us for what we are....people who want to live decent lives in a decent country with decent leaders. You cannot do that in Malaysia!