doctor m

on tuesday the former prime minister of malaysia, tun dr. mahathir mohamad humored the students of perth with a 'meet and greet' session in a crowded and musky room at the malaysian consulate building. i've never been a big fan of the politics scene. local or otherwise. but, i guess since the guy has been out of the (mainstream, and drama-laden) spotlight for quite some time, it wouldn't hurt much to check it out, right?

and so i went.

let's be clear and up front about this: i don't have anything bad to say about his government and the way he ran it. and i don't have anything good to say about it either. well, that's not really the full truth. i have my opinions. but i went into this with a pretty much open mind. i mean he's not the prime minister anymore, right? no love lost, no hate spared.

what he had to say wasn't particularly insightful. the same old politician / bureaucrat rabble that you always get when someone of import comes into town. but, the way he said it was kinda impressive. he's 85 but he speaks like he's not a day over 40. yes, i honestly think he's past his prime, but he's still probably the sharpest tool in the shed. especially when the shed we're talking about is a metaphor for malaysian politicians.

he's laid back, he's witty, he thinks as he speaks, he's poignant and he's by far, more analytical than the whole cabinet put together. he didn't script his speech, he took notes when others talked and asked questions, and he handled questions diplomatically and intelligently.

it's funny, i set out to write this as an analysis and commentary of what he said, but so far i've ended up saying this:

he's the type of politician we need back home, and it's sad to say that we haven't seen anyone even close to what he had been.

like i said, he mentioned a lot of things, and most of them were your classical derogatory dribble. you'd think that leaders would look upon their own people with some credibility. i guess it wasn't as bad as some of the talks i've been to, though *cough* dpm m yassin *cough*.

one thing that did catch my eye was his severe thrashing of pure pwnage sauce brief criticism of the current government. true, this may be, as some people say, him just being an old elitist, coming down hard on and and all of this successors. but the facts do speak for themselves. i won't quote or link them here, because my blog has never been (and will hopefully never be) a political platform of any sort. if you're really interested, you can go out there and find the plethora of information that's readily available (most of which are biased anyway, but here's where you get to be the academician). but yeah, to have the former pm criticise the current government. pretty harshly, too. the vote of no confidence is just astounding. and the implications are plentiful. i like where this is going.


wow, i haven't really said anything and already this is getting super long. so yeah, i guess i'll end up with an interesting point that i picked up, a bit of a paradoxical set of statements brought up by tun (paraphrased, of course):

1. the country is run as a democracy. the people have a choice of government, and therefore the fault of bad leadership cannot be the ruling party's (alone), but should be shouldered by the people (as well).

then he goes on to say:

2. the ruling party is pure crap-ass bullshit quite incompetent, and the opposition is sweet depotism jesus kinda bad not that great either.

so how do we chose between the two evils? how do you differentiate tweedle dee and dum? how do you watch 'battlefield: earth' when 'gigli' is showing?


some sh*t is just whack. but then, there's gigli-level horrible. not that i've watched it.

also:

1. the government no longer gets academics, intellectuals and people who actually use their brains to think instead of as a festering pool for pornography and child-torture, into the political scene. because of the petty reason of them being threatened, humiliated, egocentric retarded, stupid fricken sonuvabishes and all that jazz.

but,

2. our governing body is in ruin. we need an injection of new blood. people who... i dunno... aren't fscking idiots.

come on guys. what the sweet mother of paradoxical jeebus?

it's like a paradox. but it's not. but it's kinda like one. you know?
so yeah. gonna stop here. 'til next time, kiddies. same inconsistent time, same inconsistent channel.