JULY 23 — “The writing is on the wall,” a commenter smugly pointed out. Following another damning report on a development that is singularly Malaysian with unlimited investment possibilities.

Dude, firstly they have to read it — the report, and yes the cheeky comment. And they don’t, usually. They’d climb the wall, piss from on top and dismount, but read it? Tough.

So concerned and diligent netizen, I’m sorry I burst your bubble.

I’m probably mixing my idioms and movie lines but the land of the blind gives things better to the cross eyed, or those who see the eye of the tiger in themselves even if the chickens have come home to roost. 

Half of the 50 who started staring at this column, have already stopped. There is a Zalora sale elsewhere and a comedy show to end all comedy shows with inane jokes on tonight, a browser pop up just reminded them. How to compete with colourful scarves and “can I dumb this down even further” comedians?

See, too much text. Malaysians cannot be arsed about things. Well, not enough of them to get a Bastille thing going.

Keep to the rules

There is a cardinal — in case there are fears of proselytisation, mufti — rule in having the longest standing democratically elected government in the world, don’t take too much from what the world says.

Read it again. The world is far away and Wall Street sounds like a place where a Facebook game takes place with or without a journal for most Malaysians.

Let me be clearer, it’s not what has been done, it’s about how long before everyone moves to the next thing. Buy time and everything will snuggle up nicely in time.

Want a test? What’s the name of the MRT Corp CEO who resigned after some blokes died in a construction mishap last year? Want to buy a vowel?

There was no call from any of the people in a position to threaten the CEO with expulsion, he just wilfully left. More importantly, if he did want to stay on, all he had to do was buy time. Time is very cheap when it comes to itinerant migrant workers, legal or not. Sorry Azhar Abdul Hamid.

Fluctuating prices aside, time is a commodity always readily available for those in power, and never in excess for those living the decisions made by the powerful. That is Malaysia in a nutshell. Our third and five prime ministers would have gone on another half decade at least if they just sat out the storms of their time.

And in the case of the matter at hand, where in the minds of many liberals the Battle of Little Big Horn is upon our own Custer, or the forests of Birnham Wood have descended on Dunsinane and the end is nigh for Pekan’s Macbeth, please take a seat and eat kangkung (water spinach). Being calm is optional.

We are on a ride to nowhere, minus The Talking Heads. Time is being purchased with alacrity.

A cat with zombie rays

While the field of technology leaps in terrabytes, the art of presentation meaning persuasion has stayed close to its shores.

Which is why I did not go vertigo, when someone showed me a pudgy feline with powerful beams rushing out of its eyeballs at the beginning of a lengthy academic presentation. It was cute, it took the edge off.

So when a complex issue involving a lot of money is exhorted by the means of a series of multiples flowcharts with footnotes and flashpoints to prove how things allegedly went colossally wrong by inferencing a series of actions, inactions,  influences, procedures, indifferences and accusations, the captive crowd diminishes rapidly.

It would be an event in some Malaysian homes if a member brought home a copy of a financial newspaper.

Just to be safe I listened in to two finance guys talking about the flowcharts. The one heading a financial services company was absolutely convinced that there was a smoking gun but admitted there are so many intricacies even he is not fully aware about, while the senior internal auditor for a global firm summed up that only if you wanted to hide something would so much effort be expended to layer up, down and across the enterprise.

Reading between the lines, there is a real case to be made, but it also offers those willing to buy time to consolidate their defence, therefore procure time, through piecemeal explanations.

Then imagine how it appears to the larger Malaysian population willing to know more, it’s more gut feel than comprehensive grip of the facts.

Underestimating Malaysians?

In the early 80s BMF was the earth-shattering scandal. BM… what?

A Google search top page of BMF would display British Military Fitness, British Motorcyclists Federation, Builders Merchant Federation, British Marine Federation, Black Mafia Family (a drug trafficking endeavour) and Black Management Forum.

Things can fall easily from the Malaysian radar.

To provide a comparison, OJ is the initials of a 1990s felon and the acronym for Orange Juice. But OJ Simpson prominently is on display on a Google search top page even though a world drinks OJ (orange juice). He killed someone while being famous and it’s stuck in the consciousness of the people.

Scandals don’t last forever here at home. They are just rekindled in small circles and published in uninteresting blogs or remain books that gather dust in a NGO storeroom.

It’s consistent with Malaysians being the most forgiving people. The Malay phrase “Takpe la, terimalah takdir” (It’s OK, let’s accept our fate) is less a concession than it is celebrating the ethos “live and let live.”

How much money is it anyways?

Or a people who understand scale. Ask a sample group of under 25s and a noticeable number might actually think RM400 million is more than RM4 billion, or even RM40 billion.

Don’t read, don’t care, don’t think, but be grateful.

You get what you sow when the educational culture is to promote rote learning around loyalty and obedience, rather than science based logic powering opinions for constant re-examination.

Check out the difficulty in which many netizens had in dissecting the veracity of a NASA craft approaching the Dwarf Planet Pluto or formerly known as Planet Pluto — that’s another debate altogether.

Mostly young people were involved in the exchanges; there were sincere queries of how any object can escape the guardians patrolling the skies; the billions of light years (sic) separating Earth from the said destination; and even about religious qualities necessary to transcend Earth’s atmosphere.

What really matters has been skewed so much that a rapidly spiralling currency exchange rate is just trivia with other visceral contentions like hemlines, merchant stereotypes and kosher status prominently engaging the masses.

“Who cares about missing money if you have missed your prayer time?” That gets the real SHARES online.

He’s got time

There are multitudes of issues to drag out to spread out the blame game.

The trick is to not to take to heart from those who really are not in a position to harm the status quo. The economy will chug along in time and oil prices can’t stay low forever. The feverish social media onslaughts from the decided will wane in time and human nature kick in.

Maybe moving on would help the future improve rather than mucking in the mud too long.

After all time heals all wounds, imagined or otherwise.

I wish I am wrong about what I’ve said. I really want to be wrong here.

Unfortunately, time is what I have not, and the other guy has it in spades.

 *This is the personal opinion of the columnist.