JULY 27 — Malaysians are strange creatures. We’re effortlessly happy and easily upset. See your KL buddy feeling down? Take him to makan and he’ll be chirpy in no time. Want to get him depressed again? Talk about money.

Only ask, “Do Malaysians save enough?” and everybody’s blood pressure hits 200/100. Raise the question, “What do you think about our country’s economic situation?” and you better call the riot police.

I was at a meeting last week, someone mentioned GST and within 10 seconds, a man had slit his wrist and two others had jumped out the window. It wasn’t pretty.

Malaysians are unable to talk about money without behaving as if we’re in some Dawn of the Dead scenario. Mention an item like inflation and we want to rip the nearest guy’s brains out. Speak of the ringgit and we’re locking our doors, taking out the pitch-forks and building fortresses against the walking dead.

In the ancient world, we feared the gods and sought the advice of the priestly class. Today? Nothing’s changed. We tremble at economic recession and without haste seek the sacred wisdom of our financial planners.

Most religious scriptures admonish their followers to fear God, after which they would fear nothing else. An American president even said that the only thing to fear is fear itself. But if we follow that deity invoked by rubbing our first two fingers together, the tragedy is that there is nothing but fear.

When we don’t have money, we’re afraid. When we do have money, we panic that we’ll lose what we have.

Recently I attended a talk on mutual funds investments for retirement. I may as well have been watching a Las Vegas magic show. Because after he performed his calculations, no matter what you say, where you work, how you calculate your savings, the result will always be the same: You. Will. NEVER. Have. Enough.

It’s like, no matter how many swords the magician thrusts into the box, the pretty lady inside will always emerge unharmed. Ditto with a talk on, say, “retirement planning.” You can own more wealth than Donald Trump, but listen to the agent long enough and you start fearing you’ll die of poverty next week.

1MDB — Angering the wrong gods

Is there a silver lining to the 1MDB fiasco? Maybe just one. Maybe RM43 billion wiped out could be the one tipping point needed to produce a better government (see Note 1).

If hundreds of acres of trees were chopped down, and floods ravaged thousands of homes, would the regime be in trouble? Nah. If every Orang Asli clan was uprooted from their homes and were left homeless, would the vote swing heavily away from Barisan? Hardly. If dozens of activists and Opposition members were denied their international boarding passes, would more states fall to DAP, PKR or PAS? Doubtful.

But to lose that kind of money? What would the Barisan ceramahs talk about at the next GE season? To go into an 11-figure debt is, precisely, to anger the gods of capital (see Note 2). 

Again, in the past we made offerings and sacrifices to the gods, and asked for their blessings and protection. Nowadays, we’ve only relabelled the offerings “deposits” and the sacrifices “consultancy fees.” Malaysia’s true god reigns.

Gods @ war

I did a year of Islamic Studies in 2003. I’m a little rusty but I believe Islam declares that whatever happens in life must be attributed to the sovereign will of God. If God didn’t declare from eternity that you’ll never have more than RM950 in your Maybank account, then no angel, no demon and no Datuk can ever change that.

Intuitively “cold” as such pre-planned divine blue-printing may sound, there’s a veneer of comfort in believing that our failure to make it big had as much to do with our own efforts (or lack of) as the depth of the Marianna Trench was a result of the amount of tau foo fah we eat on a daily basis. It was simply beyond our control. We do nothing beyond trusting the Almighty with His providence.

Money imitates this. Consider how some people explain away the sub-prime meltdown of 2008/09. Oh, these things happen naturally. “Oh, it’s part of the market cycle, a normal ‘down’ after some very exciting ‘ups’. Oh, millions of people lost their savings and some big-ass banks got shut down? No worries. It’s all good. All part of market ecology.”

Translated: There’s nothing anybody could’ve done. Accept it and move on.

Christianity, or at least some versions of it, puts forth the possibility that human freedom and determination does make a difference in business and politics. An entire sociological perspective, Max Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis, is premised on 15h-century Europeans working hard and reinvesting their wealth to spur the birth of capitalism.

Here, too, Mammon has commandeered the best parts. “It’s up to you to get filthy rich, it’s up to you to up your status in the eyes of that neighbour or colleague you despise. Heaven awaits you in the form of a sexy new Beemer if you step up and work like there’s no tomorrow.” 

The Buddhist injunction to lay down our desires has, of course, been completed defeated by our malls’ and advertisements’ enticements to let our desires run loose.

There we have it. Money tells us to accept what we can’t. Money gives us the courage to make the differences we’re capable of. And money gives us the wisdom to know the difference…or decide not to give a shit.

Again, behold… the only true world religion?

We must be heretics

In the light of the above, where Mammon is the Alpha Male and Omega Female all in one, what’s today’s greatest blasphemy? In a system when nothing is without a price tag—what is the biggest heresy? 

I venture it’s this: The worst heresy today is to suggest that the universe is kind enough to “take care of me.” To even hint that the cosmos is kind and that Providence or a loving Person has “got my back” — this is ultimate sacrilege.

To further note that it’s our own spurious and environment-killing spending which have created our financial problems, and that therefore we should as individuals and communities revolt against the system of spiralling consumption — these “blasphemies” could invite social execution.

To issue the reminder that there are more than a BILLION people living in slums and that therefore the obsession with financial security (the obverse of personal in-security) seems a tad bit “un-plugged” from the rest of humanity, is to court rolling eyes and vicious whispers.

To note that the birds, dogs and cats hardly lose any sleep over whether or not their assets will be devalued, and that therefore the human mass anxiety (associated with not having enough) may put us at a lower rung than the animals, could even provoke hostility.

Maybe what we need isn’t more “planning for the financial future” (see Note 3), but planning for simplicity, planning to share… planning for grace?

Note 1: Of course, this is hardly the first time our government has lost billions. In the 80s the Bumiputra Malaysia Finance property-related scandal blew up close to RM1billion and later on Bank Negara’s forex escapades saw red to the tune of ten times that amount. Still, at the end of the day, these losses are nowhere near 1MDB amounts and, hey, those were Facebook-less days. 

Note 2: But what if, miraculously, the RM43billion was recovered? What if the Arch-Angel Warren (or Bill) dropped a shining (and completely blank) cheque from the heavens and, voila, the country gets back on its feet again? What would that change? Would the generosity of Malaysians be spoken of from airport to airport? Would our boundless care for the littler and weaker members of our society be the stuff of conference papers, even earning the attention of Unesco? Would we demonstrate more control over our finances and less fear over the economy?

We all know the answer: Hell would freeze over first.

Note 3: I’ve got nothing against financial planning and products; I can’t deny the contributions that, say, insurance companies have made to a country’s economic development. The message of this piece, though, is not ”Don’t buy financial products” — it’s “Don’t let fear of money or greed for it lead the way.”

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.