‘MINISTER BIG’ SANUSI – ‘HE’S MAKING FANS BY THE KAMPUNG-LOAD IT SEEMS’ – BUT WILL THEY REALLY VOTE FOR HIM OR JUST OUT FOR FREE LAUGHS – THAT’S THE BURNING QUESTION PN-PAS DON’T REALLY DARE TO FIND OUT – ‘TIN KOSONG SUNGGUH MB NI,’ SAY THE REST OF THE MALAYS IN THE COUNTRY

Business, Politics | July 24, 2023 8:20 am by | 0 Comments

Is ‘Minister Big’ getting too big for his boots?

Last week the news was hogged by a politician from Kedah. No, it wasn’t Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, our twice-ex prime minister, even if the good Tun did make a rather lame “Relevance Run” towards the end of the week.

It’s the person currently in the caretaker position of menteri besar of Kedah, a position which I shall faithfully translate into English as “Minister Big”, who continues with his political stunts.

He’s making fans by the kampung-load it seems, especially among the young.

I don’t pay him much attention. I can hear the stuff that he spews at any coffeeshop when I balik kampung. It’s pretty boring, but then what would we “elites” from the Klang Valley know about what’s happening in the real world anyway?

 

But elections are coming soon, and outrage is easier to generate than thoughtful discourse on policies and solutions, which require thinking and hard work.

Where’s the fun in that? Who wants to work hard, especially in today’s weather, to come up with anything useful and coherent? You can become God’s gift to mankind by talking about saving the ummah, but not if you talk about jobs and cost of living.

Caught trash-talking

However, Minister Big had got himself into trouble with the authorities for saying something or other about somebody or other – although most likely it was not about us non-elites from outside of the Klang Valley.

Should I say “congratulations!” or “commiserations!” to the Minister Big for this “achievement”? Either way, any publicity is good publicity if you’re a politician, especially a race-baiting one. So perhaps congratulations are in order.

It seems his political party, which has had long-time leanings towards the east coast for spiritual and political direction, may be shifting to the west coast, where all the elites are supposed to be.

Is he likely to become Minister Bigger then? We shall see.

But it’s a shame that he’s facing these troubles. It brings out uncomfortable comparisons with times past where the powers-that-be (mostly under the leadership of another Kedahan) regularly put in the slammer those who said uncomfortable things.

I wish Minister Big all the best, if he’s willing to accept such well-wishes from the native of a “stolen” Kedah province. Does this mean I want to see Penang become part of Kedah again? No! As the time-honoured cry says: Lawan Tetap Lawan!

But enough of the Minister Big. If he does end up serving time as a guest of His Majesty’s hospitality in one of the various penitentiaries, he would be joining an illustrious roll call of politicians indeed.

A hair-raising tale

Of more interest to me is the arrest and fine of a salon owner, a female non-Muslim, for cutting the hair of a male Muslim, in Kota Bharu, Kelantan.

I didn’t hear anything from the customer himself. I hope he’s being given counselling and has learnt his lesson, and if the craving to have his hair cut by a female comes up again, he should just take a boat and scoot over to the nearby Sungai Golok, Thailand.

The local authorities there may now want to beef up their moral police units (and the border posts), to forestall such a potential epidemic of immorality.

To fund it they may have to raise local taxes on non-Muslim hair salons sharply, given how it’s their excesses that brought about this situation.

Musketeers, assemble

In other news, the prime minister, officially translated into Malay as the perdana menteri even if this doesn’t make any sense grammar-wise compared to the alternative “Menteri Perdana”, got on the video link to speak with Elon Musk.

There’s much good news reported from the call, such as potential investments in the country.

One good news was that Tesla electric cars can now be legally imported, sold and serviced by Tesla itself.

Since that chat, over 10,000 units of Tesla cars have been booked.

The prices made everybody happy, except for second-hand car dealers who’d imported similar Tesla cars and were offering them at high prices, as well as those who had actually bought them at those prices.

Another minister said this doesn’t mean the politically-sacred Approved Permit (AP) system is being abolished.

This must’ve gladdened the hearts of many elite Malaysian AP holders, whether from Klang Valley or elsewhere, even if the news did nothing to the hearts (assuming they have any) of second-hand car dealers.

No holds barred

I’m disappointed, however, that the prime minister didn’t offer Mr. Musk the use of Kuala Lumpur, or even Alor Setar, as a venue for the much-ballyhooed cage match fight between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta.

That would really have put us on the global map.

We wouldn’t even need a cage for the fight. Just get them into a prison cell and let them bash each other under television lights and cameras.

Malaysia’s prison cells have handled VIPs from prime ministers, whether future or past, to possibly a Minister Big himself. They’re used to handling celebrities.

What a missed opportunity.

The dearly departed

Meanwhile there’s evidence that up to a million Americans may have died earlier than their cohorts in other developed countries in 2022, after all other factors have been taken into account.

One reason given had to do with the American health system, where corporate profits trumps everything else.

That, of course, and other factors such as unhealthy diets, unfathomable gun laws, vaccine denialism etc and other “Only in America” stuff.

Meanwhile, one of our own private healthcare businesses is being put on sale for billions and billions of ringgit, while any real effort by Parliament to revamp our national health system seems to be getting nowhere.

We seem to be going down that slippery slope ourselves. Just sayin’.

Anyway, have a Big week ahead. Or a Small one. Or even a Big and Small one, if such a week is allowed in your state. FMT

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