The buck stops here
Transparency is the new conspiracy. And everyone should be involved.
LAST Sunday was pretty spectacular. It was one of the nicest Sundays, perhaps even any day, that I have had in a while.
An impromptu afternoon tea and cake session at my sister’s new digs, complete with a dip in her pool, and many adults willing to share the load with an adrenalin-fuelled munchkin. Aaaaah, bliss.
The afternoon also saw a last-minute addition by way of an adopted family member and her new husband! She had been away for quite a while, over in the land of Oz, busy getting ready for her wedding and getting wed. She had returned home so that the rest of us deadbeats who couldn’t make it for her big day would have the chance to make it up to her (and the husband, of course)!
After much catching up and hurling “abuse’ at one another – as is usual for a family – we started talking about the New Year and Christmas holidays.
The festivities are often quieter and more subdued when adopted family members are not around to add to the cacophony of the Gill crazies. So we were chatting and the subject of New Year’s Eve came up. I had spent mine in Accident and Emergency with The Little Man. She had spent hers on a boat on Sydney Harbour watching fireworks. Or rather, hiding from the fireworks.
Sparkles in the night sky cost the country gazillions of dollars every year and she was rather outraged by the whole spectacle. In light of the problems Australia has faced by way of natural disasters and other on-going issues, to her, the whole concept of putting on a good show seemed so extremely excessive as to warrant questioning.
Time came to end the soiree and as we bade each other farewell, I could not stop wondering about what she had said. And it has been gnawing at me ever since.
The things we pay for. Yes, the things that WE are paying for. It is after all taxpayers’ money that foots all the big shows, the offerings of grandeur, the flights of fantasy generated by the country in order to proclaim itself capable, modern and “fun”.
I don’t really know where my tax payment goes. Do you? Does anyone?
In the paper the other day, there was an article about the discovery of another prehistoric skeleton, in a cave in Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu. Wow, incredible, I thought … until I read that someone, somewhere, had said the new cave was going to be equipped with a “moving ladder using solar energy, costing between Rm16mil and Rm18mil to facilitate visitors …”
Err… hang on a minute. What do you mean? Why?
Look, I am all for discovering things from the past; hell, I wish I could have been an archaeologist. The idea of finding such a mystery amongst stones and earth is more exciting than most things.
I am not stupid either. I understand how much a country can benefit from tourism, which can destroy it at the same time.
But since when has the preservation of our heritage really been the point? And do we love our culture enough to establish a decent exhibition of all its important details? We seem too wrapped up in political trajectories to keep our history clean and honest.
Has anyone been to Argentina or Morocco to see how the old has been adapted to coexist with the new, while retaining its beauty and history?
In Istanbul you can drive on the main roads and see history literally strewn around you. The Byzantine walls, the palaces still in place, the museums filled with the most magical things. Sure the country isn’t perfect; nothing is. But everything from the past is embraced by the present.
Why can’t we do that? I wouldn’t mind my tax money going towards the country. But not a darn solar-powered escalator for tourists in a cave far, far away that benefits no one, or submarines we have no use for on our shallow shores.
Our school curriculum needs a re-vamp. FRIM (the Forest Research Institute Malaysia in Kepong, Selangor) could do with toilets for the disabled and wheelchair-bound, so that they can enjoy the peace and beauty of the jungle. Orphanages need constant support; our borders need tighter control to stop trafficking. The zoo could do with a complete overhaul to benefit the creatures that are bound within its walls.
I do not have enough space to write my whole wish list here.
Whatever we do seems to be half-baked, straddled between intention and actual execution, which always suffers when there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
In this Black Water Dragon year, I want to find my leaders prescient, open and responsible. The people make a country great. And we need a change. A future. A “wholeness” that seems to have evaded us thus far.
As the Musketeers put it: “All for one and one for all!” It’s about time, don’t you think?
Asha Gill put her globetrotting life on hold to focus on the little man in her life and gain a singular perspective on the world.