the fighter jet engine that flies away

Fellow thieves and robbers would cry foul only when the other clan did the job either without regards to their profit sharing or the groups were actually at war with each other. The latter was a more likely reason here if an engine of a jet fighter that went missing. The Malaysian Insider said it was a laughable matter if it was not a serious one. I am not surprised at all and it certainly is not a laughing matter.

The gang that smuggled out must be from the other camp that the Crime Minister did not mind a full investigation to bring the perpetrators to “justice”, of their kind at so to speak. He himself made the police report, the chief of looters proudly proclaimed. The story reminds me of the time I was working with a company in Malaysia more than two decades ago. The head of HR of the company stopped culturally positive recreational activities that were going on in the plant simply because what they termed as pilferage. The HR head was raging mad when I reminded him that the English Oxford Dictionary defined pilferage as “petty theft” and I pointed out that since items stolen were huge items that required a bunch of burly men with the help of specialised equipment to move them the incident was a “daylight robbery”.

Daylight robbery indeed this fighter jet’s engine’s disappearance!

In a country governed by robbers, we have to expect frequent lootings and major robberies. A day will not go by without “crimes”. If one’s profession is a robber, he is not expected to do policing work anyway! You have to be idiots to expect that!

There is a theory called the “Broken Windows Theory” that goes to say that “if a broken window is left untended, it will encourage others to be broken and eventually the whole house is in ruin”. In Malaysia, when everything wrong is left untended and unattended to far too long, the ruin is simply widespread and gives rise to a far reaching consequences. The rot begins at the head and now it has reached the bottom. The Crime Minister’s remarks that the incident involves lower down officers is testimony that the cycle is complete.

Now the Crime Minister lamented that he did not intent to cover up the story did not mean that the case would be fully investigated. If a father steals how can he teaches his kids to abide by the rule! Of course he could not cover this anymore since the whole world knew of this misdeed! Also, this was also a perfect excuse to get the masses to forget the bigger sin the he committed. When people focussed on another new fire being lit, the bigger fire blazing the sky is just a flicker in the distance.

So to all Malaysian citizens the world over, do not just let this event goes by and be just another irrelevant incident in our lives. Vote these bastards out for good! Cheers and God bless you, as David Coverdale used to say out loud.