Letter to editor
IN Sarawak, everyone is related to each other. It is not surprising that one may be a police and the other is a thief, but both are related to each other through either blood ties or marriage. Likewise, people living in a small town like Kepala Batas are also relatives of each other.
When you meet one of them, they would immediately introduce, “This is my cousin from my Pak Long’s first marriage. The one next to him is my Pak Ngah’s fourth marriage.”
This is what PAS Kepala Batas MP Dr Siti Mastura Muhammad fails to understand how humans began to multiply since the first couple, Adam and Eve.
It is often interesting that when a family initiates a family tree on genealogy websites such as geni.com, people begin to realise that they are related to each other either through birth or marriage.
Surely Siti Mastura knows this but for whatever reason she is linking Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng to people like Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham, Nga Kor Ming or even two dead persons such as Chin Peng (chairman of the now defunct Communist Party of Malaya) and the late Lee Kuan Yew is anyone’s guess.
She may claim a slip of tongue pronouncing the former Singapore premier’s family name (she identified Kuan Yew as a “Lim”) but netizens are already abuzz lambasting her naivety.
Guan Eng should be very proud to discover that he has the gene of the fighter spirit in both Kuan Yew and Chin Peng. But that does not make Guan Eng a communist or a Singaporean, unless Siti Mastura with her thwarted logics attempt to link the three of them together and come out with a conspiracy theory.
A few questions most people would ask Siti Mastura are:
- What is the conspiracy theory that the PAS president has up his sleeve?
- Does Siti Mastura – like her Kapar comrade Dr Halimah Ali – has nothing to do that they have to raise inconceivable issues in the august house?
- What is the problem with PAS MPs? Why can’t their fellow colleagues advise them that such questions should not be raised in parliament as it would incur the wrath of those who are reading the news?
- Or do Siti Mastura and Dr Halimah represent the kind of quality that can be found in PAS?
Answer to Q1: Relationship between two persons does not mean anything at all. Most people have somewhere along their ancestry a bandit, a pirate, a thief or perhaps even someone with genetic mental disorder to the point that they easily become suspicious of anything and can hardly think straight anymore.
This is perhaps why some of our lawmakers are exhibiting some of these traits that they could have inherited from their ancestors.
While genetic mental disorder can be passed on through the genes, what a person did in the past cannot be passed on. A doctor, for example, will not give birth to many generations of doctors.
Henceforth, Chin Peng – despite having some form of relations with Ah Chong, Ah Kok and Ali – does not necessarily produce siblings, children or relatives who are communists just because Chin Peng was the chairman of CPM.
Answer to Q2: Siti Mastura should make full use of her time to think of solutions to solve the problems in the country. For example, if there was a lack of supply of local white rice (PBT), what should the government do to ensure there is ample supply? By contributing positive ideas, at least people know that PAS can be a good administrator.
Answer to Q3: Perhaps, the reason why PAS is not everyone’s favourite is because they have never produced quality lawmakers that can be admired by Malaysians. A case in point (us) Segambut MP and Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh who has received praises from the His Royal Highness the Tengku Mahkota Johor (TMJ) Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim.
Answer to Q4: If both Siti Mastura and Dr Halimah have never received any commendation from Tunku Ismail, perhaps it is time for PAS to do some soul searching. Why is the party still living in the 1960s where technology was not advanced and the pace of life was slow?
This is the reason why no one takes PAS seriously. PAS has itself to blame for producing lawmakers with shallow knowledge to fill the bench. One dreads to think what the country will be like if a PAS lawmaker is chosen to be the next Prime Minister. – Nov 10, 2023
Jamie Gan
Miri
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main photo credit: UbahTV
