Is God punishing us?

Don't the disasters we've had to face feel like warning signs, much like the signs sent to Egypt in ancient times?

COMMENT

My colleague Scott has waxed poetic about Najib being a jinxed prime minister, and I have to say that there is a ring of truth in that. We may be blaming the nude tourists for the earthquake in Sabah, but in the grand scheme of things it appears to just be another routine disaster happening while Najib is in office. Of course, he didn’t engineer the earthquake, but in the mind of the superstitious, the disaster strengthens the argument that Najib is jinxed.

But is it just superstition? We have lost not one, but three airplanes and we’ve had to face severe floods, kidnappings, invasions and what not. So, I’m going to take a little leaf out of the Muslim fundamentalist playbook today to ask whether these aren’t signs that God is displeased with us. We do have a belief that God will punish a nation for tolerating an evil ruler.

There is an old Malay saying to the effect that a despotic king is a king to be defied. We have tolerated the corruption, the blatant bribery during elections, the financial chicanery with 1MDB and the outright cash grab of the GST, even as we observe Najib and his family living an outrageously glamorous life that appears to be beyond his means. We believed that he and his party would always stand for our rights, but it turns out it protects only its own as it looks for new ways to separate the rakyat from the contents of their wallets.

There is no obligation to follow a degenerate, ineffective leader who has pushed the rakyat so far that no one can honestly support him in good faith. We need to push for people with merit over those who feel that their dynasty promises them a place of power. We have to elect only those who have fulfilled their duties as our representatives and leaders. To quote Umno members themselves, “God will punish us for allowing evil to prosper among our leaders.”

Allah in his infinite wisdom sent Moses seven signs in Egypt, warning the righteous to flee before He sent his punishment down. If we were to take matters of faith in all seriousness, then doesn’t Malaysia’s series of tragedies feel like a warning sign? If not, what else does it take to make us open our eyes?

I do not write this lightly. Many will say that this is an example of manipulating the tenets of faith to suit a message, much like the fundamentalists have twisted that which is holy into perverse parodies of the faith like The Islamic State.

But the signs are there. How we choose to read them is our choice. But one thing remains certain. Disasters, whether political or financial, will continue to beset us as long as the Najib administration remains. And that is the clearest sign that Najib must go.