Written by Dr Lim Teck Ghee Saturday, fourteen Jan 2012 14:50
Commentary
Recently a New Straits Times ran a front page essay upon brazen bootlegging during a borders with Thailand as well as Indonesia.
In its report, an NST team which joined multiform Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission covert notice operations found which agencies tasked with foiling bootlegging attempts were shutting an eye to a transformation of price-controlled products by foreigners as well as Malaysians.
According to a paper's report, this is costing a supervision hundreds of millions of ringgit annually. Goods smuggled ranged from diesel, petrol, liquefied petroleum gas, sugar, in progress oil as well as flour.
The 'expose' was followed by an additional front page essay a subsequent day with a screaming headline 'For RM10, smugglers can breeze in as well as out' (Jan 3, 2012) as well as a sub-headline 'Corruption is rampant between law enforcers during limit checkpoints'.
There has been no reply yet from a al! oft auth orities to these sensational reports. But if a NST editors have been expecting Malaysians to pat them upon a behind for being a crusading paper, they have been hopelessly wrong.
Let me yield an additional indicate of view.
What is NST's genuine agenda?
Highly placed officials as well as politicians have confided to me which a NST is getting out of control by running these articles which have been distributed to move a supervision agencies as well as tip coronet in to disrepute.
Their job should be to focus upon bringing down Anwar Ibrahim as well as a Pakatan opposition parties, not to entice courtesy to minor as well as trivial issues.
I entirely agree. In addition, you have to indicate out which what a NST has described as bootlegging is technically correct though a perspective taken from a biased perspective. A more holistic political economy proceed is indispensable to insist a wake up prior to jumping to rash conclusions.
What you have been saying during a limit can be characterized as an instrumentation of a prolonged determined as well as normal people-to-people economic exchange, though a repressive palm of a state to remove duties as well as taxes.
According to a American amicable scientist, James Scott whose acclaimed book, Weapons of a Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, incidentally, was formed upon work in a Muda area of Kedah - "the Brechtian or Schweikian forms of insurgency have been an integral partial of a small arsenal of comparatively powerless groups."
The said forms of resistance embody such acts as foot-dragging, dissimulations, false compliance, pretentious ignorance, desertion, pilfering, smuggling, poaching as well as so on. "These techniques, for a many partial quite prosaic, have been a ordinary means of class struggle. They have been a techniques of 'first resort' i! n those usual historical circumstances in which open rebuttal is impossible or entails mortal danger."
These supposed 'smugglers'are in actuality receiving a large risk of breaking a law to promote a exchange. Rather than being condemned, they should be congratulated for helping reduce a price of living for those residing during a border.
As to a damage to a Malaysian economy, let's have a more enlightened view.
Many of a beneficiaries have been a Muslim brothers as well as sisters living upon a alternative side of colonial borders arbitrarily imposed upon us. If a British, French as well as Dutch had not concocted their nefarious rupturing up of a region, you might be living with those now upon a alternative side of a limit as a single large happy family.
Now which colonialism has come as well as gone, if you can assistance a Thai as well as Indonesian family have entrance to cheaper goods, why not? Can you not close a single eye, generally as these have been poorer folk than us? Why begrudge a Narathiwat as well as Pattani or north Kalimantan family generally when they have been already feeling a hardship of their own central government?
If you close both eyes to this activity, Malaysians will not usually be seen as free neighbours though you can additionally proudly explain to be you do more than a satisfactory share for a usual Asean good.
Beating up a customs
The NST articles additionally went to good lengths to beat up a Jabatan Kastam Diraja officers. Come on.This is not usually unpatriotic though additionally unfair. These customs officers embrace usually a couple of ringgit of duit kopi for station in a sun a whole day to assistance promote this exchange.
Let's additionally not dont think about which these same officers additionally promote a poor liquid of fragrant beras Siam, fruits as well as alternative Thai commodities in to a nation though carrying a taxman remove his pound of flesh, as well as carr! ying a M inistry of Defence suitable a revenue to buy Scorpene submarines.
Without them, you will not be enjoying a nasi lemak special during discount prices. So let's appreciate these men in brownish-red who have to put in prolonged hours during removed as well as faraway limit outposts protecting a national security. Let's not carp about a couple of hundred ringgit additional taken home which comes with their job.
Yet an additional perspective
According to a single friend, you as well as my highly placed Barisan as well as civil servant colleagues have longed for a complete indicate of a NST exercise. This is because a dual articles have been a smokescreen to distract readers' courtesy away from a large-scale bribery as well as looting of a country's resources which is receiving place.
According to him, huge sums of money amounting to millions as well as billions of ringgit not a insignificant sums referred to in a NST essay sell hands. These immeasurable sums have been not slipped covertly hidden between customs writings in a scorching feverishness during god-forsaken spots though openly in cool air-conditioned coffee houses as well as hotels in Kuala Lumpur or outside a nation during some luxurious resort.
Mainstream media have never highlighted these scandals as well as never will. But they have been creation up for this disaster to live up to Clark Kent inquisitive journalism by starting after a ikan bilis as well as creation readers think which a NST is unequivocally a 'people's paper'.
The crony who believes you longed for a indicate of NST's practice done a final deflating retort which my academic credentials has led me to over-intellectualize a bootlegging wake up as well as to overlook a many important reason for a dual articles. On serve thought, he might be right.
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