I was in KL on Friday and Saturday for a meeting and was fortunate enough to be put up in a five star hotel whilst there. The haze situation in KL was worst than in Kuching and I had been wondering and trying to figure out why our leaders are not making as a big hue and cry (if any at all) about the situation as they should be; given the gravity of the situation of the health risks and price we are paying year in and out with this deplorable situation.
Could it be the religious hypocrisy of not criticizing one’s fellow Muslim ‘brothers’ (and others are not?) and the corruption of vested oil palms plantations interests of the few; to the sheer apathy and loss of values of humanity were some of the negative thoughts that came to mind.
But being put up in a fine five stars hotel and pampered by the fine surroundings, service and ambience slowly brought on another realization that our leaders and those at the top are so luxuriously and comfortably insulated from the grind and grime of daily life that they feel that they are NOT affected at all by the haze situation! There are no problems! Problems? What problems?
How could they and neither could I when I was so comforted and pampered by this cocooned life insulated from all the discomforts and tedium of daily life. And I was there for all of 2 days only! And our leaders had been in power for years living in and being insulated in such similar comfortable cocoon for years and years and years. Ad nausea. And I also became conscious of the fact on the high energy costs and the resources it had taken to build, run and to maintain such a place to pamper to those who can afford such luxuries as a daily fact of life while the majority have to slough just to get through life. So what’s is new? And why we just accept and seldom think about and question what happens around us.
This luxury is easy to get used to but are the seeking of pleasures our sole purpose in life? It must be to a lot of people given that two of these towering hotels were built side by side albeit with different names. And there I was looking at the situation of the worsening surrounding haze and these two majestic towers symbolising luxury, priviledge, power, pleasures and the all the fine materials things that money can buy you in this life.
And is it funny that I should wonder what’s worst?
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Your leaders like to practise what I call ’selective outrage’. When Spore was reclaiming land in Pulau Tekong, they kicked up such a fuss about how we are polluting your waters etc etc. In the case of Abang .. not a whimper.
Wow.. the haze reminds me to my way home from office yesterday. I sat on the bajaj, very bad traffic jam, so beside my bajaj were other bajajs, motorbike, buses and cars.. we were stuck for almost 1.5 hours (no traffic only take 20 min.), and the whole trip.. I was inhaling the “haze” - air polution from the vehicles…
It is still bad in KL, despite the rain relief recently. I hope it’s getting better in Sarawak. You were at Hilton KL? Or Le Meridian? Then again, they are at the same spot.
Oh, btw, I love the picture of tenacity in your Saturday post. What a delightful setting. The colors and fine details, very deep. The rocks seemed precisely cut geometrically, creating a setting of ancient ruins. There’s indeed something new during every visit to Sungai Sarawak kanan. Oh, not forgetting the secret waterfall.
The system are so corrupted there is no way to do an honest investigation to those in power.
Someone said the key to any healthy goverment is a free speech and free press. Of course with free speech and press you will get
a bunch of annoying idiots, dimwits exercising free speech but that beat any spins those politicians.
Every once in a while a nation’s people get so fed up with leaders that are insulated from and unaware of everyday life in reality that they rebel and elect a “people’s man”, like Ahmadinejad of Iran or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Of course, sometimes they end up with something worse than they started out with…
From the last picture I guess that either they had to have big balls to build that hotel or else someone lost their marbles.
Moody is right. Those people should be happy with the governments that the USA appoints for them.