November Blues and Confucius

By Wong Chen

November has been a difficult month in many respects.

On a personal level, the recent continuous rains have caused a landslide on my father’s house and the family clan house in United Gardens, Kuala Lumpur. His garden areas have disappeared together with the collapsed public retention wall and the houses are also in danger of collapse too.

My father, who is in his early 80s has taken this shock rather hard, as expected. We hope the rains will stop soon to allow works to be done to rebuild the collapsed public retention wall. This collapsed rubble retention wall was 60 years old. The landslide has also impacted some 100 homes and families too, in the adjacent low-cost flats. These worries are shared and in consoling my father, my thoughts and prayers go out to the others affected too.

On the political front, it has been a gruelling month of non-stop Parliament sitting. Malaysian Parliament must reform itself to a more normal schedule; it should sit 100 days but spaced out on a regular basis instead of cramping days upon days into three blocks of sittings. I have been saying this for as long as I have been an MP, which is now coming to the end of my thirteenth year.

This current sitting started on 6th October and will end on 4th December; it is too long and of late, clearly unproductive as many MPs are absent to campaign in the Sabah elections.

On the Sabah elections, I have decided not to campaign at all. I was assigned to help a seat with a colourful candidate pursuing a very different campaign strategy than what I am used to. I don’t want to talk more about it other than to wish all Sabahans to choose leaders who are righteous, trustworthy and wise; which brings up the subject matter of Confucius teachings.

I have been spending a bit of time teaching my teenage son, Confucius ethics. It is hard to be a teenager, being bombarded by social media and whatnots. It is also harder to define appropriate masculine behaviour, compared to when I was a teenager. It is my duty to be his friend and mentor and I thought we best start with a discourse on Confucius. I am not sure how much he has absorbed from our chats, but he has showed a keenness to learn.

On the surface, Confucius, as a social philosophy, teaches us how society and families should conduct and behave, rooted on filial piety and righteousness. However, in greater depth, it is really a manual for leadership; benevolence, righteousness, ritual, wisdom and trustworthiness. My dear constituents, I am afraid that in Malaysia, we are politically short on all five fronts.

I started this short article stating that this November has been challenging on multiple fronts. It has. The America-Malaysia Reciprocal Trade Deal is one such challenge, that if ratified by the Madani Government, will have severe repercussions to our long-standing foreign policy and our international trade policy. I am opposed to it and I have said so publicly, discharging my duty as an MP to air my views without fear or favour. If the government ratifies this signed agreement, it will change our long and wise policy of neutrality and ASEAN centrality.

As the November draws to a close, we were then rocked by allegations of serious wrong doings, whereby the senior political secretary of the Prime Minister had to tender his resignation. The Prime Minister accepted his resignation and has since ordered the MACC to investigate the allegations of corruption and abuse of powers.

My position is clear; corruption is the root of all evil in Malaysia and we have to stamp it out. It does not matter what happens to me, politically speaking. I took an oath to defend the Constitution and Malaysia.

For my Subang constituents, I will continue to try my very best to live up to your political expectations. As for my son, I too will strive to live up to the Confucius ethics that I am trying to impart to him.