Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 30 June 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
ISIL. My question is simple. What?!
Enlighten Me

For me, the World Cup has been a welcome distraction from the increasing awfulness of Malaysian politics. The beauty of going on holiday overseas is that it gives an opportunity to forget all the nonsense, forget all the stupid faces saying stupid things and forget for a short time the idiots who are treating the future of Malaysia as if it is some sort of game, some sort of unbreakable toy, desperately jabbing the self-destruct button. I’m not overseas but I’ve been trying to use the World Cup as an excuse for an internal four-week holiday. But stuff keeps getting through my filter. Recently, our prime minister said that Umno members should emulate ISIL (more commonly known as ISIS). Er, What? A prime minister said that? Our prime minister said that? Is that statesmanlike language?

The PM was talking at an Umno branch meeting and to be fair, the ISIL reference was probably just a passing comment. Mostly, he talked about the need for Umno members to be guided by what he calls the six principles of the “Malay warrior spirit”. The six principles included strategic wisdom, courage and sincerity. I’ll just say that again: strategic wisdom, courage and sincerity. Oh, and ISIL are sort of amazing. Obviously, independent news media jumped onto the ISIL reference and forgot the rest, but that is what they do. They are looking for eyeballs and headlines, and the PM handed it to them on a plate. The time has long since passed when a politician could say one thing to one community and a completely different thing to another. I don’t think for one moment that the PM is actually a fan of ISIL, but I also don’t understand why he mentioned them. What is the strategic wisdom?

It has just been reported that about a dozen young Malaysians were killed in Syria while fighting with ISIL, so clearly some Malaysians think ISIL are good people. Personally, I think they are murderous and cruel. I was shocked to see ISIL members massacre Iraqi soldiers and then gloat about killing Shiites. Maybe I’m a slave to Western propaganda that is only willing to show ISIL’s cruelty while ignoring the great work they do for charity. I really don’t think so. Suggesting anybody emulates ISIL is very dangerous talk. Meanwhile, the theme for this year’s Merdeka celebration will be “Malaysia Where Love grows.” Er, OK.

Dear Kam,
Luis Suarez. My question is simple. What?!
Manic Footballer

Is it possible to admire somebody even if you despise him? Luis Suarez is a magnificent footballer. He’s a prolific goal scorer. I admire him for that. But he bites people. I mean, he literally bites people. His team, Uruguay, have just won a famous victory over mighty Italy and therefore qualified for the next stage of the World Cup. Luis Suarez had a knee operation only four weeks ago and yet he came back to be the key to victory. Unfortunately, in the match against Italy, he bit an Italian player called Chiellini. Somebody said on Twitter, “You can’t blame Suarez for biting Chiellini because he sounds delicious.”

Some of you may not know much about the rules of football, but the rules clearly state, “Thou shalt not eat the opposition.” And yet this is the third time Suarez has bitten an opposing player during his football career. He plays his club football for Liverpool where he is revered because he scored about 100 goals last season, so they will always forgive him. I think that biting people is an absolutely despicable thing to do, but can I still admire him as a footballer?

In this instance, I cannot. I cannot say that whether we agree or not is another matter. Football is a game with rules and there are certain expectations for how a player must behave. It simply cannot function if a player, even one as brilliant as Suarez, goes around biting people. He must be banned for a long time. I cannot forgive the method because of the madness. And yet I easily forgave Eric Cantona for his notorious kungfu kick. I mean, all he did was jump into the crowd feet first. It’s not like he invaded Iraq and massacred people.

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or are the Kardashians the only thing on TV these days?
Not a Fan

It is very important to me that I do keep up with the Kardashians. Whether we agree with them or not is another matter, but we should emulate their ability to make lots of money despite being astonishingly ignorant. I’m always watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians” (or as we old-timers used to call it, “television”) and I’ve been making notes on the fabulous sisters: Larry, Curly and Moe. The main thing I’ve learnt is that it’s important to show lots of cleavage. Consequently, I have probably been showing off a bit too much cleavage recently, but heck, if you’ve got it, flaunt it. Am I right, guys? High five. Etc.

On very rare occasions, the Kardashians are not on the Kardashianvision so I end up watching Ancient Aliens. This show suggests that earth was visited by aliens in the deep past and that aliens invented such ancient wonders as the pyramids, Machu Picchu and Ampang Park.

Ancient Aliens is full of complete racist nonsense. It assumes that ancient Egyptians were simply not capable of building the pyramids themselves and they must have had outside help. But it feeds the growing community of people who don’t believe anything that anyone says anymore. They don’t believe governments and they don’t believe the media, unless it’s Putin and the Russian media. The equation is that if Western media is all lies and Putin’s media says the opposite, then Putin must be right.

A constantly recurring theme in ancient alien conspiracy theory stuff is that governments know more than they are telling. They mean the US government primarily. Surely with the huge surveillance apparatus, they must know everything? Nobody saw 9/11 coming, but they must have done. Therefore it must have been staged.

My feeling is that big organisations are barely managed chaos. Incompetence, boredom and self-rewarding are more likely than efficiency and professional zeal. Conspiracy theorists profess to be anti-government, but actually, they are unquestioningly pro-government. They imagine that government machinery is so efficient that it could hide proof of an alien visitation when in reality, the US government couldn’t even make a functioning website for Obamacare.

Government likes to give the impression it knows everything and that it is run by slick Hollywood-style men in black. More likely, they’re just trying to keep up with the Kardashians like the rest of us.

Reprinted with the kind permission of