Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 23 March 2015 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or are a lot of people being arrested for political things these days?
A-Political

For many, the belief was that things would go back to normal after Anwar Ibrahim was sent back to prison. Surely things would go quiet again like in the good old days. Well, it hasn’t really turned out that way. Recently, his daughter was arrested and held overnight in a police lock-up. The apparent reason for her arrest was because of something she said in Parliament, but the charge might be evolving. I always thought there was a thing called “Parliamentary privilege” where an MP can say anything inside Parliament without fear of prosecution, and that a Parliamentary committee oversees the use or abuse of this privilege, and not the police. That’s basically how it works in Westminster, but obviously not here. Apparently, the amazingly useful sedition thing even covers Parliamentary privilege. I naively assumed that Parliament was the one place where a Malaysian could speak out freely, but now maybe not. Oh well.

Dear Kam,
I was doing some online shopping the other day. I was about to buy an obscure book when I, er, accidentally bought myself an ocean-going yacht. That’s the fifth time I’ve done that. Do you think I have a shopping addiction?
Shopaholic

Shopping addiction is a genuine psychological problem that deserves our understanding. A friend of mine has a sister who is a shopping addict (they’re not from Malaysia so they’ll never know I’m talking about them). The siblings were not very close but one night, the sister had a complete psychological breakdown and was found wandering the streets and she had to go to a hospital. My friend went to her apartment to get her some clothes. When he tried to open the front door he found it was jammed. He pushed hard and eventually got inside only to discover that her entire apartment was filled with unopened shopping bags, mostly expensive clothes. The bags were stacked on top of each other to the height of her bed. She’s relatively wealthy and her father was endlessly forgiving so she could afford to keep buying but it seems nonsensical to keep buying clothes that she would never wear.

Her shopping addiction made no sense to me until I had a conversation with an advertising man about brands. He is an advertising man and he might have an elevated impression of what his craft can achieve but he believes that brands have taken the place of families and peer groups. Where once a trusted friend or family member would have told us what makes us look good, now the brands fill that void. Brands tell us, you look good in that, this will make you happy, this will make you more the person you want to be. The promise and excitement only goes up to the moment of purchase, after that you return to the real world, to the self-loathing and to the shame. My friend’s sister did not even open the bags and chose instead to surround herself with constant reminders of her original shame in her apartment that nobody was ever allowed to see. And the only way to gain relief from the shame was to buy something else.

My friend’s sister is only relatively wealthy. What financial and emotional damage can be done if you have access to an unending supply of money? Ultimately, there is not enough money in the world to feed a voracious and untreated shopping addiction. The unhappiness follows you as you leave every shop.

Dear Kam,
My son wants to become a professional magician. I tell him to study law because it’s like magic. I thought that was funny, and then he pulled a coin from behind my ear. How does he do that?
Confused Mum

R D Laing was a famous psychiatrist and he told a story about one of his patients. The patient was a woman who returned home early one day and found her husband in bed with another woman. Obviously, she was shocked, and obviously, she accused her husband of being very obviously unfaithful with another woman. But he said, “This isn’t a woman, it’s a waterfall.” It had been shocking enough to find her husband in bed with another woman and now she was stunned to be told that what she thought she was looking at was not what she was looking at. It wasn’t a woman, it was a waterfall. Everything about her life was wrapped up with this man; her home, her children, her past and her future. Now she could see that her whole life was suddenly destroyed because he was in their bed with another woman. He was a liar, their whole marriage had been a lie. But what if it was a waterfall? What if her husband was telling the truth? Then her life could carry on as normal with all its birthdays, holidays and mortgage payments. If he was telling the truth, then everything would be fine. Maybe it was a waterfall, but it looked like a woman and yet it must be a waterfall. Because she wanted to save her safe world from destruction, part of her wanted to believe that she was looking at a waterfall, but if a woman is a waterfall then what is a waterfall, what is a woman, what is a table, what is Tuesday? And then the wife went mad and became a patient of R D Laing.

I often think of this story when I’m reading the Malaysian news. I feel like I’m being told something is a waterfall when I know it is not. There was a time when I did believe it was a waterfall because I wanted to believe. If I was being told the truth, then everything would be fine and I could trust. That feels like a very long time ago.

Reprinted with the kind permission of