Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 8 June 2015 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or do we Malaysians not trust young people?
Trusting Parent

Six young people died at the Future Music Festival Asia concert held in Bukit Jalil in March last year. We were immediately sold the story by the police and the media that these young people had died because of drug overdoses. Typical youths, it seemed, simply can’t be trusted — they are a danger to themselves, they must be kept under proper control. In the light of these drug overdoses, it seemed only right and proper to shut down the event and to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for similar events to be held ever again. In April this year, a very large corporate-sponsored music event was cancelled at the last minute. Why? Does it matter what excuse was used? The fact is that young people cannot be trusted and the last-minute cancellation of an expensive event should hopefully send the message to concert promoters that holding an event in Malaysia is a financially hazardous proposition. Hopefully now, young people will just study and/or pray.

And yet now, it seems that the six tragic deaths were not because of drug overdoses after all. A post-mortem conducted by University Malaya Medical Centre’s forensic pathology department found that the cause of death was dehydration. Young people cannot be trusted to drink enough water, but it’s hard to do that when the event is selling small bottles of water for RM10. Young people also don’t have much money. In our heat and at a crowded event with lots of dancing and jumping lasting several hours, a young person would probably need to drink at least RM100 worth of water.

This is a developing story but our IGP still appears to insist that drugs played a role. “From what I read,” The Malaysian Insider reports him as saying, “those who use meth as a stimulant [can have] the energy to dance, jump … that’s why they could dance from 10am until 1am.” The IGP knows a lot about youth culture because he uses Twitter, but this still sounds like the words of an old person. All sorts of superpowers are ascribed to drugs, from the ability to dance all night to having the deadly strength of 10 men, but as everyone knows, only an overdose of gamma radiation can turn you into the Incredible Hulk. Actually, the superpower you need to be able to dance and jump all night is called being young. But even the young need enough water.

Why do we distrust young people so much? Why do we feel the need to control them and take away their fun? Young people have lots of energy and are easily bored and KL must be a really boring place to be young. Every inch of KL is corporatised — you need to pay somebody money to be able to sit anywhere. Young people cannot simply hang out without raising suspicion. I read a report that youths have been loitering outside KLCC. Businesses are complaining and civilians feel threatened. I went down to KLCC and I couldn’t find these feral youths but I did find a police marching band playing in the drizzle. Thank goodness, the police have reclaimed the streets, again. Hopefully now, the youths will just study and/or pray. There is a saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” And we want armies of dull boys and girls.

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or are we finally seeing the end of a corrupt organisation?
Fifi

Police investigations have finally forced the resignation of the corrupt leader of a corrupt organisation that acts as a parasite on something I love. Hooray! Obviously I’m talking about Sepp Blatter and Fifa. What else could I be talking about?

For the longest time, if aliens had landed on earth and demanded, “Take me to your leader”, they would probably have been led to Sepp Blatter. But after 17 years in charge of football’s governing body, Sepp Blatter has resigned, just days after his re-election for a fifth term. Disclosures about a US$10 million bribe have forced the issue, but US$10 million is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Obviously, the money was not called something as obvious as a bribe. It would have been called something much more benign. Let’s just call it “units”. In addition to these units, the downfall has also been precipitated by a luxury apartment in New York.

Fifa is under two investigations. One is by Switzerland where Fifa has its headquarters. We can probably dismiss that investigation as worthless. But the other is by the FBI. I’m pinning my hopes on this one yielding results because the Americans really don’t care about football. I mean, they call it baseball. Or something like that.

The FBI has cornered the ex-head of the US football authority and has turned him into their key witness. This man brought suspicion onto himself through his extravagant lifestyle. Apparently, he had an extremely expensive New York apartment just for his cats. Who would be stupid enough to buy an expensive apartment in New York when they obviously cannot afford it without suspicious money?

Fifa is nothing but a parasite on football. Millions of people love football and football makes a lot of money. Fifa controls the biggest single money spinning aspect — the World Cup. We all have to go through Fifa to experience the World Cup, and that’s when they take their cut. The sooner Fifa is brought down, the better.

But Sepp Blatter and his friends at Fifa would probably have gotten away with it forever if they had not given the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Everything about Qatar 2022 may be financially legitimate and above board, but as a fan of football, it makes me livid. Qatar is more famous for having the world’s largest natural gas reserves than for its football heritage. And it’s also quite well known for its summer heat. The World Cup is always played in Europe’s summer months but the summer heat in Qatar is so extreme that a match result of 2-0 would probably not denote how many goals were scored but how many players had died. So now, there is talk of the World Cup being played in the winter months, which was never part of the original proposal. And there is the issue of how many workers have died building the stadiums in Qatar’s heat. It’s over 1,000 dead already and it looks set to rise. A famous football manager once said, “Football isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.” He was wrong. It’s just a game and it is not supposed to cost lives. I feel like the 2022 World Cup has been taken away from me.

But today I am happy. Sepp Blatter has resigned and looks set to be indicted in the US investigation. Vladimir Putin has asked the perhaps legitimate question of why the US thinks it can be the world’s judge, but Putin is not exactly Mahatma Gandhi. Right now, we might be seeing the beginning of the end of a corrupt organisation. Excellent.

Reprinted with the kind permission of