Calm Like A Bomb

by AW

While Malaysians are currently preoccupied with all things political , the rest of the world is going through one crisis after another. First it was the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, then soaring oil and commodity prices followed by food shortages, and now the starting of a US financial meltdown.

Note: At the time of writing, I just received the news that another political ideology in the form of "Ketuanan Telur" is now emerging. A police report has been lodged by the UMNO Youth of Seputeh Division against Teresa Kok for her comment that the egg served to her during her ISA detention is fit for dogs.
The author foresees that some Malaysians may soon be waving the keris on one hand and holding the egg on the other while shouting the words "Hidup Telur!".

Now back to my intended subject.

As I mentioned in my August article titled "My Economic Perspective", this decade is cursed with 9/11 attacks, terrorisms, wars, global warming, draughts, floods, haze, bush fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, SARS, bird-flu, energy crisis, food crisis, dollar crisis, commodities depletion, over-population, you name it.

I fear we are only at the tip of the iceberg. Among all the crises I mentioned above, SARS is probably the only one to have been fully wiped out. But this is not to say that another similar epidemic would not happen. In fact, scientists are not entirely ruling out an epidemic the scale of the black plague occurring sometime in the near future.

But such a pandemic is the least of our concerns right now. Malaysians are “talking, eating and sleeping” local politics over the last few months. And most, including the nation’s leaders, are turning a blind eye to the latest world economic problems.

Note: I've just received an sms saying that UMNO is now shamelessly using the "egg issue" to divert attention from public outcry against the recent ISA arrests and subsequent calls to abolish it. Now this certainly reminds me of the deceptions I wrote about in my recent article "Anwar vs Abdullah in Malaysia's Casino Royale".

Back again to my intended subject.

I believe the world economy is experiencing the beginning of the biggest financial meltdown of our generation. The purpose of this article is not to elaborate on the anticipated meltdown, but rather to express a genuine concern over our lack of effort to prepare for that eventuality.

Maybe Malaysians have great hopes that everything will turn out fine. Or maybe we are just plain ignorant. Hopefully, this article is nothing but another false alarm on doomsday scenario. In that instance, I would be so happy to be proven wrong. But what if, I’m not wrong? What if, what we are experiencing now is only the "calm before the storm"?