Acting for the greater good would have mandated that those involved in 1MDB need to unveil the smokescreen put up by those who have defrauded our nation, write Mt Elvira.
“The greater good” is a concept that I believe is alien to MO1, the other culprits and all those involved in the cover-up of the 1MDB scandal.
Make no mistake about it, each and every one of those officers involved in the 1MDB scandal cover-up are as guilty as those who siphoned off the money directly from our country.
They can’t see the wood for the trees. Nor do they realise that the greater good would have mandated that they unveil the smokescreen put up by those who have defrauded our nation. Or, perhaps, more in tune with reality, they were too happy feeding on the ‘dedak’ fed by MO1 to be bothered!
“I may not like it but I just follow orders” – so says a character in the show, Spooks: The Greater Good. Blind obedience to authority. That is also the training drilled into the personnel of the security forces.
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Herein lies the advantage of the one who controls the security forces of the nation. Blind loyalty and obedience to orders from the chain of command have been conditioned into the rank and file.
So, the question that is lurking in the minds of those working for change is whether the change that we hope will come about via the ballot box will be thwarted by the evil design of those who may be unwilling to accept their defeat, should it happen in the coming general election.
If the security apparatus of our country is under absolute command, will the rank and file of our security forces look at the greater good or fall back on the easy path of just following orders?
In the show, Harry Pearce, the disgraced head of the counter-terrorism unit MI5, is portrayed as being motivated by the principle of acting for the greater good. He is willing to cut deals with a terrorist leader to prevent a planned attacked at Oxford Circus that could kill hundreds.
But it comes at a cost: several MI5 operatives are killed when the terrorists are able to infiltrate MI5 headquarters because of Harry’s deal, even though the forces of good finally prevail.
Kit Harrington’s character in the show asks Harry who give him the right to decide if deaths in an operation are acceptable.
Harry counters with an eloquent “That’s my job!”
Do the two individuals appointed controversially to two top posts in our judiciary have the greater good in mind? To all thinking rakyat, their verdicts from now on will all the more be viewed with suspicion. Of course, since the ex-dictator’s attack on our judiciary in 1988, there has not been much of an independent and neutral judiciary in our country to speak of.
The very fact that MO1 has chosen this move can only mean he has questionable motives. Even a professional body like our Bar Council, which has to work closely with these judges, has publicly disputed the basis for the appointments of these two judges.
Will the Umnoputras be able to turn around and claim that their actions are indeed for the greater good? But, for thinking persons with any moral fibre in them, any such claims will ring hollow and shameful.
Imagine the amount of development projects that could have been completed for the Rakyat’s benefits if those billions of ringgit siphoned off overseas to buy property, jewellery and artwork had been used properly. This test alone will render baseless any claim of acting for the greater good.
Mt Elvira is the pseudonym of a regular reader of Aliran.
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