Do you feel elated this 50th Merdeka?

Consider the following series of news.

Pak Lah after hemming and hawing claimed that Malaysia is neither a secular nor a theocratic state. This after his dear old deputy claimed that Malaysia has never been a secular state, but an Islamic state. Yesterday in Parliament, in a written reply to Kit Siang's question, he changed tack and declared that Malaysia is a "negara Islam" (debateable if he meant Islamic state or Islamic country...perhaps he is just being intentionally vague, as usual), ruled base on Islam Hadhari (whatever that is). Not only that, he keep self-praising his Islam Hadhari saying

"Islam Hadhari is a guideline for the government to be fair and equitable to all communities in the country"

Yeah right, fair to the Klang Untouchables perhaps.

Also, as expected, Kit Siang's attempt to force an open discussion of the RM4.6bil bailout (the largest in Malaysian history) fiasco of Port Klang Free Zone in Parliament has been stalled by the Speaker. Kit has spoken to Capt. Yusof Ahmad (Ancient Mariner), an ex-PKA staff who has served his entire career with the port authority and has blogged plenty on this mega-nonsense, to get better information in preparation for the debate which never happened. Ramli Ngah Talib, the speaker of the house, claimed that since the government is looking into the matter, there is no need for the august house to discuss the matter. Yeah, right, looking into the matter of covering the whole matter up, giving a RM4.6bil "soft loan", and letting the perpetrators get off scot free (and obscenely rich).

And what about the unintentional spill-out made by newly minted Ijok assemblyman K. Parthiban? In an interview with Malaysiakini, he inadvertently mentioned that Selangor BN assemblyperson like himself get some RM2mil of annual allocation for "development" purposes. Wow! There are 54 BN state assemblyperson in Selangor, and that comes up to RM108mil annually, just for them to spend, entirely within their own discretion, with no way for anyone to check on their expenditure because DAP assemblyman for Sg. Pinang Teng Chang Kim says that money is not listed in the state budget. I wonder where the money comes from, and this is the fairness of Islam Hadhari of Pak Lah? Sg. Pinang and Sekinchan residents are lesser Selangorians so they don't need the RM2mil discretionary development fund?

Yesterday morning MTUC members gathered at Parliament to hand a letter of protest against the amendments to the Industrial Relations Act, scheduled to be the first bill to be debated. According to Liz Wong, what happened next is nothing short of disgraceful. One of the secretaries fo the Backbenchers Club came out to inform the unionists that they should come back some other day because the amendments to the above Act will only be tabled for discussion later because the Supply Bill (Additional) is to be debated first. And lo and behold, the first bill to be debated that afternoon was the Industrial Relations Act. This is what you call a government with integrity.

And lastly, the suspension of Makkal Osai, the Tamil daily aligned to S. Subramaniam, MIC's former deputy president and arch rival to Samy Vellu. The daily was suspended for a month after somebody inadvertently published an insensitive picture of Jesus Christ smoking and with a beer in one hand. The daily quickly apologized, suspended the said person, and even met with representatives from the MCCBCHS, various Christian groups such as Roman Catholic Church, Council of Churches Malaysia, National Christian Evangelical Fellowship which have all said the matter should be forgiven since they have already apologized. They are surprised that the ministry has gone ahead with the suspension, when more serious issue such as the mob which confronted a Catholic Church in Ipoh upon a rumour spread by none other than the Perak mufti has never been tackled by the government. The suspension smells more like a political ploy by forces aligned to Samy Vellu to make sure no dissent is raised over the controversial Maika AGM to be held tomorrow (30 Aug), as well as to eliminate the last remnant of challenge from his ex-deputy.

Do you still feel elated? I for one feel like weeping for this nation. 50 years and this is where we have ended up at. Is this the meaning of Merdeka?