We really do deserve an incompetent government. Yesterday (Saturday) Roodal Moonilal made some very damning accusations against the Attorney General. Basically, the Opposition MP accused Mr. Al Rawi of misleading Parliament. He backed up his accusations with facts and figures. To my astonishment the Speaker then said that she would consider what he had said and would give her ruling later as to whether he (the Attorney General) should be referred to the Privileges Committee of Parliament.
Unbelievable, I thought. But then I consoled myself by the thought that at the very least this would be headlines in the Sunday papers. It wasn't! In the Express the story was relegated to a minor headline, and in the Guardian Mr. Moonilal's accusations weren't even reported, but the headline was that the Prime Minister was backing his Attorney General over the indemnity issue. The Guardian also in a minor story simply reported that the Attorney General was being accused of making "false and misleading statements" in Parliament on Friday 4th October. In none of the papers was there a laying out of Mr. Moonilal's accusations. As a result, the average person will have difficulty in forming any sort of reasoned opinion.
So? Why is this a big thing? Let's start from the beginning: Parliament is the very top of our democratic system. Misleading Parliament, whether deliberately or not, is very, very serious and all citizens should look at this accusation with great concern. Because, if the accusations (or any part thereof) are true and there is absolutely no sanction it will mean that we do not have a democracy and are being ruled by a dictatorship. That ain't good at all!
So when the newspapers seem to play down the accusations against the Attorney General and when lying to the Parliament is not seen as a "big thing" by the 'Fourth Estate' (the media) it is not unreasonable to assume that we are in deep "doo-doo".
The average person will not worry about this. 'That's politics', he/she will say. Unfortunately, it is not 'just politics'. When Hitler rose to power and started targeting the Jews there were very few people who worried about it. 'I'm not Jewish so that doesn't affect me', was the prevailing sentiment. One world war later together with six million Jews murdered we have a clear example of why 'just politics' simply isn't good enough.
If Mr. Al Rawi is guilty of what Mr. Moonilal accused him of doing and (more importantly) he lied to the Parliament about it then as a matter of urgency he ought to be dealt with in a most serious manner. And the Speaker should be aware that many people will view her delay in making a ruling immediately on Mr. Moonilal's excellent presentation was because she wanted to liaise with the political leaders in the Government as to how she should deal with this. While this impression may not be accurate, certainly there are a lot of people who believe that it is. And that's the point! She should be jealously guarding the independence of her office. Sadly, there are many who believe that she is not doing so.
Perception, in politics, is often reality, and this is certainly the perception of way too many people.
As for the print media, I guess they don't really care. They are making money and who cares if they are biased or not?
No. We are in deep trouble and at the end of the day we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
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