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Thursday 11 September 2008

Not What It's Cracked Out To Be

'Crack' is the new word in town.

Just a while ago, I thought I'd take a short break from work and read the news.

It was then that I noticed the Washington Post had this report running: Ethnic cracks widen in Malaysia's ruling coalition.

Granted, it's an Associated Press release, written by a Sean Yoong. I have no beef with the article (it appears to be fairly accurate); just with the title.

It's not the first time anyone has used the word 'crack' on the subject of our race-relations. Early this year, John Burton of the Financial Times wrote an article entitled, Cracks appear in Malaysia's multi-ethnic settlement.

All things considered, we don't really have a problem with our respective ethnicities - only our politicians do.

And if one was referring to cracks within Barisan Nasional, that would be highly confusing. There was never any doubt that UMNO was the master, with all other smaller factions as slaves. Nothing much has changed.

You know what causes cracks? Earthquakes.

And since Sean Yoong wrote that particular article on Sept 9, we've had a number of them, starting with the Taiwan quake at a magnitude of 6.1 (though that was probably the rumble of our BN wannabe-defector-MPs making their grand entrance).

That was followed up by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in northern Chile and a 6.1-magnitude one in southern Iran.

Of course, the Pacific Ring of Fire didn't want to be left behind, so both Indonesia and Japan had to do their thing.

In spite of all the shifting that those cracked tectonic plates have been up to, not that many people were injured or killed.

In fact, our undersea cables weren't even damaged, which is why we still have internet access.

But stranger still, is the fact that access to Malaysia Today has been unblocked.

Of course, that very issue of censorship is what befuddles most of us - actually, it cracks me up!

Blocking or unblocking Malaysia Today was an exercise in futility and a stark display of stupidity, because few of us were even affected.

We merely switched sites and passed on the information.

Our interpersonal network, regardless of ethnicity, has no cracks within it.

5 comments:

Saya... said...

saya sudah berpindah ke alamat baru...wah your writings very goodlah...i very jeles...

Anonymous said...

Ah! This cracked me up!

But surely you agree that Malaysian politics is all it's cracked up to be - confusing, dirty, power-struggling, and flying all over the place!

Knights Templar said...

Read the same cracked article about the cracks in our cracked up multi-ethnic crackers.Got so cracked up about it ending up smoking crack with another bunch of cracked up ethinic group.Hope ur not cracked up with my cracked up crack.

Have a nice day Cracked Crankster.

Pat said...

Wah, I never see so many crack jokes on one post before!

But what's with the foreign media? We don't make the news until they think there's something wrong, and then they report it kinda side-ways.

I remember Al-Jazeera irritating the heck outta me with the 'racial unrest' claims peppered throughout its report awhile back.

Anyways, the new 'crack' I learned about was when girls started wearing low-cut jeans? Eeeewww! Totally grossed me out!

I'm ok, though. My veena shape keeps me safe ;)

Pat

Crankster said...

Thanks, Tehsin, and I've taken note of your change in site. You have blogrolled me, I noticed - tak nak kawan la.

Michelle, it is. And getting worse.

Knights, cracked me up. :) Have a nice day, too.

Pat, I was thinking of making the butt crack joke, but I recently discovered my mother occasionally reads this blog. Can you believe at my age, I still get reprimanded about what I say or write??