Analogy Overload

August 13th, 2007 gier Posted in Politics, Rant | 3 Comments »

In an interview given to Malaysiakini, published on the 9th. of August 2007, Dato’ Norza Zakaria said that “Umno’s ‘Beckhams’ can’t be waiting forever.” The exact statement as quoted by Beh Lih Yi, Malaysiakini’s reporter is:

“It’s just like playing soccer, the good players are still on the bench. We don’t want those who are playing to come from [the era] of R Arumugam or Mokhtar Dahari when David Beckham is waiting – he can’t be warming the bench forever,” Norza, 41, told malaysiakini in an interview on Monday.

I couldn’t believe what my ears were seeing and what my eyes were hearing! I get that he was alluding to having the new guard in and letting the old guard out, but really …

Firstly, if those guys were playing on the same team, Backham would not be warming the bench at all. He’d be playing, because Arumugam and Mokhtar Dahari are both no longer with us. They’ve passed away. I don’t know whether that means that Dato’ Norza considers that the existing upper echelons of UMNO to be bangkai bernyawa, but I hope not.

Secondly, if those two were still alive, they’d still be better men than David Beckham. If nothing else, if Spiderman Arumugam or Super Mokh were to be seen wearing sarongs, they wouldn’t look like fairies. It’d actually look natural, because we Malaysians like to wear our kain pelekats in public. Further, David Beckham’s hairstyles would never match Spiderman Arumugam’s locks or Super Mokh’s mullet. So there.

In the following paragraph of the same article, Dato’ Norza (on a roll) expanded further:

Drawing another analogy, he said: “It is also like a sit-com when you have the same actors all the time. If it is 600 episodes, you have to change the actors.”

For what it’s worth, I think that sitcoms that change actors tend to crash fairly rapidly. Imagine if someone else other that Kelsey Grammer was playing Frasier? So, okay, Kirstie Alley replacing Shelley Long didn’t kill off Cheers, but that’s because Kirstie Alley was hotter than Shelley Long. Also, in Roseanne, the girl playing Becky left and was replaced by the girl now in Scrubs, but the original girl then came back … so, I think it’s obvious that I haven’t watched any recent sitcoms. And that it’s also obvious that the sitcom analogy is not a very good one to describe the situation inside a political party … on the other hand, maybe it’s the most apposite analogy you can find.

Moving forward, we have this following quote:

Norza added: “While (the government) is telling the younger generation that there is no quota from now on and it will be based on merit for those entering universities, I think it’s about time that the Umno leadership should be selected based on merit and we must lead by example.”

Now UMNO is like a university? Also, is Dato’ Norza implying that the UMNO leadership is not based on merit? Goodness! What on earth can it be based on, then?

Finally, I would like to end this with the last line in the article:

“I have started running this race, I will have to finish it,” he said.

Football, sitcoms, universities … and now a foot race … Boom Shakalaka Boom! I would just like to say, at the end of the day, once you consider all angles, looking for the optimum win-win situation, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.