The Nation of Woo
Some time ago, at the height of the Altantuya murder case frenzy, there was a press conference at PKR HQ, where a private investigator, Balasubramaniam, announced that he had made a statutory declaration[1] regarding his appointment and activities as a PI on behalf of Razak Baginda. Of course, the dude retracted it a day later, or rather specific points of the stat dec, in a new stat dec. One of the points that was not retracted, however, is point 7, which I reproduce in full here:
7. Abdul Razak Baginda informed me that he was concerned by this as he had been advised that Altantuya Shaaribuu had been given some powers by a Mongolian ‘bomoh’ and that he could never look her in the face because of this.
It’s taken me a while to write this post, because I lived in hope that someone would make a big deal out of this, but it seems that no one (or rather, no one with authority) has until now. So much so, it has led me to believe that the vast majority of the population seems willing to accept the above statement as “normal”[2].
But then, this is a country where a “faith healer”[3] is a Member of Parliament.
This is a country where people organise sembahyang hajat to pray that a former PM be laid low by a heart attack, after he fired his DPM.
This is a country where the National Fatwa Council plans to issue guidelines on swearing[4].
This is a country where stories of haunted houses, orang minyak, toyols, pukau, and so on are accepted as mainstream.
This is the Nation of Woo.
On the plus side, we seem to be a non-discriminatory Nation of Woo, since we have people of all races and religions accepting astrology, feng shui, bomohs, witch doctors, hypnosis, The Secret, numerology, magnetic bands, psychics, ekcetera with equal credulity. No inter-Woo commission needed.
Endnotes:
[1] That’s a link to the subscription-based online comic. There are reproductions of the stat dec in full elsewhere on sites where you don’t have to pay.
[2] Either that, or most people don’t actually bother to read the declaration in full while engaging their brains.
[3] Harun Din, in case you’re wondering.
[4] When I first saw the headline, my first reaction was: “Oh, shit …!” Then I realised that it’s guidelines on how to swear on the Holy Book, at which point my reaction became: “WTF???”