A joke on TV, reality in Malaysia

There is an episode of “The Simpsons” called “The Monkey Suit” in which Lisa Simpson, Bart’s much-smarter sister, tries to get her school to stop the teaching of creationism to students and instead focus on Darwin’s theory of evolution.

After failing in her protest with Principal Skinner, she then takes her case to the town hall for the mayor and the people of Springfield to hear her case and make a decision.

But her efforts are in vain as they decide to stick to the teaching that supports the origin of life on the planet as told in the book of Genesis in the Bible, thereby outlawing the teaching of evolution.

Lisa then decides to go underground, organising a class after regular school hours to teach her classmates about Darwin and his book “The Origin of the Species”.

As she starts her first class, the door of the room is busted open by Police Chief Wiggum of the Springfield Police Department and his two deputies (that's the entire police force in Springfield), guns drawn, arresting a young girl who was just trying to educate her fellow students.

Lisa says something to the effect that “there are hardened criminals out there and you want to arrest me?”, to which Chief Wiggum replies “we only work based on the last law passed”, which was the one made at the town hall meeting above.

As they are talking, the scene shifts to the Kwik-E-Mart in the background, where a machine-gun toting criminal is randomly shooting at passersby from the rooftop. Looking through the window, Chief Wiggum just shrugs and says “ahhh... on another day we would have been all over that scene”.

I just set up the sequence of scenes from the episode exactly as it played out. The main reason is to illustrate how ridiculous it all sounds.

But that’s “The Simpsons”, a long-running animated show on TV, which I believe was always meant for an adult audience.

Sadly for Malaysians, this nonsensical scenario is actually being played out too much in real life in the past few years and more so, after the recent general elections.

This cartoon was spotted making the rounds in Facebook over the past two days. Another great illustration of misplaced priorities by the police. August 3, 2013.The police are too busy going around arresting innocent people who make videos out of love and with no malice intended; innocent people who are demonstrating peacefully for justice besides free and fair elections; innocent people standing quietly holding candles, lawyers seeking a better judiciary, ... and the list goes on.

Meanwhile, serious crime, including the many recent shooting incidents, rape, murder, break-ins, snatch thefts, smash-and-grab thefts on our roads, car thefts, corruption, assaults and robberies in broad daylight are happening all around us.

Yes, it’s a simple point to make and it is also so obvious that most of us can only talk and lament about it. Therein lies the problem.

This scenario is set to be repeated time and again until and unless all right-thinking people stand up and speak for the rights of all Malaysians to get due protection by the authorities.

I especially wish all the moderate and faithful Muslims will stand up and be counted, too. From what I have read online and on social networks, I truly believe it is a very small minority who are dictating the issues of late, and so, the majority among Muslims, especially those who have the clout and connections, must speak up.

With a collective voice, we can send a clear message that the police should really be going after criminals instead of allocating too much resources targeting innocent citizens peacefully voicing their dissent against the federal government or alleged insults against religion.

So, the next time you hear anyone talking about law enforcement in Malaysia being a joke, remind them of Chief Wiggum from “The Simpsons”. - August 3, 2013.