A GOVERNMENT of laws, not men, said John Adams, political philosopher and second president of America. He is exactly right. But over the years, here in Malaysia, it has been a government of men, not laws.
Little wonder, we have the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal, our contribution to global kleptocracy. So, are the laws that need mending or men?
For lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, who has witnessed laws being amended for 30 years, the answer is obvious. It's men who need mending, not our laws.
To put it in ad copy language: Wanted. Mender of souls. Haniff is right. No matter how often we amend the Constitution and other laws, the 1MDB scandal will keep happening by another name.
Say we narrow the powers of the attorney-general by amending Article 145 of the Constitution, what guarantee is there that a future prime minister would not choose a compliant attorney-general? Or even compliant judges?
Yes, the fault is not in the Constitution, but in men. But how do we mend men?
To Haniff, moral values are a good place to start. A very tough way to the high ground, but as corruption has become both explosive and endemic, it is time Malaysia reset its moral compass to its factory setting.
Men in power have led us astray. Trust has been betrayed. Not once, but repeatedly. But the question is: how do such men get there? Because errant men put them there. This begs a question: how did errant men get there? Because, because, because. You get the picture.
However often we amend the Constitution, such lost souls will make their way to seats of power. It has become a systemic disease. True, we need cures. But we need prevention more.
And the best way to ensure prevention succeeds is to begin at home and in schools. Yes, our society needs a moral quake. If there were a Richter scale equivalent, we would place it at near 10. That is how bad it is.
Remember how the 1MDB scandal was forced out of crime busters and the media? Instead of applause, they got bullets and shutdown orders. We, the people and the press, chose silence over death and shutdown.
Truth be told, there were those among us who took the high moral ground. Thank God for their straight path. Otherwise we would be beyond repentance, repair and reset. If we start at home and in schools, there is a good chance that political parties will jettison the corrupt instead of rallying behind them to force the courts to set the criminals free.
Or get the attorney-general to drop the charges, as one previously did instead of leaving the decision to the courts. Or worse, get the prime minister to change the attorney-general to a more compliant one.
Yes, we have come to this. Cry, my beloved Malaysia.
The only road to the moral high ground is through home, schools and society. Our moral compass needs a resetting, and a factory one at that. We were so assembled, but somehow we lost our way.
A factory reset is the only way to get a good man to be the prime minister, who will then place other good men in positions of power. The attorney-general, the chief secretary, secretaries-general, et al. This is the only true north recipe to win the people versus power war.