The events of the day, 16th September 2008

16 September 2008

For the politically active and interested in Malaysia, this date is full of meaning (and hope, for some).

Malaysiakini.com 's website was even redesigned and simplified because apparently interest in the latest news is such that the site effectively experienced the equivalent of a denial-of-service attack!

My efforts to download any pages other than the index page failed.

Today, the main CIMB East Coast branch was reportedly sealed by a court order in Kuala Trengganu.

And today, Asian banks woke up to the financial hurricane in Wall Street that blew over last weekend. Compared to the bankrupt Lehman Brothers and the demise of Merrill Lynch, Hurricane Ike was just another summer thunderstorm. Last night (US is about 12 hours behind Malaysia) the Dow Jones index reportedly tanked over 500 points and some US $ 70 Billion of investor funds has disappered into the ether. In these days of electronic trading what used to be numbers on paper chits and pages of ledgers has just turned into tired electrons that just faded and disappeared.

These disparate events somehow seems to me to be converging into the perfect storm.

The dark clouds of August 2007 in the US financial markets has now torn asunder a financial system on which is benchmarked the world's economic system. A good year later.

That CIMB bank closure has nothing to do with that, but rather a result of a lawsuit brought by disgruntled client about a certain loan issue.

And Anwar's ambitions to take over Malaysian Government has seeds from his days as a student leader in University Malaya and beyond, but he had selected September 16th as the DATE because it happens to be the anniversary of the founding of Malaysia.

Now he says he's got 31 turncoats from the Barisan Nasioanal parlimentary line-up, enough to make his coalition the majority in the Malaysian Parliament. He's demanding to talk to Pak Lah, our embattled Prime Minister. Apparently the PM cannot fit him in his appoinments list today !

But all these converged today.

I recall another day like today that happened sometime in the late 80's.

Apparently, a disgruntled soldier shot up a petrol station on a busy street in KL. And it just so happened that on the same day Wall Street tanked too, for different reasons. KLSE got shocked by the actions of the soldier and dived too. Different reasons. Same results. What was it they called that event? Black October, was it?

I wonder what will the events of today will bring?

Let's just hope it's not Bloody September.

And for those of the politically active persuasion, a bit of advise:

Be careful what you wish for, in case the Almighty grants that wish of yours.

As for me I still remember a young boy waiting for a bus to get home from school in the late '60's at Chow Kit Road, KL. He was curious as to why the bus was later than usual when he saw a line of people marching across the road, carrying slogans. Then behind then came the RED trucks of the police's FRU (the anti-riot unit) and the subsequent flying cans of tear gas and chaos. The choking sensation in his breathing, being caught in all of that, only a boy of about 9 or 10.

Now that young boy is a middle aged man who has wondered and wandered his way through the world, from the US, Canada, Africa, Europe and places in Asia.

He has seen poverty and corruption, and disasters resulting from well-meaning but ignorant people.

To quote a friend: "I've lived in better and been kicked out of worse".........

And to this day he's not sure what is the good that comes out of all that chaos, well-intentioned or otherwise.

And he's anxious to see what will come out of this 16th September, today.

But, he thinks, if I live long enough. I'll find out tomorrow.......

And for those who won't, what does it matter, anyway?

He's just reminded of that piece of philosophy he read just before he quit his Master's program and went travelling, washing dishes in restaurants along the way:

"The world is absolutely perfect, including the imperfections one sees in it, and one's efforts to perfect it."