The doctor and his patient

The STAR
Columnists > Brave New World

Thursday August 23, 2007

Brave New World
By AZMI SHAROM

And the scene opens:

The scene is an ordinary doctor’s office. Rather drab, with old yellowing posters.

The doctor is listening to his own heartbeat with his stethoscope while absentmindedly depressing his tongue with a tongue depressor. There is a knock on the door.

Doctor (surprised): Come in, come in.

A middle-aged man with a paunch and a very bad comb-over enters. There is a sickly pallor to his skin and his clothes have seen better days.

Doctor: Ah, Mr Essiah? Mr Malachi Essiah? Here for the test results, eh?

Malachi (coughs): Good morning, doctor. Yes I am, and please call me Mal.

Doctor: Yes, yes, jolly good, jolly good. Please sit down, Mal.

The Doctor shuffles some papers looking for Mal’s test reports. Eventually, he finds them.

Doctor: Righto, here we are.

Let’s see, let’s see. (He reads the report.) Hmmmmmm.

Malachi: Is something the matter, Doctor? Am I all right?

Doctor: Hmmmmm.

Time passes.

Malachi: Doctor, you are worrying me.

Doctor: Huh? What? Oh sorry, I was trying to decipher what’s written here. Bloody doctors can’t write.

Malachi: But you are a doctor.

Doctor: I am? Oh yes, I am. Of course, of course. Yes, I am. Well, Mal, it doesn’t look good, I must say. You’re 49 years old and ?

Malachi: 50 next week.

Doctor: Really? Well, then, an early “Happy birthday to you!”

As I was saying, you are going on 50 and you’ve made a right royal mess of things, haven’t you?

It says here that everything is out of whack. I take it you are a man of means.

Malachi (proudly): Oh yes. I have made much money in my time. My business has been growing and growing.

Doctor: So has your waistline, from the looks of things. And your cholesterol level. And your blood pressure.

Seems you’ve been putting money before everything else, eh? The only thing that hasn’t grown is your hair.

Mal glares at him.

Doctor: Sorry, it’s a little joke.

Mal keeps on glaring.

Doctor: Yes, well. Errr ... moving along. You have gout. That is a rich man’s disease, you know. Too much red meat. And your arteries are pretty clogged up. Also, it would appear ? hmmmm ... tell me, do you have trouble pooping?

Malachi: Pooping?

Doctor: Yes, you know, pooping. To poop. To pass poop.

Malachi: Oh. Yes, now that you mention it ... it can be a bit of a ... a bit of a ?

Doctor: Strain?

Malachi: Yes, yes ... strain.

Doctor: Not surprising, Mal, since you are all blocked up: constipated, as they say in medical journals.

You have crap in you that must date back years. You can’t go around carrying that kind of baggage with you, Mal.

You must let go. Wash it out. I hear a coffee enema might do the trick.

Malachi: A what?

Doctor: A coffee enema, you shove a tube up your whatsit, pump in the coffee and it all flows out.

You’ll be clean as a whistle and feel much better for it.

Malachi: That sounds uncomfortable.

Doctor: If you don’t cleanse your gut of poop, sir, I can guarantee that such discomforts will be the least of your worries.

Malachi looks at the floor. He is obviously upset.

Doctor: Look here, old fellow. There is still hope, you know. Don’t be so crestfallen.

Right now your main concern should be your heart.

You have been mistreating it and it shows.

Your heartbeat is irregular and your stress test shows you can’t walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath.

Malachi: What should I do?

Doctor: This calls for a total change in lifestyle and attitude.

Change your diet to something healthier. Eat good things.

Purge your body of the corruption that years of high living without any consideration to yourself have brought.

Malachi: But, Doctor, I am not all bad, you know. I take good care of my liver. I drink a very expensive tonic that takes care of my liver.

Lots of money I have spent on it.

My cousin brother’s wife’s uncle’s second son direct sells it to me. It’s a very good company, Conway.

Doctor: Hmmm, well, I must admit your liver is not in any danger of collapsing but really it is still showing the same wear and tear of any 50-year-old liver. The tonic has done very little except keep your liver in the state it has always been.

Besides, you must take care of your entire body.

You can’t just say I’ll take care of one bit and leave the others.

If you do that, everything will shut down and even the parts you take care of will be dead.

Malachi is quiet. The Doctor gets up to stand next to him.

He puts his hand on Malachi’s shoulder, which is brushed off rudely.

Malachi: You know what, Doctor. I don’t believe you. I feel fine.

Doctor: Look, you are deluding yourself. You are not fine. You are on the verge of collapse.

Malachi: That’s what you say, but I am going to get a second opinion.

I think you are biased and you have a hidden agenda. Maybe you want me to buy your medicine, huh?

Doctor: I want no such thing. You are my patient; I am here only to care for you.

Malachi: Hah! That’s what you say only. Well, I think you are an alarmist fraud. I am going to go to my son-in-law’s doctor. He will tell me I am fine.

The Doctor sighs resignedly.

Doctor: Very well then. I can’t force you to listen to me. Whatever happens, I hope you will take care of yourself. I’ll be here if you need me.

Malachi gets up to leave. He adjusts his waistband and flattens his comb-over. As he leaves, the Doctor calls out.

Doctor: Mal. Would you like a vitamin C tablet? It’s sweet.

Malachi: I am not a child, doctor. I am going to be 50 years old.

Doctor: (To himself: You could have fooled me). (To Mal) Oh yes, of course you are. Happy Birthday, Mal.

Dr Azmi Sharom is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya.

What has come of “Us”?

What has come of “Us”? - This is a question that keeps on being asked of late.

To dissect and study, and then to answer, one has first got to be willing to accept the facts, even if it goes against what we were taught to believe.

No amount of discussion and dialectics would result in anything positive should we be so rooted in our conviction, that we are willing to look the other way in the face of truth.

First and foremost, what is this fear that we have, that we are willing to live in denial?

Dispossession.

Faced with the possibility of dispossession, one would do anything to protect what he/ she has – even if it means to lie, cheat, steal, betray or kill – in the name of God if necessary. It is in human nature to strive for survival, and all else takes a back seat when faced with this predicament.

As things are, it is the insecurity in a certain group of people that has led to the “Bogeyman Syndrome” that afflicts the nation that was once a melting pot of cultures.

The champions of "the” group never fails to remind the “underprivileged” of their apparently noble struggles to enrich them, via an agenda of unblushing, unapologetic greed and robbery.

It is a sentiment that is easily identifiable. It is a sentiment that never fails to win the sympathy of the unthinking masses. We are thus condemned to listen to shameless rhetoric that hides an agenda of greed ad infinitum, ad nauseaum. Any effort to correct the malady that afflicts the nation as a whole is shamelessly politicized and condemned as subversive and anti-establishment, so as to perpetuate the “siege mentality” that has served the nation so well for half a century.

It appears the those with “vested interest” in the apparent economic prosperity of the nation cannot do without holding on to the siege mentality, that should have been diluted over the years. Instead of reassuring the people of the prosperity, they have chosen to inflame the passions of the young ones, so as to spite his brother.

Economic benefits once considered a privilege, is today demanded as a "birthright” - a right to acquire by law, the wealth and riches, that was built on the human spirit of enterprise, excellence, progress and survival.

My fellow Malaysians, today, we live in a nation that has its socio-economic woes swept under the carpet "frivolousness", with the cloud of the infamous May 13, 1969 hanging over our head. All policies made today, goes back to that fateful day – it is a fact that unapologetic politicians take pains to remind us of.

We are a nation that lives on a notion that provides for a "siege mentality".

The saddest part of it all is, those who today work with the co-conspirators of the event, shamelessly applaud the results that it has achieved in terms of social integration – apparently a testament to the cooperation among various RACES.

Racial profiling of an individual has become something of a necessity, that empowers one while it emasculates the other politically- a house of cards without which, the regime would crumble.

However, the scenario quickly reverses itself when one looks at it from an economic standpoint. It has emasculated the political master and empowered economically, those apparently subservient politically. Those who have been repressed and disadvantaged as a result of corrupt policies, have triumphed over the political masters, in their effort to face the challenges on their own – whatever the methods may have been. This has resulted in further ethnic hegemony which is in turn, used to perpetuate the never ending cycle of conflict in our beautiful nation.

The national bogeyman who was once the Communists, has magically been transformed into the intellectual and economic predator. As if that wasn't enough, the propaganda machinery that's groping in the dark, seeks out for more bogeymen in every aspect of life – entertainment, leisure, sport, education, religion, politics etc.,etc., etc. - so as to intimidate the progressives. For every shortcoming, there is a perfect bogeyman.

Nothing is spared in the endeavour of the politicians, towards achieving their goal of segregation through ethnic profiling – not gender, not education, not religion, not social standing or contribution, nor even truth. Nothing is held sacred anymore in the eyes of the politicians – not knowledge, not marriage, not family and most pathetically, not even God.

There is no apology offered for this evil "branding” of humans, and no offense is to be taken. In fact, they who do this, brag about the successes that they "achieved” as a result of this system of selective deprivation, subjugation and mental slavery.

The apparent beneficiaries of this policy of "empowerment”, have unwittingly enslaved themselves as a result of debt and gratitude "owed" to the leaders – without whose ethnic hegemony, they are told, would be stripped of their political & economic might by the ever predatory bogeyman waiting around the corner. It is this blind dependence on the powers that be and the voluntary mental slavery in fear of dispossession, which breeds the evil that so permeates our society today – nothing more, nothing less.

So the question remains – in whose interest would it be to enact racial profiling, ethnic hegemony, religious supremacy, and the economical indebtedness and malaise that afflicts the nation?

It is none other than the political proponents of the “pride and joy” of all Malaysians - New Economic Policy. Yes – Malaysians are doomed to a future of economic and mental slavery under the thumbs of their “political masters”, so long as the NEP survives in any form or guise.

No nation that disregards the noble values that contribute to progress, has ever achieved successful nationhood. Malaysians appear to believe otherwise, and wish to prove history wrong. So be it.

For what it is worth – Happy Merdeka!

Music Essay

As you go on, what you would hear would be an essay on thoughts that were expressed in the form of music that I liked over the years.
Music itself was something that I often got lost in ..... it had a strange way of expressing thoughts and feelings, although I cannot play or sing a note/ key correctly to this day.
It was for this reason that I had chosen to give up listening to music, to concentrate on work.

I start it with a beautiful song by Sting:-

FIELDS OF GOLD.

Desert Rose

You Sang To Me

Feeling a little "jiwang" today - Just couldn't do well with words.
Looked around, but couldn't find it .....
So here goes my musical essay for the day ............................................

Dreams

I had a very strange and vivid dream last week, and it brought back a lot of thoughts about the past.
The thoughts it brought back were quite difficult for me to put in words - I tried to write, but it somehow didn't quite fit.
Tried to write poetry - nothing came to mind.
So I settled for music, which expressed things pretty well ......

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

Imagination