Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that I was standing before an ancient stone building on a hilltop. Dusk was falling and the wind moaned eerily through the trees as I stood in the fading twilight. Feeling a little apprehensive of the growing darkness, I entered the building and stepped into a cavernous hall. Immediately I was enveloped by the dignified silence and the dim coolness of the interior as if the place had a hallowed feel to it. My footsteps echoed hollowly off the stone floor and walls as I followed a long corridor into the gloom. Soon I entered another dim hall where an old man with a flowing white beard was waiting. In each hand he held a crystal ball which glowed brightly in the gloom.

Silently he extended the crystal ball in his right hand to me. I took it and felt it vibrate slightly in my hands with a warm energy as if it were alive. As I gazed into the clear transparent globe, I could make out shapes and colours in a constant swirl of motion. As I gazed deeper into the crystal ball it seemed to grow bigger and bigger until it enveloped me. The kaleidoscope of shapes and colours transformed themselves into images, sounds and motion as if I was inside a movie.

I realized I was in a Malaysian town with the familiar streets and shophouses. It was the morning after the General Elections. The newspapers were loudly proclaiming the overwhelming victory of the Barision Nasional party. They had won by a convincing 75% majority. I heard triumphant speeches by victorious politicians before their jubilant supporters. I also saw some people looking somber and gloomy with resignation in their eyes.

Then the scene changed. A group of men carrying clubs, parangs and knives pass by me. There was car and a bus burning on the street. The men looked organized, disciplined with similar looking short haircuts. Then it faded and I heard the wail of police sirens and shouts of "Operation Lallang 2!". People were being arrested from their homes and their offices. They were all opposition party leaders. I heard Mahathir accusing them of causing riots and commotion. He said the country was better off without them.

The scene changed to one of brilliant sunshine. I had a bird's eye view of the landscape spread before me. I saw many mammoth projects completed. A huge airport in the north, the Bakun dam, fantastic bridges, many highways with toll gates. Then I was brought back to ground right front of a noisy crowd. They were people protesting against the rising cost of living. The banners complained of huge increase in tolls, health care, utility bills, and education. Hospitals and universities had been privatized and were beyond the reach of the poor. Then I saw red helmeted police with shields and clubs beating the peaceful demonstrators, trucks spraying acid at them and I smelled the acrid tear gas in the air as people ran helter-skelter amid cries of pain and agony.

I was now in a bustling open market. Hawkers spread a multitude of foodstuff and goods before them and housewives with baskets strolled between rows of stalls shopping for groceries. They all looked grim and tired looking, their faces lined in worry. There were two middle-aged housewives near me talking. I overhead them complain about the high inflation, how prices keep going up and up while the ringgit lose its value. In hushed tones they discussed about how prices have gone up because of monopolies and privileged licenses given to certain well-connected corporations who controlled prices. Just last week the price of sugar was raised. And next would be flour. It's all a controlled market now.

I turned around and was surprised to see a session of parliament in progress. The speaker was asking for a vote on several bills. The first was to abolish the creation of new Chinese and Tamil schools. The second was to restrict approval for places of worship for non-Muslims unless approval has been granted by the Home Minister. The third was to impose the law of khalwat on non-Muslims. I saw MCA and MIC MPs voting together with UMNO to pass the bills without debate. The handful of opposition MPs were not given a chance to speak. I closed my eyes as tears began to form.

When I opened my eyes again I was in a court of law. The judge was giving judgement on a case. Before him were 3 men who were charged with handing out anti-government pamphlets complaining about high toll charges. He barked at them, saying what a grave offense it was to sabotage the peace and how people's minds can be poisoned by lies against the government. As he thumped the gavel on the bench, he sentenced them to 3 years jail each as a deterrent to others.

The anguished and resigned faces of the people in the courtroom melted away and I was in a meeting of what appeared to very powerful and important people. It was a Cabinet meeting in progress chaired by Mahathir. They were discussing an appeal by a well-known conglomerate for financial assistance due to a huge shortfall in toll collection of an enormously expensive highlands highway connecting the three major highland resorts. The Prime Minister's sons were the major shareholders. The matter was settled with a decision to instruct EPF to buy up all the shares for this project amounting to RM2 billion. The PM also announced that from next budget onwards due to shortage of EFF funds, contributors will only be allowed to withdraw their EPF funds monthly on retirement instead of in one lump sum. At this Ling Liong Sik thumped the table and declared what a good idea it was.

Then things began to move in a whirl and I was aware that 5 years had passed. It was time for another General Elections. The newspapers and TV were filled with praise for the BN government. They were praising the peace, stability, development, lauding all the mega projects completed and telling Malaysians how lucky they all were to have such visionary leaders. But I felt an uncomfortable sense of something missing. Where were the opposition voices this time? They appear to have recessed into the background. I soon realized all the opposition leaders have been replaced with BN puppets. They were talking docilely about working hand in hand with the ruling party. This elections the opposition will be contesting less than 1/3 of the seats in total, giving BN a guaranteed 2/3 majority. In the coffee shop of a small country town, I saw the empty faces of a group of people standing silently before a TV listening BN election propaganda. Weathered faces lined in pain, blank resignation in their eyes, too afraid to even express anger and contempt as they thought about the bitter irony of the hopes and promises spelled out to them 5 years ago when they voted to demolish the opposition. Now real incomes have declined, their lives have become harder as a small elite grew enormously rich skimming off the economy until the economy lost its vibrancy.

I wanted to reach out to them, to tell them it has not happened yet, that it is now 1999 and they could still avoid this fate, but before I could do so they melted away before my eyes and I found myself back in the cavernous hall I had first entered. A dank coldness seemed to have filled the hall as my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I frantically searched around looking for the old man. The passageway to the other hall seemed to have disappeared and I ran helter-skelter looking for another exit. Just as I was about to give up I and saw him standing before a lighted archway looking at me with mournful eyes. I ran to him and without a word reach out my hands for the other crystal ball, so eager was I to discover an alternative to the dismal scenario I had experienced.

Once again the magical crystal ball seemed to enveloped me and I was inside witnessing the fascinating play of sounds, pictures, images, light and colour before me. It was the morning after the General Elections again. At a new stand, I eagerly scanned the headlines for news of the election results. The BN had won but had lost their 2/3 majority, polling less than 50% of the vote. People in the streets were talking excitedly about the impact of the results. There was a sense of change in the air, a palpable electrifying feeling that something was afoot.

Then I was in a coffee shop fronting a busy thoroughfare, listening to Mahathir addressing the nation on TV. Under pressure from his party and he was taking full responsibility for the first ever loss of the 2/3 majority. For the sake of Malay unity he was resigning as PM and retiring from politics as soon as the Supreme Council could elect a successor. There were cries of jubilation from the crowd as strangers hugged each other in joy. It would be the start of a new era for Malaysia.

The new Prime Minister declared that his priority will be to heal the wounds of the divided nation, to unite the Malays again under the umbrella of UMNO. He will also do his best to correct the public perception of a flawed judiciary and the image of the party as being highly tolerant of corruption and cronyism which had cost voters to swing to the opposition. The election results had given them a shock plus a kick and for the first time in more than a decade there was political will to set things right.

Now scenes and events in rich detail and vivid colour unfolded rapidly before my eyes. I saw the Attorney-General and the Chief Justice replaced with men of high public respect and esteem. I heard the government pledged non-interference with the judiciary. I saw Anwar's sodomy trial ending with his acquittal to wild applause in court. There was even greater jubilation when Anwar's appeal on his corruption case succeeded on the basis of miscarriage of justice. There was widespread public derision when puppet judge Augustine Paul resigned and elected to migrate to Australia. The ACA dragged Tan Sri Eric Chia to court over fraud in the Perwaja Steel scandal and impounded his passport. There were cries of "Justice Done!" when ex-IGP Rahim Noor was convicted of grave assault and sentenced to 3 years in the slammer. I witnessed Malaysians glued to their TV sets as Ling Liong Sik tearfully begged for forgiveness over any wrong-doing his son may have done over his billion ringgit corporate acquisitions. He would leave everything to the hands of the ACA and allow justice to take its course.

Then I saw low cost house being built by the thousands, programs for the poor in the rural areas, more hospitals and universities being built and continued to be subsidized. The government purchased back Jalan Damansara toll concession from the concessionaires and demolished the toll plaza as a gift to the rakyat and to improve traffic flow. The press transformed themselves into independent watchdogs of corruption and abuse and were quick to report any wrong-doings. The last remnants of capital controls were relinquished and investments flowed in by the billions as foreign investors showed their appreciation for the accountability and new found will of the government. The economy galloped along at a steady clip and the value of the ringgit rose to its pre-crisis level, making imported good cheaper and containing inflation. Everywhere in the streets I saw happy smiling faces as people live in peace and prosperity.

Soon it was time for elections again and party flags and banners were strung from street to street. The opposition were allowed fair coverage in the press and TV but they had few issues to fire at the BN. I stayed long enough to witness the BN win by a sweeping majority before the scene broke up into millions of disintegrating pieces and I woke up in my room.

It was early morning. The light of the new day peeped through the curtains into my bedroom. I pulled the curtains aside and allowed bright sunshine to pour in, chasing away the darkness and the night. As I gazed through the window at the sun drenched road and trees where the rows of terrace houses and their neat private gardens spread out under a glorious light blue sky, I wondered which path Malaysians would take as we go to the polls.

Seachange Malaysia

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