Like former parliamentary secretary Zainuddin Maidin, I, too, thought it was a joke when I first heard he was promoted to the position of deputy information minister recently.

But, then, it later dawned on me that in this Bolehland of ours, miracles do happen especially in the realm of (real) politics. So his promotion was a real but cruel joke on us.

This episode shows that there are times when sycophancy is handsomely rewarded to someone whose apparent obsession is to cast aspersions on others.

Which is why in this holy month of Ramadan, I implore the now honourable deputy minister to indulge in a jihad — in the true sense of the word — within himself so that he could fight off the evil temptation of committing fitnah (slander) against such people as the Chinese educationists and PAS through RTM.