Time for mocking our pollies

Looks like we’re caught in a cycle, and recycle of the same old, same old stories about 1MDB, Najib Abdul Razak, Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyiddin Yassin, Anwar Ibrahim, Umno and so on. The usual incumbent politicians and their mugshots headline the news, mouthing platitudes in predictable patterns of response. What does this predictability lead to? Dull reporting, and consequently, dulling of the public mind.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how the media would leave unchallenged, and treat as serious news, the stupid utterances of the incumbents and their affiliated upstarts. Yes, our politicians do say the darndest things. Indie filmmaker Amir Muhammad (2007) had compiled more than 100 of these ‘darndest’ utterances in a paperback. Although dated, the book crosses a few red lines to show the type of misfits running the country.

I see a minority of millennials emerging across racial groups who have stretched further the red lines to engage with wit and humour in the political process. Some have made a name for themselves at home and abroad, a few chalking a level of notoriety for their snarky snipes on the corrupt, poking the demagogues, exposing falsehoods, and targeting their wit at any cultural and political figures whose bad public behaviour deserve a jab or two.