This year, the Chinese New Year Day falls on Feb 18, 2007, a new moon day. According to Chinese astrology, the year 2007 (Fire or Red Boar-Pig) enters the 4705th Chinese year on Feb 4, 2007.

Some say the year 2007 is the 4704th Chinese Year according to the calculations of a complicating cycle of 60 Stem-Branch counting systems and deriving that the Fire Boar-Pig is the 23rd Stem-Branch in the cycle. Hence, the Fire Boar-Pig is the 4704th Chinese Year.

So here we are, 2007, effective from February, the beginning of the zodiac year of the mixed elements as the ruling element for 2007 being the Fire element and the major element for the Boar being the water element.

But to most Chinese Malaysians, the Chinese zodiac is certainly not all about the boar. In fact, to Malaysians generally with regards to our national state of affairs, the Fire Dog year (which is ending) has been a sad comedy to those who think and a tragedy for others who feel deeply.

Our national state of affairs can be described as someone having fallen from the frying pan into the fire. The Fire Dog year of 2006 was dogged by scandals and controversies with the ruling establishment and leadership preferring to be either at anchor or drifting without any purposeful direction.

If Malaysians opine that the 2006 Dog year was a year when everything went wrong, they might not be far from the truth. For one, the opposition parties found themselves 'armed' to their teeth with an array of 'ammunition' of contentious issues for the next general election. The worst times in the Dog year also exposed wolves in sheep's clothing, being the sheer vanity and naked display of political power by the backbone party of the ruling establishment.

National unity today remains as elusive as it was 31 years ago in 1975 (Wood Rabbit year) when the Syed Kechik Foundation sponsored a series of activities to solicit public feedback on interracial interaction.

Taking a leaf from the study's published report study, it said, 'Elites riding in each other's Mercedes Benzes and chatting with one another at cocktail parties at Kuala Lumpur's hotels can easily delude themselves into thinking that because they are getting along well with members of other ethnic groups and everybody in the country is doing the same.

'But what about the non-elite, the mee-seller who has lost his license, the clerk who has been passed over his promotion or the tenant who knows he is being chased by the landlord?" (Chapter 2, Syed Kechik Publications, Malaysia 2001)

Songs of propaganda

The Dog year saw little headway in the exercise of leadership values, transparency, justice and accountability. Hypocrisy continues to be the canker in the government propaganda machine which grinds slowly but is steadily gathering speed.

We are told that statistically all is well and by measurement of economic wealth, our nation is in good hands. The message will be getting louder as those in the corridors of power strategically maximise their effort towards the next general election. The Boar year is a year of hope that must deny the reality of the Dog year.

To the large majority of citizens, particularly the lower-income and the poor, the aged, the pensioners and other forgotten segments of our society, the Dog year had been a hard year. Diehard skeptics, oblivious to the songs of propaganda, have reason to believe that when everything went wrong with the Dog, that it could be still worse in the year for the Boar.

Weather-wise, the Fire dog did not limp out of the zodiac year with a whimper but brought woes of floods to several states, notably the pro-establishment state of Johor.

It is indeed a rhetorical irony of choice for a state chief minister who rejected Bangsa Malaysia to face a Banjir Malaysia and departing from the norm of accusing it was an act of God, laid an unfounded blame upon a neighboring country.

Indeed, this and the raised 'kris' incident are only a small sample of the quality of leadership displayed in the Dog year that the government propaganda wishes to erase from the memories of Malaysians.

Many big events will be in store for Malaysians in the Boar year. But is there a truthful cause for any national celebration? The truth of the matter is that the 'political veneer' will change like a commercial product advertisement. After all, consumers demand new packaging and will always be duped despite the unchanged substance.

Beneath the surface, political chauvinism, racial prejudice, demagoguery and race supremacy will continue to erupt or play an active role in our polity to achieve their agendas. Malaysians will have to learn toleration from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind.

During the Dog year, did we progress socially and spiritually? Will the year of the Boar see us be better off than the Dog year in terms of national unity, political integrity, credibility and governance?

HG Wells said: 'The past is but the beginning of a beginning'. Syed Kechik's revealing study in 1975 viewed the character of our Malaysian democracy as highly authoritarian. It said: 'The justification for these patterns is that the leaders alone know what is best for the entire nation, an approach which works well when the leaders have considerable wisdom but breaks down when they do not'. (Chapter 3, Malaysia 2001).

Elements to clash

There is a positive note that the Fire Dog year has brought far more public awareness than imagination and knowledge. Or is it the cosmic 'karmic law' of cause and effect that triggered greater wisdom and conscientiousness among more and more Malaysians against the vices of political hypocrisy and corruptibility?

There is much wisdom in the sayings of the ancient sages that politics is incapable and politicians incapacitated in changing peoples' mindset towards spirituality. Yet within our mist, there are a great majority of Malaysians who still cherish that every sunrise holds more political promises, every moonrise hold more peace.

According to some soothsayers, the Boar year will not be an easygoing, laid back, roll-in-the- mud romp for the majority of Malaysians. Politically, there will be fireworks aplenty (this being the Boar's mixed elements, water and fire clashing), a time of daring accomplishments and serious calamities.

For the pro-establishment group, of course, it should be another 'feel-good' year and whether it will be loaded with excitement will depend on the 'spinning'.

So what does this year portend and what kind of political climate can Malaysians expect? The 'Fire' element does favour those in leadership positions and especially those who need to make a quick decisions,. It could trigger more impulsive policy decisions.

It also means plenty of action but little in achievement. It will be an active year of 'spinning wheels' naturally for the next general elections. To those expecting both the worst and the best for the coming Boar year, let me leave you with two quotes.

To the pessimists: 'Remember that the longest day must have its close - the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day. - Harriet Beecher Stowe.

For the optimists: 'Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. - (unnamed Czech writer).

STANLEY KOH is a Buddhist monk and works for a local think-tank.