Floods

Our weather is becoming more and more erratic nowadays. When it rains, it rains like no tomorrow. It is very dishearten to see the effected population in various flood hit areas around this country lately. People are relocating to relief centres, the emergency teams boating struggling families, image of people wading knee depth water level is common. Some are found stranded on the roof top of their house waving for help. Baby, children, old and poor people are the most affected. Politicians are photographed donating basic supplies, smiling to the camera and hoping to use the situation for some political mileage. While crocodiles are said to be escaped and lurking in some areas. The same can be said to this kind of people. In many houses, furniture, electrical goods and all kinds of domestic items are damaged. In many kampongs basic utilities such as water supply, telephone, sewerage and electricity are disrupted. My heart goes out to all of them hoping that they will recover from this hardship and testing time.

So what is the cause of this disaster? There are several contributing factors. From the lack of visionary leaders to the apathetic attitude of our general public. Our so called entrusted administration failed to do proper physical town planning, bulldozing everything hastily in order to meet certain target of development status. Then, the greedy towkays, with the royal approved balak concessionaire, more than happy ravaging all our forest area, starting with legal permit then illegal. Then, our easily intimidated pengecut enforcement team which in many occasions fail to stand tall against the thugs and touts. Deforestation, population growth, urbanisation, plantation, pollution, etc, etc… We surely and clearly have disturbed the nature equilibrium that has existed for years. The nature that has its natural functions to counter the floods such as wetland, forest, mangrove, peatland, estuaries, et all. Our natural environment is degrading slowly. We cannot fool our mother nature no more. We are now beginning to pay for our long blatant disregard for its needs. It is so easy to start pointing fingers by now macam aku buat sekarang ini. But the real answer is you, is me and is us. It is us that elected those incapable representatives. It is us that fascinated by their pre election sweet talk and campaigning. It is us with our ignorance, our laisser faire, our tak apa, our greed, our lust, our wasteful act, to meet our social splendour, consumerism and the pressing needs of modern life.

So what to do? We must start capacity building. We must raise awareness. We must educate the public. We must eradicate poverty as with poverty comes all its ugly faces. We must change our 3rd class mentality. We must advocate sustainable development, understand the ecological sensitive areas, study the hydrological cycle, master the needs of nature and reason the much debatable issue of global warming phenomena… tak tau nak tulis apa lagi dah…I run for Manjoi Mayor, vote for me...

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