This is Malaysia

It's one thing when whatever holiday plans you might have are screwed up because of say, a tsunami, civil war, or tragic accident. It's a completely different thing when your holiday plans are screwed up on account of a government official who just so happens to be authorized to bump off anyone in the way of his own holiday.

After at least three months of careful planning and careful anticipation, our ragtag band of 13 KL and Taiping friends were only four days away from a trip up Maxwell hill when it came to our attention that the Perak Menteri Besar was going off on holiday. What were the odds that he'd pick the same hill and at exactly the same time we were supposed to be up there? The whole hill and all the bungalows on it are to be requisitioned to house not just the Menteri Besar, but his retinue as well.

Our reservations have been canceled. Our plans, ruined.

Of course we aren't merely disappointed. This is disappointment coloured by shock and indignation. It would be childish at this point to cry not fair!, but regrettably, this really is not fair. Bumped off on short notice. During the peak period, too. Campers, families, school-free kids - their rooms booked and trips planned out months in advance - told to bugger off on the whim of a Menteri Besar.

Such unconscionable, arrogant behaviour does not do the Government well. If this country is as civilized as we claim it to be, then Menteri Besars and the like cannot carry on acting like feudal lords of old. We are not Burma, we are not Myanmar, we are not Pakistan. We are Malaysia. And we demand fair play.