What is national distress?

When we are invaded.

When nature disaster strike; something huge like the Asian Tsunami.

When food crisis strike; not just temporarily shortage of sugar or cooking oil… but when people started to feel the hunger because of food shortage.

When hyperinflation… not when people are chatting in Starbucks on how expensive our fuel is, but when people can’t even afford a cup of coffee in mamak stall.

When people are started losing jobs and couldn’t find new jobs. When unemployment is largely due to lack of jobs and not because of the poor qualities (and some laziness) of our young graduates.

When the police and armed forces are becoming thugs. This is the one hanging on borderline… but set aside a few political cases, the police are still doing their job to fight crimes. Remember this, some of them are risking their lives to protect ours.

When democracy is irrelevant. Don’t tell me that our democracy is dead… we are given the rights to vote, and despite not being perfectly fair, we do have the power to determine which parties and people we want to form our government.

If Malaysia is in distress, what should we call other countries like Philippines or India? For name sake I don’t even think the likes of Philippines and India are in distress yet, let alone Malaysia?

Some Malaysians are just too pampered these days… distress? WTF.

While the world is watching on the high rising crude oil price, the real oil crisis creeps in and affecting every individual in Malaysia… Malaysia is shortage of cooking oil!

From next week, a customer will only be able to purchase a maximum of 5kg of cooking oil at any one time. Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal in making the announcement on the rationing of cooking oil today, said it was necessary in facing the cooking oil shortage crisis in the country. [Bernama]

Didn’t see this coming at all… cooking oil has been in abundance at the hypermarkets I frequent (in PJ/KL). It’s reported that Kelantan, Pahang, Melaka and Kedah were worst hit by the crisis and major supermarkets there were facing difficulty in replenishing the stocks.

Shafie has advised consumers not to panic as it would only worsen the situation. The irony is, the rationing exercise is certainly going to worsen the situation in short term… my first thought when reading the news was “better go and buy some oil ASAP.” I bet I am not the only one who is thinking about this… it’s not panicking; it’s just being a human.







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