Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 12, 2018 - November 18, 2018

TO those who dislike Umno’s Datuk Lokman Adam, coming up with the “right” name for him has always been a difficult task. To many, dislike is a tame word to describe what they feel about the Umno supreme council member. And believe me when I say there’s a whole lot of dislike out there. Okay, I’ll a call a spade a spade and call these people haters.

And the haters, as I said, have been trying to pick a “nice” name to ridicule and, at the same time, vent their anger against the man. Why? Obviously for his antics in defending Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Umno. As for what his antics are, we know all too well his role in many demonstrations, so no elaboration is needed here.

Hence, we hear names like “Lockman”, suggesting that he be locked up, or “Lookman” which, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how that is relevant to the matter at hand. There are one or two more, but nothing that fired up the imagination. Lookman and Lockman weren’t catchy enough to catch on.

The struggle to find a name good enough to satisfy the haters continued to no avail, until Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin popped up to give a helping hand, as it were.

It started when Lokman sent out a tweet slamming Khairy for being critical of Najib, and for his exchanges in parliament with Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

He tweeted: “With this kind of finger-pointing attitude, don’t ever dream that you can be the president of Umno.”

Khairy’s response, via twitter, was, “You better pray I don’t become president of Umno. First thing I’ll do is sack you for having the IQ of a carrot.”

That triggered a social media frenzy. The tweets went wild and “Carrotman” was born. The haters had the answer to their prayers and searched no more as they had found a name to their liking.

And to give it an Umno feel, Carrotman became Lobakman — a funny Umno superhero of sorts.

As the festival of lights was taking place around the time the “IQ of a carrot” tweet went viral, a friend joked, “This Deepavali, take it easy on the carrot halwa because you know it has a low IQ.”

There are many other jokes of course, and the fun is still going on. But what actually does IQ of a carrot mean? Must a carrot have an IQ? If so, what IQ would it have? Is it an insult or a compliment to say someone has the IQ of a carrot? In Lokman’s case, I don’t think Khairy meant to flatter him.

Apparently, it has something to do with Mensa, the oldest and largest high IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ test or other approved intelligence test, according to Wikipedia.

Thanks to Google, I learnt that a leading member of Mensa by the name of Peter Baimbridge was asked about the effectiveness of IQ tests in judging intelligence. He replied, “So, most IQ tests will have Mr and Mrs Average scoring 100 and the higher you get, the brighter you are. And if your IQ is somewhere around 60, then you are probably a carrot.”

The interview was aired live on television by the BBC and viewers took exception, complaining that the remarks “suggested people with learning disabilities are vegetables”.

This led to Baimbridge and the BBC issuing apologies. I’m quite sure Khairy has no intention of doing so to Lokman. Not anytime soon.

So, Lobakman with the IQ of a carrot is set to stay.

By the way, I also learnt, via Google, that many a British politician has been called a fruit or vegetable. For example, a weak politician may be described as a potato because he or she is easily bullied.

And a politician who is unsure of himself or does not know what he wants much of the time may be labelled a tomato, an obvious reference to the age-old question of whether that is a fruit or a vegetable. British humour, if you like.

Malaysian politicians, beware now that IQ of a carrot has made its debut here. You might find yourself branded as some vegetable or fruit. For the time being though, Lokman is the country’s Lobakman.

 

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share