This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 4, 2020 - May 10, 2020

Come May 2 and Malaysians would have been forced to stay at home for almost 1½ months as part of the Movement Control Order (MCO) to stop the spread of Covid-19. Exceptions include being allowed to go out for necessities such as groceries and getting medical attention.

However, necessities can mean different things to different people. In the first week of the MCO, a colleague asked if barber shops were allowed to open for business, as he deems getting a haircut a necessity.

I get it. For me, going to a karaoke outlet is a necessity. If in a day I do not get to hit C6 singing Bohemian Rhapsody, I would go stir crazy. But at least, I can still sing at home to my heart’s content — although my neighbours and, as I recently discovered, my cats, may not approve.

For some others, obtaining a necessity may involve breaking the MCO to meet with ministers, even if they themselves do not hold an official position in the government.

These people are special, so give them a break, will you? One of them is, after all, the daughter of one of the most important persons in Malaysia. You can’t expect her to follow the rules like other people. She can flout the MCO and post it on her social media platforms, just because!

What else would you expect in Bolehland? We send a single mother to jail for 30 days for breaching the MCO but fine a deputy minister — whose salary may run into tens of thousands (plus allowances) — just RM1,000 for the same offence.

And we allow big corporations that operate fast food joints to open throughout the MCO, albeit with shorter hours and a stricter standard operating procedure, but threaten to issue a summons to a man selling watermelons from his own home even though he needs to make ends meet.

The last time I checked, people buy watermelons to go. They don’t sit around eating them the way they used to eat durians pre-MCO. Nobody would say “bang, tembikai satu, potong 15, kulit asing!” (Brother, one watermelon, cut into 15 and remove the skin).

That is so not watermelon!

(For boomers, the phrase “that is so watermelon” — or so not watermelon, depending on the context — is slang commonly used in the Kardasims spoof series by SimGM Productions to denote whether or not something is cool or awesome.)

But Malaysia is a great nation. The government is doing a good job handling the coronavirus outbreak and assisting those affected during this crisis. And we are a generous lot. Millions of ringgit have been collected by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to assist people in their time of need.

We can only hope that our generosity will not be exploited by those with ulterior motives. Because of the scarcity of government contracts these days, NGOs may appear to be prime candidates for scamming.

Already there are rumours of allocated resources not reaching the needy, and even when they do, they are short of the value allocated. Who takes money meant for charity to enrich oneself?

Even politicians, especially top politicians whom we shall not name, would know it is wrong to use such money for personal expenses as it’s so not watermelon.

In this time of crisis, how can anyone stoop so low?

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