Many residents from the South East Asian countries of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia would know the "little red dot" refers to Singapore. It is a way of expressing contempt, preferred by Indonesian and Malaysian leaders, at the tiny state that just won't kowtow to its bigger neighbours. Despite its relatively small size, Singapore's ability to survive and compete more successfully than its bigger neighbours is perhaps the key point that infuriates leaders (out of jealousy perhaps?) of both Malaysia and Indonesia. If there is nothing more you could do with that success, it is gratifying, at least, to mock that the tiny state is nothing more than a little red dot.
The leaders of Malaysia are incredibly arrogant, and powerful, but only in Malaysia, that is. Save for a few other despotic regimes sprinkled across the third world, I don't remember any first world leaders having that kind of corrupted powers conferred upon their Malaysian counterpart. The leaders of the western democracies have only the power to lead, they can't decide on matters out of line with the wishes of the elected representatives or the general public. Try that and the exit will be quickly shown to you. Try harder and the leaders may even end up in jail.
The Malaysian leaders, although elected, lord over the people like they are his slaves whose only required function is to re-elect the government elections after elections. They are not to question the actions, behaviours and capability of the government. The people are often told how well Malaysia features in the world. Apparently stupid foreigners have yet to discover how brilliantly Malaysia has been ruled by the government.
Over the last few days, something embarrasing happened. Never before has the Malaysian government, and its usually compliant and efficient law enforcing agencies (or should I say law non-enforcing agencies if we stick to the letters of the law) found that they could not deal with a simple pain in their neck. This pain of course refers to the persons of Raja Petra Kamaruddin (popularly known as RPK) and private investigator Balasubramaniam. Both the Malaysians are wanted by the Malaysia government and the police (strangely, the government and the police are usually one and the same) But no, the police can't lay a hand on them because they are not in Malaysia but the UK, which protects people on the right side of the laws, unlike in Malaysia which usually does the opposite. From there, RPK and Bala have been taking aim and firing at the Malaysian government leaders, in particular the Prime Minister. They claimed the Prime Minister and members of his family might have been involved in a complex scheme of corruption and murder. Of course, in Malaysia the law enforcing agencies comprising the police, prosecutor and anti corruption commission would act only if the crime suspects are the opposition members.
It seems the Malaysian police can't do a thing about removing RPK and Bala from their now bigger world stage in the UK, short of illegally abducting or silencing the pair. Despite much sabre rattling by the Malaysian authorities, their UK counterpart hardly moves an eyebrow. The much hyped respect accorded to Malaysia by the rest of the world dissipated. Suddenly the Malaysian authorities find themselves in a naked and unfamiliar position, there is yet something that they are not able to accomplish.
It may be satisfying to thumb at the little red dot sometimes. Just remember that to the UK, and the rest of the world, Malaysia is no more than a little red smudge.
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