IF THE television is to be believed, the first salvoes of the next political battle have been fired — over rendang and ketupat no less.
‘Good grief!’ Your soul cries out,’ Didn’t we just have an election?’ I still remember dipping my finger in that nasty black stuff.
But here we are being reminded that soon we’ll go through all that circus once again at State Elections and the latest cannon fodder is the really benign open house.
Sanusi is gloating over his 50,000 guests and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wants to hold not one, but six, of them.
Instead of basking in the afterglow of Ramadhan and the catharsis of abstinence, we are being reminded that everything has a political angle. Now the Hari Raya Open house has been weaponised by both sides of the political divide.
Instead of celebrating the regal rendang — the food of angels — and its special place during this time, the Hari Raya open house has been reduced to mockery by politicians.
They want to show the spirit of goodwill but at the same time count on the mileage they’d get by hosting Hari Raya open house.
Feeding people and spreading goodwill is a requirement of the faith in Islam, but to score points by subverting Hari Raya hospitality by holding thinly disguised political rallies is really hitting it below the belt.
The present concept of the Open House is about as far as you can get of what the practice should mean.
Just as a reminder, a Hari Raya open house is just what it sounds.
You open up your house to neighbours, friends and families and be extremely nice and forgive everyone who comes of past indiscretions. It’s all very civil and allows
for the peaceful conclusion of any long-standing feuds. It’s hard to carry on a grudge with someone after you’ve shared rendang and ketupat. Vice versa, if I want forgiveness from someone, I just turn up at their door and seek it over a handshake.
People would knock on your door at all hours during this special period. They’ll expect and will be fed biscuits and F&N spritzed, be updated that your third daughter is now gainfully employed, and no, not married yet but has a special boy from a good family in mind. And how you are coping with the new 50in smart TV. And oh, the curtains? They were on special at Jakel’s — not expensive at all.
This is if your guests are adults. If your guests are one of those roaming gangs of little urchins at various stages of being sick of ketu- pat and rendang on account your house is the 10th they’ve visited today — you cut to the chase and give them Hari Raya money.
This is how the open house is done in towns (with two cinemas or fewer) and villages all over the country. To be fair, in rarified Bang- sar and certain areas of Damansara, they do things a little different — they hold one-day events with caterers and maybe a ghazal band to boot.
But elsewhere in the country, you even get whole families of people you don’t know coming to your house, and you are obliged to welcome them all. That is the open house code, bro.
None of this “I had 50,000 guests come to my house” and they all will vote for me at the next election or the “I will go to the people at a Hari Raya open house near you” kind of deals.
While it is understandable that politicians want to carve up as much mindshare of the voters in the run-up to the upcoming state elections, using the Hari Raya open house is the strategy of diminishing returns. Away from the sycophants and pseudo-strategists that politicians surround themselves with, people are tired of it, I tell you.
This is because after a contentious and closely run general election last year, people like me want to just look forward to a calm next five years. More so, as we learn to swallow some of the compromises over reforms and anti-graft stances that we have had to make since then.
The people who care about politics are suffering from politics fatigue syndrome.
This is evident in the symptoms. You get swelling anger at small things like celebrities divorcing/marrying, you see people get heartache attacks over parking, watery insecurities in observing people who are not like you and of course the prevalent aversion to bull-droppings.
Using my own self as a barometer, this political fatigue is critically bad.
The last political speech I saw on television gave me the urge to grow monk beans or anything other than having to hold opposing thoughts in my head which happens whenever you see a typical session of parliament.
As Sandra said, I am not one of your anaemic creatures who can derive nourishment from a lettuce. I need rendang, so keep your hands off it.
- ZB Othman is an editor at The Malaysian Reserve.
- This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
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