The great flood of 2021 indeed. Most of us haven’t seen an inundation of our cities and villages of this order for a long while, if ever. It’s been called a hundred-year flood, though we may not have to wait for another hundred years to see another one.

I was sheltering from the rain at a friend’s workshop where the water eventually rose though it quickly subsided. Enough to cause some damage certainly.

But this was nothing compared to the devastation in many other areas, and the loss of life too. Apart from what we know about the situation in the cities, there are many rural areas which are terribly hit too.

Two things stand out for me.

One is the amazing reactions of the ordinary Malaysians towards helping each other and those in need. I know of many who dropped everything and are still hard at it even now, days after the initial flooding.

Many of these people will still be at it weeks and even months later, when a lot of work will still be needed, long after the headlines have moved on.

Sure, at times it appears like an unruly circus, but with nobody to coordinate things, that is inevitable. Overall, the volunteers did, and are doing, a lot of good helping their fellow Malaysians.

After the immediate need to rescue people, there will be the harder job of helping people to rebuild their lives. This will take weeks, months and even years, and this is where real heroism will be needed. Is it just a social media opportunity or a real desire to help others? That will soon be clear.

But the generosity of the average Malaysian is beyond doubt. There is something good at the core of our nation that hasn’t been eroded away even by the various disasters and calamities, natural and man-made.

Long may that remain. But I can’t say the same thing about my second observation.

Didn’t they see it coming?

The authorities bungled this big time. Hardly any part of those taxpayer funded machineries covered themselves with glory. There’s ignominy aplenty to share.

I’d start with those who are supposed to predict and alert us of the impending disaster. Even if it’s a 100-year event, it’s clearly seen on the many weather satellite maps. This is not something that broke loose all of a sudden and surprised us.

I don’t remember seeing anything that warned us about what was coming and the severity of it. Warning us of severe rains is something any of us could have done just by following the weather bulletins on CNN and BBC.

Some of us are probably smart enough to trawl the internet and read the various weather forecasts and, if given the forums, would have made a more effective weather forecaster.

What about our universities and other places where experts work? Didn’t hear a pip from them. I’m sure there are many smart people there who saw what was coming, but either decided discretion was called for, or were told not to raise their voice.

I’m happy to hear about this being a 100-year flood way down the road when all data is collected and analysis done. Right now, it sounds too much like an excuse for being caught with our pants down.

I’d also question those experts who are supposed to manage our drains and rivers. Shouldn’t they have known and have computer models of how such heavy rainfalls would have impacted the various areas? Is this something so hard to do?

Sure, there are the unknowns – clogged drains and unserviced channels etc, but we know our drains are always clogged and our drainage is always bad: what other scenario do we need to factor for?

Disastrous management bodies

Then we have our so-called disaster management bodies, though perhaps disaster bodies are a more appropriate name for them. They seem to run around chasing their own tails, if they were running around at all and not organising launch ceremonies.

Launch ceremonies before beginning rescue work? For goodness’ sake. What will we have next? Ministers cruising around in luxury SUVs and boats surrounded by media personnel and social media flunkeys and assorted toadies? Oh wait, we have those too…

But the unhappy truth for me is something I believe we have known for a long while. Of the many emperors fencing themselves as administrators of our land, many don’t wear any clothes.

The ministers, policymakers and civil servants who are entrusted with monitoring and handling such situations, are sleeping on their jobs.

What exactly does climate change mean to them? A chance to prance around overseas attending big intimidating global conferences while doing absolutely nothing to advance the agenda of protecting ourselves from the increasingly inevitable natural disasters?

Do these people believe in what climate science is telling us? Do they believe in any science at all, or will they just say this is God’s will?

Miserable people who can’t govern

We are a nation led by an increasingly miserable bunch of people who have no idea what to do to govern effectively. Amid the misery of Covid-19, they are happily doing what they do best – politicking, or reducing the scale of our travails to the size that they can handle: alcoholic names or liquor licences or length of flight attendants’ skirts.

There are absolutely no long-term plans and any mechanism to implement them because those responsible are clueless and are more interested in their short-term survival and how much they can sapu while they have the time.

Many of our so-called leaders, while excelling in their political instincts, have absolutely no other qualifications to lead the country. When things are going well, they appear to know what they are doing.

But come calamity time, like what happened recently, and like what has been happening to our country over the last few years and decades albeit in lower intensity, all is laid bare. We lack one thing that would have helped us deal with whatever the world or Mother Nature throws at us – competence.

In the old days, we seemed to have been led by better quality people. Sure, they weren’t always right, and they shone because so many of us were poor and illiterate. And they weren’t averse to dipping their hands into the kitty and helping themselves to some of the goodies either.

But at least they delivered. They helped make Malaysia an Asian Tiger, and we shone, at least for a while.

Now, we often cringe in embarrassment at our leaders’ antics. It was fun for a while, when the stakes weren’t so high. It’s not so much fun now.

Belatedly, a week after the flood, the prime minister asked for the ministers enjoying themselves abroad to cancel their leave and return home. All I can say is things must be getting quite hot, what with social media not toeing the line to help cover things up to protect “national interest”.

But Prime Minister, if you really care about helping the rakyat, please extend the ministers’ leave and ask them to go or to remain abroad. Malaysians don’t need their incompetence and fragile egos at such critical times as these.

The silver lining in the cloud, if you’ll pardon the pun, is that Malaysians may start believing in each other again, and see those who are trying to divide us for what they really are – incompetent, blundering fools of bad faith trying to profit by sowing chaos and division.

Something good may come out of this after all.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.