Description
“Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek [in The Puppet and the Dwarf] has pointed out how the Book of Job was probably the first instance whereby discursive strategies were employed to promote ideology. Job’s friends, in presenting all kinds of explanations for why Job suffered the tragedies he did, were attempting to obscure the trauma of the truth of evil in the world. Job’s disagreement—and God’s eventual vindication and endorsement of his views over against his friends’—demonstrated resilience in the face of such tempting illusions of closure. For Job, he refused to look away from the void in his pain. He refused to accept cheap solutions to the problem and ‘causes’ of his suffering. And just like how Job’s friends sought to cover-up Job’s trauma via inauthentic explanations, could it be that Malaysia’s leaders are always seeking to pull a veil over the abyss within the country via the promise of growth, wealth and prosperity, as if money solves everything? What happens, then, when the tap runs dry? Would Malaysia have the integrity and national strength to pull together and enjoy ourselves as a nation instead of constantly striving towards a globally indexed statistical target which, in all honesty, can never be met because there will always be another number in the future?”
