Putrajaya, we have a problem. No, it's not just landslides. More, a Malaysian one at that. From policing to pollution and everything in between, we have them.
Lessons are there but what use are they if we have become unteachable? Our eyes no longer see and ears no longer hear. We don't nip the problems when they are tiny but let them grow to become irreversible.
Consider policing of the simplest kind: parking of cars on shoulders of roads. Jalan Pinang in the capital city is a prime example. Every time there is a grand function at Hyatt Hotel or exhibition at KLCC, luxury cars overflow beyond the shoulders, causing congestion of the insuperable kind during peak hours.
Have parking charges become unaffordable for them, too? No, the chauffeurs aren't queueing to pick up the men in Jimmy Choo shoes. The cars are parked for hours. Wonder whether the owners of the Masserati know the mess their chauffeurs are causing. Or do they even care? Some may think it to be so minuscule that we shouldn't bother.
It is because we have not bothered to nip it, we now have a national problem. Cars block fire engines, ambulances and other emergency services in reaching victims in time. Deterioration and deaths are the price we pay for apathy of a Malaysian kind.
Let's ask a question that has long ago answered itself. How come such things don't happen down south in Singapore? Sure, not everything Singapore does is good for Malaysia. But how the island state polices errant drivers is something we can emulate.
The tragic Batang Kali landslide isn't the first, and if current practices are allowed to continue, it may not be the last. Just take a drive on the highway from KL to the north, you will see countless houses perched precariously on hill slopes, some of which are showing signs of Batang Kali care. But when landslides happen, be prepared for bafflers such as "slope failure".
Yes, only slopes fail, not humans. How easily we blame something which hasn't the power of speech we have. Perhaps, they do "speak" back, but being unteachable, we refuse to learn.
Natural disaster is another devious device to deflect human error. It was in full display in the July Baling floods to sidetrack blame from the shoulders that should bear them.
Pollution, too, is perennial. Snuff it out here, it appears there. Sometimes the reappearance is in the very same place. Take the smelting plant in Cheng, Melaka.
In late March, the Melaka Department of Environment (DoE) was forced to cut the plant's power supply when the owners continued to operate for eight months despite a stop-work order being issued under the Environmental Quality Act 1974 over allegations of air pollution.
DoE should know poor policing breeds recalcitrance. Eight months of non-compliance is baffling, especially after issuing 23 compound notices. If defiance in Melaka isn't enough, here is one more ungovernable smelter story from Kuala Kangsar, Perak.
This time, as this newspaper reported on Dec 15, the plant had no licence to operate. An illegal metal smelting plant in an oil palm plantation? It must have taken time to build the plant. How did we not see it grow? A Batang Kali refrain? Time to revisit everything, from policing to pollution and whatever is in between.