Sometimes, the juxtaposition of news stories creates its own stark commentary on the times we live in, revealing contradictions and hypocrisies.
Hannah Yeoh’s 2014 book, Becoming Hannah: A Personal Journey, is a heartfelt account by one woman of her faith, penned with a prayer for a better future for her country. It sparks a frenzied reaction a decade later, culminating in police reports filed across the nation.
Yet, the cold and calculated murder of another woman – a crime so heinous it defies comprehension – is met with deafening silence. There is no outcry, no rallying of collective sympathy for the parents of the victim as they keep returning to this country in search of closure.
Altantuya Shaariibuu’s story is a haunting reminder of this disparity. In 2006, she was brutally murdered in a remote forest outside Kuala Lumpur, her life snuffed out by a crime as vile as it was deliberate.
The courts have painstakingly reconstructed the sequence of events, exposing the horrifying details and implicating powerful individuals. Evidence points to high-ranking government officers orchestrating her death. Yet the masterminds behind her murder remain untouched, shielded by layers of privilege and impunity.
For Altantuya’s parents, the quest for justice has become a painful journey, marked by indifference and the slow erosion of hope. Their pleas for accountability are drowned in the cacophony of other stories of other crimes that capture the public interest.
The contrast is glaring: a single book, offending no one, has launched hundreds of police reports. Yet the systematic silencing of a young woman and the anguish of her family barely register.
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This is not just a story of individual tragedy; it is a stain on the moral fabric of the nation. Altantuya’s murder will remain an indelible mark on Malaysia’s history, a dark reminder of the cost of unchecked power and unaccounted crimes.
No apology, no token compensation, no government gesture can erase this stain. The absence of true justice ensures that her memory will linger, her story a ghost that haunts the conscience of the nation.
Remember the legendary Mahsuri of Langkawi? Accused unjustly and killed despite her innocence, Mahsuri cursed the land and its people to suffer for seven generations. The flowing of white blood from her wounds – a sign of her purity – stands as a timeless warning: the curse of a wronged woman transcends her life, becoming a moral burden for those who bear witness to injustice and choose indifference over action.
Those who orchestrated Altantuya’s murder will find no redemption in the passage of time. Their conscience, if not already numbed, will bear the weight of this atrocity for as long as they live. And even after they are gone, the shadow of their deeds will taint their legacies, their bloodlines marked by the stain of a crime too grave to be forgotten.
Altantuya’s ghost is not just a symbol of unresolved justice; it is a reminder of the deep inequities in our collective moral outrage. A society that rises in anger over words but remains indifferent to murder reveals its priorities – and its hypocrisies. What does it say about us when we allow the orchestrators of such a heinous act to walk free, while the parents of the victim are left to mourn in obscurity?
Until there is accountability at the highest levels, Altantuya’s story will remain a wound that festers. Her murder is not just an unresolved crime; it is a moral reckoning for a nation that must decide whether it values justice or merely the appearance of it.
The silence surrounding her death is not just an indictment of those in power but of all who choose convenience over courage, forgetting that justice delayed is justice denied.
Some ghosts will not go away. They linger, demanding not just closure but truth. Altantuya’s ghost like that of Mahsuri is one such ghost, a haunting reminder that the stain of injustice cannot be washed away by time. Her murder is not just an unresolved crime; it is a moral reckoning for a nation that must decide whether it values justice or merely the appearance of it.
And to those who rallied as a frenzied mob against Yeoh’s heartfelt book, claiming moral outrage in the name of faith and virtue, Altantuya’s story casts a stark light on their dishonesty.
Where is that fervour now?
Where is the indignation for a life taken so cruelly, for a family left shattered?
Their silence in the face of this atrocity exposes the hollow posturing of their outrage, revealing not a commitment to justice or truth, but a willingness to abuse morality for convenience.
Some ghosts do not go away. They remain – a relentless reminder of the enduring need for courage and integrity in the fight for justice. Like Mahsuri’s curse, Altantuya’s story is a reminder that by ignoring injustice we risk leaving a stain on our collective conscience as a people.
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
It has made this country a joke. It’s most embarrassing to say the least. I pray those involved in the death of Altantuya would suffer terribly in this life and thereafter!
Hubris
People are delusional. They believe that escaping the law means escaping justice. But they are damned already—no matter where they stand, there is no evading karma. This is the unyielding law of the universe.
If not for their blindness, born of arrogance and pride, they might realize the truth: they are safer within the prison walls than exposed to the relentless consequences of their actions. Hubris
The pride that blinds before the inevitable fall. The wise know better—they stay far away, for even a legion of demons cannot shield the damned from their fate.
An excellent article UK.
The irony of this situation where murder seems to outrage the public less than a book expressing thanksgiving for the rich experiences in life, stems from this era of inverted values. The age of widespread mass communications via social media has given rise to justification of a culture of individualism where no wrong or right exists. Moral values become uncool, so sensitivities to the horror of brutality is dulled and shut out of minds through fear. One is cowed into silence and forgetfulness of the horror.
I fully agree with the writer, Mr.UK Menon.
Where is the indignation for a life taken so cruelly?
In fact, this hideous case involved 3 precious lives – Altantuya, her unborn child and the courageous prosecutor who was killed because he (allegedly) got too close to revealing the truth about the murder of Altantuya.