SOUL SCRIBBLES

Here we go again with the blame game after eight teenagers lost their lives in a horrific accident in Johor Baru early Saturday morning. Why do we do that? A New York-based psychology website offered this as one of the reasons: that we are not good at figuring out the cause. It also said that the blame game is an excellent defence mechanism, a tool that is used when we are in attack mode and that it is easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility. Who is actually responsible for what had happened — the parents who said that they were not aware of their children’s whereabouts at night or what they did; the children for courting death, knowing fully well the danger of making the road their playground; the car driver for not being careful while on the road; or the authorities for not hauling up these children when they are aware of the children’s nocturnal activities on that particular road? Netizens did not mince their words when sharing and commenting on the acciden...

It was nine years ago, while on a working visit to Japan, that then prime minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi received news that Malaysia had lost Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore. He was at a private dinner function in Tokyo when acting president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the case, Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, delivered the judgment in The Hague, the Netherlands. Reporters covering Abdullah’s working visit received instructions from their editors in Kuala Lumpur to get the prime minister’s comment for the final edition of their respective newspapers. It was 15 minutes to midnight that we got to see him. As soon as he arrived at the hotel, we were ushered into his suite. He had been briefed on the judgment. I remember him sitting at the head of the dining table, face downcast. He expressed sadness over the decision, but nevertheless, accepted it, saying that it was based on hard facts and evidence. He thanked the Malaysian legal team an...