In this system what gets you to the top are the courtier’s skills of flattery, hagiography and willingness to do one’s bosses’ biddings.

They become ministers in as a reward for political favors done or votes delivered, not for their IQ or EQ.

They are like spoilt children; they behave like brats because it is the only way they know. Unless spoilt brats get a spanking now and then they do not learn any better.

Unfortunately in Malaysia the press is so controlled and the opposition so muzzled that nobody has any effective means to give them a good whack. Then blogs came along…

At first I was incredulous reading your accounts of Malaysian bureaucrats and how they could be so stupid in the face of reality.

Then I remembered my student days in the 1990s. I remembered the televised broadcast of a Malaysian minister personally cutting the hair of a Malaysian heavy-metal (or was it just hard-rock) band ?

Then I remembered low-level Australian immigration and customs officials interviewing people coming into that country.

So how’s this — WHY do you think they’re so apparently dumb ? The system rewards blind obedience ? They are actually short in the grey-matter (I don’t think so). They’re only accountable upwards ?

Please help. Am stumped.