COMMENT In a country where ruling politicians have lost their sense of right and wrong and are kept in that state of numbness by the sweet talk of eager businessmen, the moral compass must be passed back to the people.
Prof Perry Link, a specialist in Asian Studies at Princeton University who has researched extensively on 20th century Chinese literature, was right when he remarked that “the only widespread public values today are the making of money and a relatively superficial version of nationalism.”
One gets the impression that the government sees no contradiction between its hype about nurturing a morally upright nation and its temptation to re-issue a sports betting licence and thus officially promote the gambling habit. Even more mind-boggling is the apparent belief that the moral question is irrelevant because the target market is non-Muslim.
The truth is that there are compulsive gamblers in all communities.
If the government thinks that those opposing the move do so merely because they are against political patronage and the enrichment of cronies, then it is truly clueless about what the public is thinking and it deserves the boot at the next general election.
Most opponents of legalised gambling are concerned about its effect on family welfare. They are not impressed by efforts to justify the move, not even by the attempt to sanitize the vice by the promise of a RM525 million boost to charity.
Berjaya CEO Vincent Tan has revealed that he voluntarily returned his gaming licence in 1990 but successfully negotiated for the company to be given the first right of refusal should the licence be re-issued. According to him, it was re-issued in 2003.
Many now think Dr Mahathir Mohammad’s administration was unwise when it first issued the betting licence to Ascort Sports in 1987.
Tan has publicly rubbished the “wild and unsubstantiated allegations” about political patronage. Whether or not he is right, the question is secondary to the issue of gambling as an evil.
Even the devil will cooperate
First, it is not true that only non-Malays gamble. In 2006, Bernama reported that Malays spent RM1 billion a year on intoxicants and RM3 billion in gambling activities.
Second, it is a weak and naive argument to say that legalising sports betting would curb the activities of illegal bookies and Ah Longs.
Third, previous licensing of horseracing, lotteries, casino gaming and number forecasting benefitted only a small pool of bonanza winners while the large majority of losers were hard-pressed to shake off their addiction.
It is common knowledge that Ah Longs continue to lend at their cutthroat rates, even to gamblers staking their borrowed money in government-approved betting outlets.
Being charitable with money sucked away from hapless gambling addicts cannot obliterate the emotional and even physical harm inflicted on individuals or justify the social costs to the nation as a whole.
It is as unconvincing today as it has always been to say that legalised gambling will curb illegal operators. Malaysians are not so gullible as to believe such flimsy arguments, whether they come from private individuals or government officials.
Handouts from gambling operations in the name of “charity” cannot and should not be allowed to blur the line between right and wrong, between the moral and the immoral, between virtue and vice.
According to an old Chinese saying, “if you have money, you can make the devil push your grindstone.”
Warning signs needed
In 1997, Malaysia ranked second worldwide in terms of lottery sales as percentage of Gross Domestic Product (2.81%). Between 1991 and 2003, the Malaysian legalised gambling industry grew more than 121 percent from RM1.4 billion to RM3.1 billion.
Blinded perhaps by the dazzle of money, the government does not seem bothered to quantify the social problems directly linked to gambling addiction—debts to loan sharks, embezzlement, bankruptcies, incarceration, family breakdowns, suicides, alcohol abuse, health and mental problems, domestic violence, etc.
Do all these problems add to medical and health care costs? Maybe the Health Minister should do a comparative study to find out which exacts more from government coffers: compulsive gambling or smoking addiction.
There is an interesting paper entitled “Demand for Vices in Malaysia: All Ethnic Comparisons using Household Expenditure Data (2005-2006),” which is the result of a study by Andrew Tan, Steven Yen and Nayga Rodolfom Jr.
“The survey findings on gambling indicated that non-Muslim households in Malaysia who are likely to gamble include affluent male-headed Chinese households and younger and non-white collar households,” it says.
“High risk groups are those less educated, blue collar workers and the male gender.”
The paper recommends legislation that would require gambling operators to put up warning signs on the dangers and risks of pathological or compulsive gambling.
It suggests that the relevant authorities conduct public awareness campaigns to highlight the social consequences of gambling. It also calls on education authorities to educate children against gambling.
Perhaps the government should insist that gambling operators put up displays that explain to their customers the odds of winning, how the games work and the dangers of compulsive buying.
Worst of the four vices
We have a government more interested in pressuring smokers to give up cigarettes than in providing counselling services for problem gamblers who in fact are causing more harm to society.
A coffee shop owner asked, “Have you seen any publicity propaganda by the government against gambling?
“Why is the government paying so much attention to the anti-smoking campaign when gambling is definitely a worse evil?”
In classical Chinese literature, gambling (du) is considered the worst evil among four vices, the other three being gluttony, drinking and whoring (chi, he and piao). Nowhere is smoking considered an immoral behaviour, that is, until the manufacture of opium.
Today, while there is a lot of bad press about smoking, the health hazards and other negative effects of gambling are officially ignored.
Yet, it is a reality that compulsive gambling does lead to more seriously immoral behaviour, including bribery, embezzlement and fraud. This was one of the favourite themes of 18th century Chinese writers.
I asked a social worker who happens to be an occasional gambler to compare the two evils of smoking and gambling.
“I have not come across a person who has committed suicide because he smoked or borrowed from a loan shark to buy cigarettes or beat up his wife because of his tobacco addiction,” he said.
The bottom line is that the BN government long ago lost the notion of what is morally right or wrong.
Stanley Koh is a Free Malaysia Today contributor
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