Do We Actually Make a Difference?

 It’s been something of a surreal week. It started on Tuesday when I had the chance to meet Tom Wright, the investigative journalist who co-authored the book “Billion Dollar Whale,” about the 1MDB saga in Malaysia, which eventually lead to the historical defeat of Najib Razak and the BN coalition that had ruled Malaysia since independence.

 

 

 The week then ended when I received a call from the wife of one of my best friends to inform me that he had died. My friend was what you’d call a “decent” bloke in every sense of the word. Unlike me, he avoided the vices of drinking and women. His life was dedicated to ensuring that his mum, his wife and four kids got what they could out of life. Yet, his reward was a pacemaker in his forties and departure from life just as he entered his fifties.

I think of these two events because, during my meeting with Mr. Wright, he asked me and colleague who was with me, “Do we make a difference?” I think of this question because it’s the basic question of why do we do what we do? Is being a good guy worth it? My friend was a good guy who was devoted to his family yet he died at 51. I’ve known less honourable characters (the type who happily screw over their own kids) who are alive, healthy and doing quite nicely thank you very much.

It’s what you call the frustration of being in the investigation business, where you do a task that’s often dull and yet dangerous. While the criminals have “criminal loot,” the investigators (think people like investigative journalist, forensic accountants, public prosecutors and defenders, whistleblowers and so on), barely get a pat of the back when all is said and done.  

Take Mr. Wright as an example. His book, Billion Dollar Whale, exposed the scam at 1MDB and how a sitting Prime Minister was part of an embezzlement of the Malaysian people. That Prime Minister is now in jail and the party that supported him got thrown out of power but has corruption in Malaysia been lessened? The answer is probably a depressing no.

If you want to take things onto the global stage, there’s the example of Watergate. We celebrated the courage of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in bringing down a president. Yet, we continue to have things like Iran Contra under Regan, White Water under Clinton and now there’s Trump who blatantly oversaw the deaths of a multitude of Americans due to his incompetent handling of Covid.  

Like it or not, does appear that despite the efforts of the “good guys,” the bad guys continue and even thrive. It doesn’t help that the side with more money inevitably has the power to change the goal post.

So, why bother being a good guy when the bad guys seem so many steps ahead? Why bother fighting if you know you’ll end up losing right? Funnily enough I do get that allot from Singaporeans who think that things like protest are pointless (I had people who could not see why Burmese protested the Military Coup or things like Black Lives Matter. Many even tell me I should be grateful for Colonialism.).

The answer is inevitably this – rolling over and accepting bad things leads to worse outcomes. If you allow fraud to take place without trying to stop it, you are inevitably condoning it. If you don’t speak up about genocides against certain people, you are effectively condoning genocide. Now, you could argue that it doesn’t affect me – who cares?

However, as history has shown, a guy who cheats other people will one day cheat you. A guy who thinks of murdering one ethnic group is likely to turn around and start on yours. I go back to my Jewish friend’s observations of his family history and how many Jews in Europe through Hitler didn’t mean Jews like them. You hear allot of the same rhetoric in America from Hispanics who talk about ICE dragging people off the streets as “Its not people like us.” Hitler didn’t mean people like them – until he did.

So, why do we do what we do? I like to think that when we catch crooks and protest tyrants, we do our part to ensure that we don’t rot completely. Think of it as, I do my part to ensure it doesn’t happen to me, which is again, idealistic but the message is there. You are just an individual but you have the power to inspire others and a collective becomes very powerful. People who think, I’m just a nobody so why bother set themselves up to be steamrollered by the scum.