Once thought to only exist in Australia, we now know better. In fact, even in Australia, these unique animals are more easily spoken about than viewed. In the sixties when on my first visit to that country, I was on the farm outside Perth and my hosts felt it their bounden duty to show this young Malaysian the real thing. So I was put on the front seat of the Land Rover and literally taken for a ride. The powerful vehicle went all over the bush land, in and out of large holes in the ground but eighty minutes of focused search found not a single one of those fascinating animals. The only real kangaroo I could speak of was the one on the lunch table which I partook of only after much coaxing by the gracious hostess!
How was I to know that in this day and time, to view kangaroos, any Malaysian or for that matter any visitor to our land, need not take the Air Asia flight to Australia nor get into a powerful Land Rover. Here in Kuala Lumpur, they need not even have to make their way to the zoo. They need to just go to Jalan Duta.
There, to your surprise, you will see varieties of kangaroos performing to a full gallery and taking on the worse human antics of all- going through the motion of convincing people in and outside the country that a fair procedure is indeed taking place which meets all ethical standards and rule of thumb which we can all be proud of.
With due apologies to those fair Australian creatures, the local variety is not very convincing. In fact many of them may be thought to be distinctly non-functioning. It could be that not unlike their Australian cousins they are nocturnal creatures and therefore could be excused if their performance isn’t very convincing during a given day.
Whatever the reason, we the watching and hearing public deserve to see some better performance now before the whole thing becomes a complete farce which outsiders will not be kind enough to overlook.
The Micah Mandate is a Christian-based public interest advocacy ministry that seeks a transformation of our nation through justice, mercy and humility.
