THE Kedah government should be applauded, if not for any other thing, just for being brave. Go on, Menteri Besar Azizan Abdul Razak, with your bravado.

Go on, harvest all the forests, especially those in water-catchment areas upstream from our kampung and make billions of ringgit from this simple enterprise. Why crack your head to get money through difficult and complex means that need planning and deliberation?

Damn the people if they eventually suffer from floods, drought, loss of crops, damaged dwellings and contaminated water, or the lack of it.

Cash in hand now is all-important. We are not going to live many more years in this world. What is important is life in the hereafter. Who cares if our children and their children’s children suffer.

Azizan, carry on with your first major project of cutting down the trees in the Ulu Muda forest reserve.

Don’t pay attention to the global trend of going green.

Let’s even change the colours of Kedah from yellow and green to brown, which would probably be the colour of the Kedah landscape when the forests are gone. Better still, let’s make Kedah look like the Middle East with its vast deserts.

After all, as they say, fortune favours the brave.

H.S. , Kuala Nerang, Kedah

Source: NST – June 26, 2008