The Bastion About to Fall?

— What the subject today? enquires Beefy in passing the table.
         They are all long-used to the scribbling outsider sitting in their midst each evening. This was the chap who some months ago complained about the local grave-digger's unpaid debt. Either a few hundred or a few thousand dollars was involved—the bitten off awkward English difficult to follow. Fellow concerned had been dodging Lower Geylang six months and more. The pair of former friends had shared an interest in the nags. Often the big boy can be seen studying the Form Guide, running his fingers along the listings; grave-digger is short and sinewy, a good build for the jockey he aspired to in youth. Unfortunately his father put the knock on any association with the race-track - haram of course, as was the punt itself.
         Big beefy was unhappy to hear about the Hindu focus in answer to his question.
         With his put-on outrage and mock-shaking jowls: — There are Muslim (Tamils) too....
         — Masha'Allah! a woman calls out to another, unexpectedly coming upon an old friend not seen how long…. The Malays congregate in Geylang Serai for a reason. Up in their bird-cages they are lost to their community.
         The Southern Serbs of course have precisely the same expression—Marsh'alla in our case—used roughly the same way as an exclamation of gleeful thankfulness. Five hundred years of occupation left a mark. It would offend the chaps at Lower Geylang talking of the Crescent’s "occupation". The sword that travels with religious banners is abundantly well-recognized when it has been inflicted upon one’s own group; not so well otherwise. Many hereabouts, if not all perhaps, inevitably, regard the Reconquista in Spain as an unmitigated disaster, a terrible tragedy and lost opportunity. What might have been!....
         To a man—and woman no different—down here in Geylang Serai they are hoping Barisan Nasional are returned for another term in the heart-land over on the Peninsular. Najib Razak following in his father's foot-steps after a couple of others on the throne keeping the seat warm for him.... (Rather similar to arrangements down in the city of Lions). Corruption there may be—not long odds after almost sixty uninterrupted years of the same party in the saddle; a Soviet-like term in the USSR. But to have the Chinese with their hands on the levers up in Malaysia - not at any price! They already own three-quarts of the country. Give the liberals a sniff, why, the Christian churches would be in there like rats up a drain-pipe. Not to mention pederasts. Might be the finish of the show. If that indeed came to pass best the Malays pack up the lot of them and go.... to Tanjong Pinang perhaps; Bintan and the other islands of the Riau. (Batam has already effectively been lost to Sin'pore.)
         Next weekend all will be revealed. Conflict should Anwar's Opposition alliance prevail. It would not take a great deal. A former Yugoslav knows better than most. The odds are a return of the incumbents with a reduced majority, though stranger things have happened. Even here in the last Presidential election the chap favoured by the presiding powers only just barely scraped in.