TOLD that the peasants were starving, Marie-Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI of France, was reported to have said “Let them eat cake”. Historians have since disputed that the queen ever said any such thing but the phrase has remained in our lexicon as shorthand for an upper class that is oblivious and uncaring about the plight of the poor.
We’ve seen a lot of let-them-eat-cakeism lately within our shores. Beginning with the minister who so blithely went abroad on holiday with his family and then did not have to quarantine when he came home. Meanwhile, ordinary people could barely poke their noses out of their front yards without attracting a thousand-ringgit fine. A decision not to charge him with ignoring the quarantine was made because he was “not issued a home surveillance or observation order by the Health Ministry”. Which makes me think that whoever it was who was responsible should have been censured for being negligent. After all, although he was swabbed at the airport, there is such a thing as a false negative test result.