Government servant- a mouse deer between two fighting elephants

I really feel sorry for the Perak State Secretary and the State Assembly Secretary. At the moment they are like what the Malay proverb says: when two elephants fights, the mouse deer stands between them will perish.

I recalled my personal experience when I was working in Penang. Around 1989 and early 90s, when Anwar was in BN , he was wrestling with Pak Lah for the control of Penang Umno. Shariff Omar was aligning with Pak Lah and he was the Parliamentry Secretary of the then Ministry of Agriculture where my department was in. During this period when he came back to Penang , through my boss in KL, JPS Penang would take care of him for his official visit to JPS works in Penang. Once we were asked to launch a official opening of a project for him to officiate. Although these were federal functions none of the senior officers in KL appeared in these functions. As he came in as Parliamentary secretary of my ministry and my boss in KL so decided to instruct me to do it, I had no choice but to carry out the order. The political undertone was so obvious that once an EXCO member friendlily told me that I could be an UMNO member already. I had to explain to him my predicament.

When the dust had settled, not long after, I was transfered back to KL with short notice to hold a post less prestigious than State director although i still held the same rank. I had mentioned in my first post , later my boss apologized to me. Until today i was still not sure the exact reason for this transfer.

If we are heading towards a two party system, it looks like there is a need for the heads of Civil Service to take the lead of showing the government servants how to stay neutral or above politics so as not to get perished whenever there is a change of government.