Last night my cousin Rahim and our friend Majnun took adrive to Permatang Pauh where Anwar ibrahim was to give his final rally speech the night before the 'Big' bi - election at Permatang Pauh. The crowd was huge and braved the incessant rain through the night shouting and cheering at just about every top gun members of the Malaysian Oppositon Party members who preceded the man they were there to send to the halls of Parliament as their leader. I had bought an umbrella ahh, what with money in your pocket1 but seriously it was the fact that the umbrella was also the colors of the Malaysian Flag with the the cresent and the star that got me to splurge and save myself from getting soaked while listening to this historic final campaign by Malaysia's most controversial political leader.
I shook his hand once when I attended his appearence in Kuala Trengganu at one of the beach front houses in Batu Burok and at that time he was on the run and and the former prime Minister Tun M. was on his tail and I was just a curious bystander wondering what it was all about and wanting to meet in person the man i had come to admire from afar while i was living abroad. I had sat on top of a neoghbor's gate wall while listening to him delivering his fiery speach at the time pointing his finger at just about every Tom, Dick and Mahathir for trying to shut him up behind bars and throw away the keys. I was swept away by the moment and joined in the fist raising at the South China seas skies yelling Roformasi! Dumb!!
When I returned home from the whole affair I received a call from my oldest brother telling me that my twin brother had called him and told him that my presecence on the TV3 screen had cast him a call from his boss demanding and explanation. Our relationship from then on hit the bottom between my twin and I and till this day i doubt if i could ever justify my actions to him and hell if I care to. But I blame Anwar for this! Yes it was because of him and his fiery speach that got me into this pea soup with my twin and his wife who would exploited every bit of the scenarion to plunge the wedge deeper into what was alredy a fragile realtionship between the twins. Off course Anwar had nothing to do with it and I would got to listen to him talk anywhere and anytime as i did on the final day of the last general election campaign night at Mount Eskine Chinese graveyard. I told my cousin Rahim back then that Anwar was looking for the four digit numbers among the gravestones. But this was Malaysian Politics, the opposition will be the opposition and with all the money spent building fancy halls and stadiums all over the country opposition political rallies are held in padi fields and graveyards attended by who? the very people that paid for these expesive facilities.
I hate politics and i hate politicians even worse but I know that without the two life as it is today would be total chaos where its ups for grabs to the toughest, meanest and most cunning of society to lead the rest of the flock like cattle being lead to the chopping block. Politics and politicians provides the necessary cheque and ballance, and when one or two decided to turn bad hopefully the others would nail him down. The people who braved the rain, put up with the driving and parking, taking their time to be there deserve the best from those they had come to support. Malaysians deserve the best from their government and the government deserves the unquestioned support of the people as this is not an easy nation to rule being multi- racial, multi - religious and multi - idiosyncracies. Like sititng on a keg of explosives, one wrong word, one wrong move one wrong look! KABOOOOM!! All hell will break loose and all civility will be cast to the winds and only chaos and destruction will be the course of action. Deep deep down there is still the mistrust and the suspicions among the three major races in this country and anyone who does not see this or experience it in one form or another is either naive or in denial.
As I see it the work for the politicians is not so much as to unite the nation but at present to stamp out all the elements that is being used to create a division among the races. The elements that is being exploit by all in their persuit to fulfill their own petty agendas at the expense of the miseries of those who had laid their trust in the hands of their leaders. Malaysians walk the thin line of racial conflict and attaining harmony on the other hand will be the cronw of our success in governance of a society. Most of our Malaysians are educated to a certain degree and most have the desire to live along with their neighbors in harmony regardless of who their neighbors might be. However for so long as there are those who dwell upon self promotion, self propagation and self agrandizement as a means of being ahead in this life, Malaysian plural society is at the mercy of racial disunity. These are the ones who will keep sowing the dark seeds of discord among the uneducated and the down trodden stirring their passions and emotions through religious and cultural sentiments evoking ancient lineages and the worship of ancestors as a means for reason to demand justice. Malaysia will see more and mosques and temples and shrines growing all ove the country no matter who rules, maybe this is not such a bad idea if it at the same time see less and less hotels and other forms of accomodations as mosques and temple in their own right are where people in times of need can seek shelter. But too far fetched, as most of the these places of worship are usually locked most
of the time depriving the very needy who they were build for the help they could use.
If the Malays can drop their Malayness and the Chinese forget their Chineseness and the Indians and the rest of the ethnic groupds that make up this nation does likewise perhaps and even then, we might be able to call ouselves truly Malaysians. To change the future of the nation we have to change our own mindset each and everyone of us, the rich and the poor alike the enlightened and the ignorant it does not matter, we every single native who aspires for a wholesome nation has to know ourselves and where we stand. We have to shed our old mindset of nativistic, tribalistic, clannistic guises and embrace with faith one identity without fear or favor. Short of this Malaysia will never get off from this powder keg that is slowly burning its fuse waiting for the final destruction....MERDEKA!!
If and when Anwar Ibrahim is elected to parliament Malaysia will go through a change no doubt one way or the other and the oppostion party is the only hope for this change for better or for worse. Change is what is needed at present and even the most jaded of Malaysians realizes this. This is a country that has much to offer in its resources both natural as well human and for it to fail as a nation is unthinkable and a sure bloody shame. At present the direction in which we are headed seems like a blurr in everyone's mind and to bring some form of coherence in the sense of direction will need a very strong and capable leadership, a leadership comprised of great thinkers and movers, those who see the inot the future what present holds and not those who see how to profit from the present uncertainity for personal or group benifit into the future.
I shook his hand once when I attended his appearence in Kuala Trengganu at one of the beach front houses in Batu Burok and at that time he was on the run and and the former prime Minister Tun M. was on his tail and I was just a curious bystander wondering what it was all about and wanting to meet in person the man i had come to admire from afar while i was living abroad. I had sat on top of a neoghbor's gate wall while listening to him delivering his fiery speach at the time pointing his finger at just about every Tom, Dick and Mahathir for trying to shut him up behind bars and throw away the keys. I was swept away by the moment and joined in the fist raising at the South China seas skies yelling Roformasi! Dumb!!
When I returned home from the whole affair I received a call from my oldest brother telling me that my twin brother had called him and told him that my presecence on the TV3 screen had cast him a call from his boss demanding and explanation. Our relationship from then on hit the bottom between my twin and I and till this day i doubt if i could ever justify my actions to him and hell if I care to. But I blame Anwar for this! Yes it was because of him and his fiery speach that got me into this pea soup with my twin and his wife who would exploited every bit of the scenarion to plunge the wedge deeper into what was alredy a fragile realtionship between the twins. Off course Anwar had nothing to do with it and I would got to listen to him talk anywhere and anytime as i did on the final day of the last general election campaign night at Mount Eskine Chinese graveyard. I told my cousin Rahim back then that Anwar was looking for the four digit numbers among the gravestones. But this was Malaysian Politics, the opposition will be the opposition and with all the money spent building fancy halls and stadiums all over the country opposition political rallies are held in padi fields and graveyards attended by who? the very people that paid for these expesive facilities.
I hate politics and i hate politicians even worse but I know that without the two life as it is today would be total chaos where its ups for grabs to the toughest, meanest and most cunning of society to lead the rest of the flock like cattle being lead to the chopping block. Politics and politicians provides the necessary cheque and ballance, and when one or two decided to turn bad hopefully the others would nail him down. The people who braved the rain, put up with the driving and parking, taking their time to be there deserve the best from those they had come to support. Malaysians deserve the best from their government and the government deserves the unquestioned support of the people as this is not an easy nation to rule being multi- racial, multi - religious and multi - idiosyncracies. Like sititng on a keg of explosives, one wrong word, one wrong move one wrong look! KABOOOOM!! All hell will break loose and all civility will be cast to the winds and only chaos and destruction will be the course of action. Deep deep down there is still the mistrust and the suspicions among the three major races in this country and anyone who does not see this or experience it in one form or another is either naive or in denial.
As I see it the work for the politicians is not so much as to unite the nation but at present to stamp out all the elements that is being used to create a division among the races. The elements that is being exploit by all in their persuit to fulfill their own petty agendas at the expense of the miseries of those who had laid their trust in the hands of their leaders. Malaysians walk the thin line of racial conflict and attaining harmony on the other hand will be the cronw of our success in governance of a society. Most of our Malaysians are educated to a certain degree and most have the desire to live along with their neighbors in harmony regardless of who their neighbors might be. However for so long as there are those who dwell upon self promotion, self propagation and self agrandizement as a means of being ahead in this life, Malaysian plural society is at the mercy of racial disunity. These are the ones who will keep sowing the dark seeds of discord among the uneducated and the down trodden stirring their passions and emotions through religious and cultural sentiments evoking ancient lineages and the worship of ancestors as a means for reason to demand justice. Malaysia will see more and mosques and temples and shrines growing all ove the country no matter who rules, maybe this is not such a bad idea if it at the same time see less and less hotels and other forms of accomodations as mosques and temple in their own right are where people in times of need can seek shelter. But too far fetched, as most of the these places of worship are usually locked most
of the time depriving the very needy who they were build for the help they could use.If the Malays can drop their Malayness and the Chinese forget their Chineseness and the Indians and the rest of the ethnic groupds that make up this nation does likewise perhaps and even then, we might be able to call ouselves truly Malaysians. To change the future of the nation we have to change our own mindset each and everyone of us, the rich and the poor alike the enlightened and the ignorant it does not matter, we every single native who aspires for a wholesome nation has to know ourselves and where we stand. We have to shed our old mindset of nativistic, tribalistic, clannistic guises and embrace with faith one identity without fear or favor. Short of this Malaysia will never get off from this powder keg that is slowly burning its fuse waiting for the final destruction....MERDEKA!!
If and when Anwar Ibrahim is elected to parliament Malaysia will go through a change no doubt one way or the other and the oppostion party is the only hope for this change for better or for worse. Change is what is needed at present and even the most jaded of Malaysians realizes this. This is a country that has much to offer in its resources both natural as well human and for it to fail as a nation is unthinkable and a sure bloody shame. At present the direction in which we are headed seems like a blurr in everyone's mind and to bring some form of coherence in the sense of direction will need a very strong and capable leadership, a leadership comprised of great thinkers and movers, those who see the inot the future what present holds and not those who see how to profit from the present uncertainity for personal or group benifit into the future.
1 comment:
I hate politics, it's full with unhonesty..
Post a Comment