51st Independence, Malaysia

Happy Independence Malaysia!! MERDEKA!!!!

Proud to fly the Jalur Gemilang!

Seriously, this year's celebration is nothing compared to last year's, half century of glory, or is it?

2008 is a turbulence year for many people around the world, we've seen China struck by a few natural disasters (eg: snowstorm in the first 2 months, monstrous earthquake in mid May), but yet they still managed to came up with the spectacular display for the Beijing Olympics 2008 just recently, talk about fast recovery huh....

Let's take a peek in Malaysia. During the first few days of the new year a political scandal struck a prominent minister, forcing him to resign from his post. I wouldn't need to mention the name, it is not something that should be proud of mentioning it.

Then it comes with the 12th General Election in 8th March, 2 days after my birthday. Oh boy, everything in Malaysia seems to be turning up-side-down since then.

The ruling political party although still holds the majority of seats in the Parliament, but they've lost quite a number of seats to the opposition, a collation of 3 parties. Things seem to turn from bad to worse from that moment onwards.

Everyday the politicians making the headline in newspapers, attacking their political enemies, or bodek the party leaders. The people commented those politicians are living in denial, they insist they've won the election but the fact is, they've gave away a lots of seats to the opposition parties.

Seems like Malaysians are thinking that the opposition parties are more relevant than the ruling party, who've been controlling the government since the 1st general election in the 20th century's 50's. It is important for the ruling party to realise and analyse the main factor for the terrible results in the election, but no, this is not in the plan of the government.

   

Many people blamed the current PM for all the failures shown here and there. Some blasted him badly, while some still insist to support him no matter what. I say, is he so unlucky to be landed in this job at the wrong timing? Seems like things just go from bad to worse during his tenure as the PM. Did he mess up the projects, schemes and plans? Did he missed out some crucial information while he's snoring during the meeting? Did he took the wrong advice from certain people and landed himself in the unfavourable condition he's experiencing today? Anyhow, I'd say he's just not up to the personality to run the job.

He is capable of doing things, only if he's stripped off with all the freaks surrounding him, and had his mind clear all of corruption and sleepy thoughts, he might just turn the tide around. External influences had made him the character he do not used to be. He would only succeed if he finally realised that he's serving for the country and the people, not just for the group of people of his clan.

Nevertheless, like many people, I'm one of them would like him to step down gracefully, instead of being thrown out of the office by the people. He'll scored another history in the country by then, being the first PM to be sacked from the office. Previous PMs either retire due to age, or resign due to health conditions.

The achievements of previous PMs are clearly stated within the history books, but what has he contributed since he took over in late 2003? Some say with him around, the freedom of speech is slightly improved as people would be more vocal and dare to voice out their objections & opinions, but what his minions had done lately has undone all his reputation on building up a free country of voices. Censorship is bad, and it is even worse if you think you wanna control the Internet!

Patriotic outfit

Sigh, I shall not elaborate further bout the ugly political scenes, it is depressing. You may think that I might be biased to certain sides, but I'm not. I don't see anything can be improved drastically in a short period of time even if the opposition parties really took over the government seats. It will do no good to our country if they decided to came up with a political revolution then. Everything will be mess up, and worse of all, riots would broke up between the supporters of the current-ruling party and the opposition parties. It's unavoidable, so says a certain people, whom maybe planning to hit Malaysia with another May 13? I sincerely hope that nothing will happen, let we people live a normal life like how we used to be.

Malaysia is actually a beautiful, friendly, and charming country, minus out the crazy politics. I'd say, most countries in the world would be a far better place if there's no interference of politicians. Politics are bad, but we cannot build up a country without it, oh well. Contradictions.....

Among my social networking circle (on & offline), it's not uncommon to hear some people decided to migrate to other country because they're fed up and disappointed with the country. Some say they will not be coming back after they finish their studies abroad, some's family are planning to migrate in a few years of time?

The nation's hero, Datuk Lee Chong Wei, Olympic silver medalist.

I do not deny that I have thoughts of studying abroad, it is a really good experience to learn things from other countries, I guess no one can deny this fact because it's proven to be beneficial. But still, no matter what, I felt that the best is to stay in Malaysia.

I've been through a few countries, namely China (Beijing, Hainan) , Taiwan & Australia (Perth) so far for now. I've observed the cities there and learn the difference between there and Malaysia. There might be things that we should emulate them, well, the fact is, I still think that Malaysia is a lot better than that in some ways.

You can say that it's just a few countries I've been, and those cities I went may not be significant in some ways, yeah I do see things in that matter. If you would like you can sponsor me to travel abroad to see the real cities for myself, I would love to do so.  :)

A view of KL skyline, from another angle.

Malaysia is a passionate country. For some tourists, they keep on visiting Malaysia again and again as there's some sort of attraction to keep 'em coming over and over again. Let's take a look a those European travel hotspots, people might just went there for once in their life time and never again (don't count afterlife). Those are the premium travel spots of the whole world, but why we seldom see people going back there again?

I jokingly thought that is it because those tourists are attracted by the durian fruit? Heh, not many would dare to try this fruit, this fruit even found itself in the 2nd challenge of Fear Factor, which I laughed hardly whenever I see the contestants throw up or felt disgusted just by looking at the fruit. It is far better than eating live animals, which I think is barbaric. You should be pleased if you're asked to eat durian, because it's the king of fruits over here!

I dare to say, that most Malaysians living abroad would miss the local food badly, really. Malaysia is a food paradise with fusion of different variety of food, derived from the different culture backgrounds we had here. Asian cuisine is the main course here, but we do have quite a handful of Western food as well, I've seen more and more Western restaurant outlets opening here. I'd say, we had almost all the food except those from Latin America, a region which still remains a mystery to me. Luckily I had an Argentine net friend who can give me a better picture of how's life over there.

Talk about the racial backgrounds we had here, all the sayings that racial tension among the people is whole lotta crap. It is just a psychology weapon those freaks used to stir up the unease here. If this statement is true, we would hardly live peacefully together for so many years. We do not have problem to live with each other, so it's proven that those claims are false. I hate to see those who're fanning the racial tensions, those mindless, idiotic freaks. They are the destroyers of the nation, the Backward key which we do not want to press by any means, as we prefer to hit the Play or Forward button, to get things move on.

We all owe gratitude for the nation's forefathers, those who driven the country from the British colonial era to achieve independence in a non-violent manner. We're proud that our nation's independence do not involved in a single drop of blood. Tears are inevitable, but that's the tears of joy, of happiness, that we're no longer chained up by another nation. If it wasn't those policy-makers and charismatic leaders back then, the stance of us non-Bumiputra would be very different today. We would be taken as secondary race now, but no, we're all equal in some terms.

The concept of Bumiputra has been making quite an issue since long long ago. I think that a certain privileges for a certain group of people is still acceptable if it wasn't being abused like it did today. By some means I think it's far for them to have such benefits. They setup this rule last time as they wanted to bridge the gap between the races. Unfortunately, this privilege rule do not apply on non-Bumiputra residents. I for one, have no complains here.

Just like in a golf game, newbie would be given handicap when playing against better players so that the match would be fairer in some extent, so as the policy lingering here in Malaysia. It is supposedly to help them to be able to live up the standard and capable of engaging a healthy competition with other people, but nowadays some people seems to abuse it for personal gain and greed, which tarnished the reputation of the people and nation.

I like to befriend with any kind of people, regardless of the racial & religious background. It's important that we  learn some good values from them, as well as a deeper level of understanding of their culture. With sufficient knowledge of our friends, we would develop mutual respect between each others and forge a strong bond within us to make this nation a better place for everyone to live.

For instance, I've learnt that the Malays are actually very polite, there's no doubt bout it. Whenever they receive something, someone did something for them or anything, they would not hesitate to thank them for the service or offerings. As for Chinese, I noticed that not all of 'em would thank others in such manner, some would just simply ignore it, which is rude. I was one of them back then, but now I've learn to thank and appreciate others for what they did for me. Never be stingy to say "thank you", "terima kasih" or 谢谢.

The staff at the receptionist thought that the tourist was saying 'thank you' as in, 'terima kasih' in Malay despite of him saying his own name 'Terry McCarthy', it still sounds more or less as 'terima kasih', so to be polite he says 'you're welcome' (as in, 'sama-sama'). Another classic Lat's caricature!

Malaysia is really a great nation, there's no doubt about it. I'm proud to be a Malaysia, and eventhough I might be travelling to overseas in few years time, I will still look forward to come back here, to the homeland where I grew up. I hope youngsters out there like me, think twice before deciding to move out from this nation. Yea, the politics may be bad, but set it aside, you'll see Malaysia is actually a beautiful country to live in.

Finally, I wish the great nation happy 51st independence again, and let us hope for a better tomorrow for our people and our nation!  MALAYSIA BOLEH!!

[photos are taken from The Star Gallery & Flickr.]