49 years of independence...

49 years of independence and counting!!!

by birth, i am a citizen of malaysia, and proud to be one. we have been independent for 49 years and there are many things to be proud of...but if one were to pick up the newspaper today, u would seriously think otherwise, and it is hard to maintain my pride as a malaysian as i am struggling to make sense of what i see in the dailies too!

one would have thought that history will be our best teacher. apparently, one makes mistakes too! despite several tragedies, it seems that malaysia has yet to learn from her mistakes. the collapse of the condominiums in kl in the late 90's, the death and injuries of snatch theif victims, terrible road accidents that plague our festive seasons, the death and collapse of communities during the nipah virus outbreak, the tsunami in 2004. the yearly haze...health threatening yet not important enough for pro-active action to be taken. what have we learnt from these? the government and the people were shocked and appropriately sympathetic when the tragedies happen, but after several press statements and the formation of fund and problem solving committees later, the issues died down, never to be heard of again until the next tragedy occurs. then the finger pointing begins...

how much death and loss does it take before SERIOUS action is taken? what happens to the pledges by various people to improve and prevent similar situations from occuring? what happens to the money that were collected in the name of the victims, but never reaches their hands? why isn't the government doing enough???

the proudest and loudest tagline of our nation is that we are a harmonious and tolerant multiracial community. hah! tolerance...tolerance is not punishing people who do things you actually don't like - Wikipedia...is that what our society is like? where our harmony results from not being punished for being of a different race? should we just rest on our laurels simply because leaders of other nations have praised our multiracial society? what sort of signal are we sending to others when offhand remarks with a racist slur can be made and simply excused on the basis that "it wasn't meant to be harmful?". should there even be a demand for public apology by the offended before the offender says sorry???

does tolerance means that when u are shouted and threatened by others you have to forgive and forget? especially when all u did was set up a student help desk to help the freshies in your local varsity? why was the committee which was set up to review the incidence not an independent one? if students are allowed to hassle and bully others (regardless of reason) what sort of example is the unversity setting? i remember being punished by my mother for starting any fight with my siblings, regardless of the reason for initiating the fight. for violence is never acceptable. only the beasts (mind u, not animals but beasts) resort to violence.

please see the video below. http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,713/Itemid,120/

do u really think what is reported by the star newspaper, fair action?(http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/19/nation/15186612&sec=nation)

"SERDANG: Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) will not hand down punitive action
against the students involved in the July 17 fracas, which the inquiry panel
found to be non-racist and non-violent.

Vice-chancellor Prof Dr Nik Mustapha R. Abdullah said they would instead
be “advised” and “re-educated” on the correct behaviour on campus and the need to
respect the university's rules and regulations."

perhaps when the students grow up, they will think that anything they do will be forgiven and forgotten as long as they did it in "good faith", as exampled by the officers who signed away the rights to all billboard advertisments to a private company. despite making a shady deal mounting to millions of ringgit, these officers were let off without any punishment by the minister in charge. have the people at the top become omnipotent? does it mean that when u dance to the tune of the right leader, u shall be protected of all wrong doings, just because the minister/top person in charge said that u are right? even though the rest of the society is crying "bloody murder"???

check out the news at "http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=15108"
what happened to justice and transparency? what happened to seeing that the people's interest comes first? what happened to the nation i am so proud of???

oh dear, looks like i have to go and think about what was it that i was so proud of to be a malysian in the first place.

happy merdeka??? 49 years of independence and this is what we have....