I am not sure what is going on lately other than I sensed anxiety permeating from the articles I read from our government sanctioned media. Without fail, you can easily find articles criticising the opposition parties as irresponsible, disarray, extremist and knows nuts about running the country. So far, they are even accused of creating racial disunity to the detriment of this country.
Be that as it may, I have a friend who e-mailed me telling me that he has been told to stop posting issues that are critical to the ruling parties. He told me that these people out of good intentions told him to be careful as he may be used by the distrust evil opposition parties. Their concerns are valid to an extent and it usually contains the following themes:
i) Some opposition parties hold extremist religious views and their intention of creating a theocratic government sends shivers down our spines,
ii) Opposition parties basically have no policies whatsoever on how to run the country and they can't even manage their own "households" with the media having a field day reporting about defections and dissatisfaction,
iii) The ruling party, Barisan Nasional (BN), despite its failings, have delivered a lot of economic progress and they felt that since BN are run by humans, rightly or wrongly, a bit of errors and greed is necessary to keep people interested,
iv) Why rock the boat when things aren't going too badly? We get our 3 meals if not more, each adult in our family either has a car or motorcycle, get to go on a holiday once in awhile, gainfully employed and can afford little luxuries in life which people in other 3rd world nations don't even get to see, hear, touch, taste and smell in their entire life!
and et cetera, et cetera.
Well, I do admit, these people have thought about things before they came out with their reasons and admittedly, I too felt the same way once for a long, long time until recently. May I suggest we take this one step further?
To be fair, I fear PAS. Seriously, I do. I am worried, what if they take over the country, would we be using camels, wearing the latest Mid-East fashion and refrain from eating pork (gasp!)? But, then, I realised something profound. So what if PAS rise to power? It is inevitable that those who are religiously fervent, when grouped together, will achieve much in power. Afterall, they have the numbers. But may I ask, by supporting the so-called moderate i.e. BN, would we see less erosion of non-Muslim rights? Would we see our "illegally built" yet old temples, churches and even mosques be preserved as a symbol of our tolerance and multi-cultural understanding? Our former Prime Minister himself declared Malaysian is an Islamic State and it is still being echoed today. Whether it is BN or PAS, it makes no difference. Eventually, both will implement more Islamic related principles in governing this country. Can you trust BN to be more understanding of our non-Muslim needs? I suggest you ask Lina Joy and Revathi Massosai.
But some would say, but surely we should look at it from another angle, after all, it is not the government led by BN that transformed Malaysia from a 3rd world backwater tin-mining and rubber tapping economy to an industrialised nation? Well, one cannot deny that. I absolutely agree that in their watch, our country was transformed. But at what cost? I read in the papers of rising moral delinquency and crime rate. I also read about how our local prestigious public universities are setting standards on how to slide down the world university rankings. Only in Malaysia, with no open tender system, do you find RM40 screwdrivers being purchased at RM224 or a suspected criminal felt vindicated when he is released by the court due to incompetency shown by the prosecutors. And during their watch as well we saw our judiciary being transformed from a respectable independent branch of the government to a servant of the executive. So are you surprised when you somehow sensed justice is not served when a suspected murderer goes scot free because of technicalities?
Yes admittedly, the opposition parties have their fair share of problems and in-fights. I am not surprised since we are talking about politicians here. But for a ruling coalition, consists of main partners such as UMNO, MCA and MIC, having run this country since 1950s with a worsening track record, it is perhaps the best time for we, the rakyat, to usher in changes. If you employ a contractor to fix your roof since you have always employed the same contractor doesn't mean the same contractor will do the same good job over and over again. Experience matters but it doesn't guarantee results. Besides, if we are all only looking for experienced people, tell your kids to better not look for a job. They probably can't do the work anyway since they have no prior experience.
Be that as it may, I have a friend who e-mailed me telling me that he has been told to stop posting issues that are critical to the ruling parties. He told me that these people out of good intentions told him to be careful as he may be used by the distrust evil opposition parties. Their concerns are valid to an extent and it usually contains the following themes:
i) Some opposition parties hold extremist religious views and their intention of creating a theocratic government sends shivers down our spines,
ii) Opposition parties basically have no policies whatsoever on how to run the country and they can't even manage their own "households" with the media having a field day reporting about defections and dissatisfaction,
iii) The ruling party, Barisan Nasional (BN), despite its failings, have delivered a lot of economic progress and they felt that since BN are run by humans, rightly or wrongly, a bit of errors and greed is necessary to keep people interested,
iv) Why rock the boat when things aren't going too badly? We get our 3 meals if not more, each adult in our family either has a car or motorcycle, get to go on a holiday once in awhile, gainfully employed and can afford little luxuries in life which people in other 3rd world nations don't even get to see, hear, touch, taste and smell in their entire life!
and et cetera, et cetera.
Well, I do admit, these people have thought about things before they came out with their reasons and admittedly, I too felt the same way once for a long, long time until recently. May I suggest we take this one step further?
To be fair, I fear PAS. Seriously, I do. I am worried, what if they take over the country, would we be using camels, wearing the latest Mid-East fashion and refrain from eating pork (gasp!)? But, then, I realised something profound. So what if PAS rise to power? It is inevitable that those who are religiously fervent, when grouped together, will achieve much in power. Afterall, they have the numbers. But may I ask, by supporting the so-called moderate i.e. BN, would we see less erosion of non-Muslim rights? Would we see our "illegally built" yet old temples, churches and even mosques be preserved as a symbol of our tolerance and multi-cultural understanding? Our former Prime Minister himself declared Malaysian is an Islamic State and it is still being echoed today. Whether it is BN or PAS, it makes no difference. Eventually, both will implement more Islamic related principles in governing this country. Can you trust BN to be more understanding of our non-Muslim needs? I suggest you ask Lina Joy and Revathi Massosai.
But some would say, but surely we should look at it from another angle, after all, it is not the government led by BN that transformed Malaysia from a 3rd world backwater tin-mining and rubber tapping economy to an industrialised nation? Well, one cannot deny that. I absolutely agree that in their watch, our country was transformed. But at what cost? I read in the papers of rising moral delinquency and crime rate. I also read about how our local prestigious public universities are setting standards on how to slide down the world university rankings. Only in Malaysia, with no open tender system, do you find RM40 screwdrivers being purchased at RM224 or a suspected criminal felt vindicated when he is released by the court due to incompetency shown by the prosecutors. And during their watch as well we saw our judiciary being transformed from a respectable independent branch of the government to a servant of the executive. So are you surprised when you somehow sensed justice is not served when a suspected murderer goes scot free because of technicalities?
Yes admittedly, the opposition parties have their fair share of problems and in-fights. I am not surprised since we are talking about politicians here. But for a ruling coalition, consists of main partners such as UMNO, MCA and MIC, having run this country since 1950s with a worsening track record, it is perhaps the best time for we, the rakyat, to usher in changes. If you employ a contractor to fix your roof since you have always employed the same contractor doesn't mean the same contractor will do the same good job over and over again. Experience matters but it doesn't guarantee results. Besides, if we are all only looking for experienced people, tell your kids to better not look for a job. They probably can't do the work anyway since they have no prior experience.
2 comments:
geee... who is that friend of yours? and who are those busy body friends? haha... and again, the notion of not rocking the boat. we dont need to rock it, it's already sinking.
this opposition phobia is getting too rampant. many told me they prefer to go for the more tried and tested BN than to trust opposition. while i am not fully convinced about their prowess... i sure wanna give them the benefit of the doubt.
besides, it's not about who you're voting in...but who you're voting out.
To zewt:
haha... not just voting anybody out but voting those who think the seats are rightfully theirs.
it is high time this coalition learn to serve the rakyat with real service and not those with lips!
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