Sharing some of the pics that were taken during a midnight visit to our old school St. Michael's with some of our schoolmates. Some of us had not visited the school for more than 12 years and that visit, made just before Christmas was one way to catch up for the old times and revisiting the past.
I knew and anticipated that there will come a day that a non-Chinese person could approach me and either start asking questions of why like other Chinese people I went against convention, or voting for opposition; or an extremist right-winger will start a tirade of insults of being ungrateful to what the country has done if by chance seeing this. Of course you don't see much of this on a public area unless you invite the attention of other curious by-standers there. Any well open-minded layman who has a greater understanding of the current political scenario and the aftermath of last week's general elections would clearly know a few reasons why this would happen.
While the dust from the election has yet to settle down, Najib has more problems within his own turf rather than giving more insulting speeches on the outside. He had to sing to the tune of his own party's conservative members, extreme radicals and even to the tone set by his own party's mouthpiece. There's a big possibility that he'd end up like Pak Lah in 2009 by Mahathir because he had scored below the number that Pak Lah did in 2008 and he didn't get back Selangor as he had promised before.
The voting trend has driven many of the extreme right-wingers into emotional frenzy that as characterized by the "myth of the lazy native" that as such they could not have the capability to think out of the box, open minded and often prone to the desires to commit acts that are considered violating their own religious creed. It makes sense that when the Islamic scholar, Dr. Asri said that they are committing an illegal act by committing racism. Another characterization of the "myth of the lazy native" is that rather than admitting their own faults, they would also blame their failures on other parties, such as calling DAP a racist whereas they, UMNO themselves are actually committing racism with their own concept of Malay Supremacy.
Judging by statements from various UMNO-aligned leaders and even their own newspapers, it seems that those statements confirmed those characteristics defined. The clear case of example is that of Ali Rustam who lost both state / parliament seats and instead starts blaming people voting for opposition for being ungrateful. That is why until today, they will have a hard time to understand why other people thinking patterns don't go in line with their own way of thinking and culture.
Everyone has his own limit, and there will be a point that the people would be force to go to the extreme for they would no longer defend themselves by doing nothing.
If you remember that every year, the Muslims and Indians usually have around 2-5 days break for their festivities, whereas the Chinese, from the start of the new year can have business breaks up to 15 days (those following the Chinese tradition very closely), resuming after the Chap Goh Mei day.
Do you remember that any naive people would have been told that the Chinese control the Malaysian economy? The percentage still remains at the high margin as of today.
Let's assume, that given of the current political scenario that the Chinese have absolutely enough of the tirades of the extremists who keeps blaming them for all their problems. Say during Chinese New Year 2014 or maybe anytime before / after, everyone decided not to do business for 15 days as a gesture of protest. Everyone, not just the Chinese will suffer and the daily Malaysian economy gear will come to a screeching halt. Everyone will definitely suffer just because of the big mouths but small brain of those people.
By the way, Nazri Aziz seems to do a "cakap tak serupa bikin" thing, indirectly singing to the tune of the UMNO grassroots. The Malaysiakini video had him saying that Mahathir is the father of racism, giving the impression that he too will not like racism, but the latest statement tends to paint the picture that everything has to be in the mould of UMNO Baru's ideals. A very clear-cut example of "Melayu mudah lupa" thing I'd say!
And let's say that if I say the same similar thing, will our Malay friends feel upset as well? Again it goes back to the different levels of thinking that each race has. However, Nazri's comment doesn't carry much weight unlike my thought that the nation cannot progress more if the majority (read Malays) do not have the necessary mindset to carry themselves up.
And in case if you have forgotten some eyewitness accounts have indicated that the prices of certain goods have gone up including bread, RON 97 petrol price without any announcement and even despite denials from the Domestic Consumer Affairs ministry. If some of you have voted to BN because of the 1Malaysia brand that Najib sells, get ready to dread for Najib might not survive by year's end - thus in the end you get cheated for your blind support.
We tend to forget the concept of karma,
"what goes round comes around" and we are now seeing how UMNO is
behaving in national scale compared to what happened in state scale
5-years ago. While the opposition has been constantly making tirades
everywhere, even before 2008, because of their role as opposition in
state-levels, BN has never been accustomed to that role before and the
moment they became state-opposition, they make more complains than ever,
even accusing the incumbent state government for their own mistakes
committed before then. I am not very surprised of the reaction of some politicians would have said statements such as "I am closing down support centres, now your problem is not mine" or even in reference to Ahmad Said, "I am not going to send any development officers / build new houses in areas won by Pakatan" out of the grudge of no support." Any keen eye observer would notice that this kind of politicians should have been out rather than put them in like Johari Ghani in Titiwangsa.
If race is no longer part of the factor in the election, it is actually a horizontal divide between the ruled vs the ruling elite and the poor, middle-class combined vs the elite rich, as well as the rural vs urban. Unfortunately, since most seats are won from the rural areas, it shows that the rural class has yet to demonstrate their courage to change and sincerity. Recently, there have been several tweets that I stumbled on Anwar Ibrahim's tweet account from people who have finally admitted that they have been victims of misinformation / mislead that they have offered their profound apologies for their mistakes to the person.
So thus, if one is open minded enough, the real fight, the horizontal divide in Malaysia in the big picture is actually the ruled vs the UMNOputras, simply to say that even Malays also form the bottom 40% of the poor and marginalized of the 29 million Malaysians. However, Wednesday's Kelana Jaya stadium gathering has yet to show sufficient number of non-Chinese participants (still at 20%)
In the end, it is the normal people like us that have to judge for yourselves and think bigger.
Author's note: While outlining my thoughts regarding to the concluded general election, I have received some information that it might be happening.
In the last few days, I have received information from several sources saying that Perak's Sultan Azlan Shah is either near death or as one source said, declared in a vegetative state (a.k.a brain dead).
About two weeks ago, the first information surfaced on that situation was when Ku Shah (Raja Shahruzzaman Idris Shah) wrote of whispers within the palace circles:
"Terdapat bisikan yang mengatakan Sultan Azlan Shah amat gering (sakit) dan hampir tenat..."
Over the weekend, a schoolmate of mine has been talking about him declared dead. However, due to the election and the allowance of the next 24 hours at most in order for the situation to settle down, the announcement could only be made likely on Tuesday with Perak declaring a state holiday following this.
Another reliable source came from a friend's wife who's working at the National Heart Institute. According to her, Azlan Shah went to London for treatment of the liver but the situation took a turn for worse upon returning to Malaysia. Currently still in the institute but a few days ago went into a vegetative state with absolutely no hope to recover. The doctors, on request are likely to pull the plug on the life support system.
If things are as it is, the official announcement of death would go as planned on Tuesday.
At the time of writing, I am still awaiting a confirmation from sources on this so please do not spread the word until if there is a press statement or there's assertion from them.
It's D-Day and we're barely less than 15 minutes before the polling is closed. As the clock ticks down, many people have been monitoring news around the country over various attempts of phantom voters being ferried in as part of the covert cheating strategy that only the present regime that is Barisan Nasional will use to keep in power. Why do you think some of the known figures in the coalition would depart for London, Singapore or other places? Why is Najib and Rosmah voting later unlike the other rulers?
In the last few hours, many concerned citizens have demonstrated proof that phantom voters are ferried in. It is ashamed that there are FRUs, cops and some party quarters have colluded with the Election Commission to stop those who tried to prevent illegals from voting into it. And this has resulted in some altercations. Worst is that some of the rowdy supporters have threatened PEMANTAU people and even chased voters out of some of the polling stations.
My main thought is that today's general election is actually more a less a test of a citizen's courage and sincerity.
Voters today are given the choice, in my opinion as an analogy of choosing whether to continue a new sense of living or choose to rot and dying in the unknown time. Judging from the preliminary reports, it seems that there are many people who have succumbed to the temptation of lies and have shown their unwillingness to have the courage to change.
Another analogy to explain the point is that you are given the chance to take the winning away back to yourself or leave the money to be staked by the casino for other deeds. The bonus is that the element of luck is not included in the game. The cases of where the authorities colluding with the EC has already in the end demonstrated how forgetful and how unaware that citizens and pro-UMNO supporters are willing to forsake the nation's sovereignity to thousands of foreign people merely to remain in power.
There's a Malay saying that once you got knocked in the head, you will finally realized. It's true. If you try to criticize them, they will get very unhappy and will get too emotional, sentimental to the point that they cannot think logically. It will take one national disaster (e.g, austerity, more livelihood problems) to finally realize what a terrible choice they have made.
But at that time, it's already too late. Too much damage has been done and it will be very hard to recover.
After the results are out, we shall see how much sincerity and courage that you Malaysians have, as what the book The Myth of The Lazy Native would talk about.
