Corruption of Malaysian History Books

Found a few blogs and discussions quite fascinating. Gives new insight to what the history of Malaysia really was. Very much in conflict with the history we learnt in textbooks during our primary and high school days.

Please do link these pages to your blog, the least we can do is help the word be spread around so that us Malaysians won't be so ignorant of our past.

The blogs are below:

Lim Kit Siang's 'CORRUPTION OF OUR HISTORY BOOKS'

M. Bakri Musa's 'WARRIOR FROM SILICON VALLEY' (discussions section)

Drunkard

Ever wonder why drunk people never admit they're drunk? =)


(P.S I'm NOT DRUNK, really, i'm NOT DRUNK!!)


(p.s. haha, it was just an expression i put on for the sake of it. Bad imitation though. Sad)

Politics - not so easy

Sometimes we forget how easy it is to criticize politicians without giving them the benefit of doubt.

No I am not saying all politicians are benevolent and honest, i just think that some of them maybe be wrongfully criticized.

And I'm sure this occurs at all levels, not just at the government level.

Last year I was vice-president of the Austin Medical Students Society. Our society catered for 150-250 students across 3 year levels, and was represented by a commitee of 11 members. Committee members were usually self-nominated, and if there were contestants than places, the student members would vote as to who got the committee places.

The committee I was in, was a sad scene. Turned out that at least 1/3-2/3 of the committee members were not committed to their responsibilities as student representatives. To me, they were in the committee just so they could add titles and positions to their CV. Sure, they talked a lot and gave a lot of opinions during committee meetings, but when it came to putting words into actions, most of them went missing. Some had to be constantly chased up by myself and the president as to the progress of their tasks, and a few even had the cheek to say they were too busy (studying? bloody typical medical student) to be able to handle the tasks given. Fact is, the only reason tasks are given to them, is because they were the ones that voiced out suggestions about those tasks.

So what happened then?

The president and I recieved a lot of stick from the students we represented, because they felt that we weren't doing enough for them. What they failed to realize, was that it was not within our capacity to man-handle committee members that did not perform their designated tasks. We weren't paying them, we weren't their seniors, we had no authority to do so. We could only plead them to do the tasks, and if they still refused or conveniently forgot about their designated tasks, we would end up having to do it for them. And there was only SO MUCH 2 pairs of hands can accomplish.

We still managed to get quite a few things done, including furnishing our common room, providing social events, organizing sports events, musical events etc. But these were mostly done by the president and I. We were thankful when our student members gave good feedback, and quite disheartened when we got critical ones, because we felt that we were wrongly judged. WE WERE THE 2 THAT ORGANIZED MOST EVENTS, WITHOUT MUCH HELP FROM OUR OTHER COMMITTEE MEMBERS! We felt that if anything, the other bloody lazy committee members should've been criticized instead of us!

I suppose, with position comes responsibility, and part of our responsibility was to organize our committee well to perform well as a unit. We failed miserably, but not without trying our best. If we had any authority to chuck out the inept committee members, we would've done so immediately and replaced them with more willing and capable ones.

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Relating it to our Malaysian government, I feel sometimes it may not be those at the top that are to be blamed. They may be trying their best within their capacity, and it may be their subordinates that are obstacles for progress. And many times these leaders may be unaware of who those inept subordinates are. So to blame the top leaders for every single problem happening in Malaysia is perhaps unfair to them. What we as Malaysians COULD do though, is to strive to reveal the inept ministers/officials to our top leaders, through exposes like what Jeff Ooi from screenshots is doing (eg the Wisma Putra blues) is doing, so that one by one the weeds can be pulled out.

Stay positive! The internet realm will change the face of Malaysia for the better =).

Empowering ourselves as Voters

Today I browsed through the main website of Barisan National (BN) and Democratic Actions Party (DAP). I did it because I felt that if I were to ever vote for one of them in Malaysia, I would at least have to know of the visions of the parties that I am voting for.

I must say, both parties' visions were quite equally persuasive. One would find it quite hard to choose between them based on just their visions alone.

In BN's website, there was a election results page that showed the number of seats taken by each party. Seemed that BN's support is getting stronger and stronger.

How scary. Imagine a total Malaysian monopoly by BN. Can't help but feel that even if it did start off good, it would turn sour, because of the lack of competition.

But, I see a brighter side to things. In BN's website I noticed that they boast of having increased the percentage of Malaysians who have studied up til Form5 from 65% in 1980 to 80% in the late 90s or 2000s.

That means, more educated Malaysians. And hopefully, with the ever advancing techonology, the majority of us better educated Malaysians can make use of alternative media (eg INTERNET) to access better information about the current state of Malaysia, the current performance of government ministers, the background of political candidates, etc etc before making conscious AND informed decisions as to whom we are voting for.

I read somewhere that at least 25 million Malaysian non-bumis have immigrated to better pastures becaues of inequality of treatment in Malaysia. Best wishes to them. However, to those who choose to remain in Malaysia, our home country, I urge you to start empowering yourselves with knowledge about our country's situation from a variety of sources. NOW. Especially if you think our country can be improved. Your vote counts.

(haha of course, let me remind all of you who are eligible to vote to register to vote ASAP).

DAP a rocket for Malaysians? Or only Malaysian Chinese?

Couldn't sleep last night, ended up reading a whole bunch of random blogs. Came across Lim Kit Siang's blog.

For those that don't know of this person, he is the party leader of DAP (Democratic Action Party, having a rocket as their logo), one of the main opposition parties in Malaysia. He is also a key opposition speaker in parliament. (Click on the link Lim Kit Siang on the right to view his blog).

I'm actually glad that he's writing a blog. Means I get first hand information on what sort of stuff goes on in parliament meetings, instead of the filtered versions given by newspapers.

I am not against the BN (Barisan National, the governing party in Malaysia), but I would love for an opposition party to win the general elections in Malaysia one day. Competition can only do Malaysia good.

BUT.

No opposition party seems to have enough ammo to make it big time.

Taking DAP as an example. DAP claims to represent all Malaysians, yet one can't help but wonder what Malays think of DAP. DAP posts are held mainly by Malaysian Chinese, and their stronghold areas are mainly highly chinese populated areas. And word has it that the Malays think of DAP the way Malaysian Chinese think of PAS.

I asked Farizah, a fellow coursemate of mine who is Malay, of what she felt of DAP. She says she herself doesn't think much against DAP, however she does not know of any Malay that is pro-DAP. While she does not represent all Malays, especially because she claims she 'was not brought up in a typical Malay fashion', she does agree that generally Malays DO get the feeling that DAP is all about the Malaysian Chinese.

One does wonder what can be done to improve that skewed image of DAP. Just like how PAS can improve their image amongst the Malaysian chinese, the image of a party that wants to bring Malaysia into an extremist Islamic era.

Do they have the political might and financial backing to change that image? Hmm...

Caring for the elderly

I was brought up with the traditional Malaysian attitude on caring for the elderly. The rule was simple:

Look after your parents when they get old, let them live at home with you if they're too old to look after themselves. Send them to a nursing home, and you're a bastard.

Life is quite simple when you follow ready and set rules and norms like the above. But then you grow up, and you start thinking about the 'rules' or 'norms' and start analyzing them.

I have just started learning about the aged care services offered to Victorians here in Australia, and I am impressed. Their services range from providing transport, personal, social, medical support to the home of the elderly, to offering respite for carers of the elderly, to case managers to tend to the elderly's every need, to low and high care residential homes.

Frankly speaking, they seem to offer it all, a wide range to suit the different needs of every elderly individual.

That made me think: Is caring for our parents and letting them live with us when they can no longer care for themselves really the best option for everyone?

I know a lot of homes where grandparents are the main carers for grandchildren at home, while both parents go off to work. In most cases, that's just swell, because the two generations of people enjoy eacho ther's company. But what happens when grandparents become old, frail, and delicate? Is it wise to risk leaving them at home unattended or with little children, to risk them having a fall and breaking their hip, to risk them having a stroke? What happens when they suffer from a degenerative brain disease, like alzheimer's, where they need constant supervision for all their personal and social activities of daily living, where they might experience personality and behavioural change, and may even experience paranoid delusions about otheir own family?

And what happens when grandparents get left at home all alone when all they want to do is to socialize?

This is where i feel the different services offered in Victoria work so well. They have services tailored to addressing each and every problem an elderly person may experience, and help the elderly in achieving their goals and needs, be it in the form of providing service to the elderly's home, or in the form of residential houses/retirement villages that supervise and care for the elderly.

In fact, some of these places offer better care than even the most filial of children!

I think i'm ready to go against the rule or norm. I don't think i'll ever offer to get my parents into a residential home, but I definitely think I will allow them the freedom of choosing what they feel is best for them. If they enjoy living at home with me, that's great; but if they need or want more care/support, I will not insist that they stay with me just so i can fulfil my filial obligations. They deserve better.

The only problem: When is the taboo of anything other than letting parents live at home ever going to be lifted in Malaysia to allow the development of a proper aged care system like that of Victoria?

Only time will tell.

Arguments

I hate arguments.

Sometimes I feel that the number of wrinkles on my forehead are directly proportional to the number of arguments i have on that day.

I remember that I used to be a stubborn person, always insisting that my views were the ONLY correct views, and I would go that extra mile to prove myself correct, even if it meant starting an argument with others.

Now, I try to avoid arguments whenever I can. I learn to run, to hide, to dodge.

But then sometimes you cannot run, hide or dodge when someone comes smack bang in your face with the word 'lets fight' written all over his/her face.

And so you confront them, with a fire extinguisher with one hand, and a welding face mask on the other, covering your face. And the ultimate secret weapon, the word SORRY.

It doesn't really matter whether I feel that I'm right or wrong. 'SORRY' always does the trick, like magic.

SORRY. Now get your (big fat) face full of anger away from my sight.

Blogging nomad

I'm officially a nomad.

I have moved from http://jazzi.multiply.com, my previous blogging site.