The RukuNegara

Every Malaysian reading this would know what I am referring to when i use the word RUKUNEGARA.

Brings back some good ol'memories doesn't it? =).

Sorry that was my attempt at being mildly sarcastic.

Most of us would remember being examined on it in primary school, and being forced to recite it over and over again, week after week, during the dreaded weekly assemblies.

Most of us would also remember the familiar phrases written at the back of our exercise books, like the one in the picture above. Ahhh, even the dog-eared pages of the book too!

Yet...

How many of us actually understand what they mean? How many of us
understand why we are forced to recite the rukunegara week in, week out?

Worse still, how many of us practice the 5 principles of rukunegara?

Reading the article in Wikipedia on Rukunegara and some of the links on that page allowed me to learn more about the history (eg May13 incident, read this, quite interesting) behind the Rukunegara. However I didn't manage to find out how on earth we as products of public schools in Malaysia ended up being victims forced to memorize and recite it like robots...

And after all that, I have only one thing to say to whoever started the
norm:

IF YOU THINK DOING THAT WILL SOMEHOW MAKE MALAYSIANS AUTOMATICALLY ADHERE TO THE 5 PRINCIPLES OF RUKUNEGARA, YOU MUST BE A BLOODY IDIOT.

Hasn't anyone told them that leadership by example is waaaaayyy better than leadership by enforcement?