Leah’s Cafe

Like many Malaysians who spent two weeks “concerned” about the general election and stayed up late night on Saturday till wee hours on Sunday waiting for the results, we spent the Sunday catching up with sleep.

We have found out from Malaysiakini sites (the main site was not accessible most of the time, but the mirror sites worked) that the opposition parties had won most of the seats in Penang at around 8.30 p.m, but there was no update on the television about that. The television told us that BN has won more than 30 seats in East Malaysia and none for the opposition for a few hours (yawn). In this information age, did these people still think they can cover the sky with their hands?

We went to sleep at about 4.00 a.m after we read the news that oppositions had won majority seats in five states, it was such a good feeling that the people had shown their power. How many of us have expected that and anticipated the almighty BN to fall before we sat down in front of the idiot box after dinner?

Now can the once underdogs stay immune to power struggles and money politics? If the whole system does not change to be more transparent and has more accountability, don’t be too optimistic about that! People in power usually attract people who agree with them and cronies would surround them, they would very soon forget who are their bosses!

For decades, the YBs have conveniently forget about the rakyat who voted them into office, and forgot who were in charged, don’t you think we have conveyed the message loud and clear this time?

“We voted you in, but we can vote you out too, four years later!”

The majority of people who are involved in the political scene in this country belonged to two groups of people. First group of people are the elites, they are either from well to do family or they have a professional background that they can fall back in. They could afford to have  dreams and have the financial mean to fight for their political ideology. If they don’t win the election, they won’t starve, they have their professional practice, family business or properties to fall back on.

The second group of people are those from middle or lower class families, they see political career as the shortcut to upgrade their social standing. You may say they are mostly very ambitious young people who have started to path their political career even while they were students in the universities. Most of them won’t join the opposition because it doesn’t benefit them financially.

The third group of people are those who have a dream with no background but decide to pursue his political ideology anyway. They either make it the first time or they won’t last long because they do need bread to live on. Some may become bitter and disillusioned about the whole thing and evaporated from the surface of the earth.

Can you think of anybody that fits right into this three groups of people?

Hubby told me that whenever he heard news about my home country on the radio stations, there were always bad news or some stupid news. The latest was about Malaysian men who cannot control their lusts if the women don’t cover their head(?!). I thought that was old news, but somehow it became hot topics on the radio stations recently.

Some of this unintelligent politicians do not realize that whatever stupid things they said will be quoted and misquoted thousands miles away. They are the culprits that make us a nation that stays on top of the entertainment of the day. Shame on them.

* * * * *

I feel very blessed to be born in this wonderful and great country. However, like any other places, we have our share of grumbles and grievances towards the people who run this country a.k.a. the politicians. One things I am deeply concern is the rampant of bureaucracies and corruptions. You may think the media’s recent report of misuse of fund is news, but it’s a yearly report, every year the same report was presented. The oppositions would make some noise about it, the media may or may not publish it, but the people are forgetful, another trivial issue would be raised to divert the people with short attention span, and very quickly nobody remembered who are supposed to answer to this queries.

* * * * *

The majority of people who are educated and professionals today are from a humble roots. A few of the doctors in the cell group I belong shared about how grateful they are for being able to be trained as doctors in the 80s with very minimal fees paid. They were doctors who have made their millions and live comfortable lives right now. They said they were able to get trained as doctors though they were not from a rich family.

* * * * *

Growing up in a small village in the 70s and 80s, I am equally grateful for the “free” education provided by the government. It enabled my parents who were mere farmers to send five children to college. I remembered we hardly have to pay any fees back then. The text books were free and the headmasters were not pushing workbooks for commissions. Throughout my school years from 7-18 years old, my parents just had to pay a yearly fee of about 10 bucks and a few more bucks for the writing books.

Anyone remembers there were even free lunches/snacks, free dental care, free optical service provided by the government for school children? If you don’t have slightest idea what I am talking about, either you are too young or you live in a city/town. :-) This programs are for rural schools, so if you have attended schools in towns and cities, you might not get such facilities. I could still remember the dental nurses came in a van on Wednesday and Friday. The government clinic would send their nurses to test our eyesight’s once a year. Well, we were a very much under-developed country in the 80s before Dr MM pushed for industrialisation in the mid 80s? Sadly, not many people remember our humble roots and greedy and power hungered politicians are not the only ones to blamed.

* * * * *

Do poor people and less fortunate people in this country have the same opportunities today? What I am getting at is: there are clearly a lot of money being pumped into education and poverty eradication every year, but how many low income and less fortunate people in the society continue to struggle without much help? We don’t see many average low income people benefited from the all this tax payers money. Basically, we don’t see the money translated into programs with purposes. All we heard were a few millions here and there being spent to build white elephants and to rectify mistakes that they could have avoided in the first place i.e. leaking roof, falling ceiling and cracking highway.

My late grandmother who had enough of poverty and starvation back in China said we are in a land of abundance, a land of milk and honey. Her rational is that you can just pop some seeds on the ground and things start to grow. But, urbanization also means more people have abandoned the land to move into the city. It ended up that self sustainable living is longer possible and they have to subject themselves to the oppressive capitalist world to fulfill their basic needs. I am hardly surprised when statistics said the majority of the poor are in the cities!

* * * * * *

I have avoided writing such entries for a while, because I am just a mere teacher who has no solution to what’s going on. But, I guess I am expressing my thoughts and reminiscence about the good old days of this country. And, the post is also to serve as a reminder to myself: use the vote to show my disapproval in the coming election. Though it will not make much difference in the overall climate, we all need to exercise our right to voice out our disapproval as rakyats (people of this country)

I can’t help keep noticing that it’s called “Malaysia’s 50th Anniversary” everywhere. Well, Malaysia didn’t come about in 1957, some people need to know the history a little bit better.

31st August is the Merdeka(Independent) Day when we got our independence from the British colonial. In 1957, the country newly formed was called Federation of Malaya. Malaysia was born and came into existence in 1963, when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the then Malaya. Malaysia was birthed on Sept 16th 1963 and she is just short of her 44th birth anniversary!

I was blog hopping this morning and read that someone named Nat Tan was arrested by the police. The photo looked so familiar, I thought I might have seen the person before, but somehow the name Nat Tan didn’t ring a bell.

Just now, I went to Jeff Ooi’s blog and he posted a little background information of Nat Tan. It helped to put two and two together. Yes, I have seen Nat Tan, or rather I knew him as Nathaniel Tan. In fact, not long ago I was wondering where he and some of his classmates are, since they should have finished their study for 3-4 years now. 

Nathaniel Tan was one of the brightest student we had in the A Level Program at Sunway College about 10 years ago. I remembered him, a very gentle, extremely well-mannered and courteous boy. He was very active in the student body, a top scorer who had almost perfect  scores in most subjects and was an all rounder student, very articulate, speaks and writes superb English. When we teachers met his parents, we knew it’s not by accident that their son had possessed  some of the very fine qualities of a compassionate young man.

I remembered we were all very proud when he was accepted into Harvard University. He was one of our flag bearers and one of the students that we bragged about during marketing talks.:-)

It is unfortunate that the first news I heard of an ex student after almost 10 years is such a news. I don’t know what kind of political mess he was involved with. But, I believe he is a young man who cares enough about his country and its people to come back here to be involved in the political movement. I hope they will free him soon, and I am praying for him and this country!