When death has its meaning

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First and foremost, like all right thinking Malaysians, I would like to express my condolences to the family of Teoh Beng Hock who died in mysterious

circumstances while under detention as a witness at the MACC office.

Although we have been cautioned not to speculate on the death of Teoh Beng Hock, all right thinking Malaysians believe that the writings are on the wall.

What does the death of Teoh Beng Hock means to all of us?

To the people: It is time for us all to unite to fight against the evils of politics. When innocent lives can be taken away in the name of political survival, what else can the people hope for? It is pure bunkum to see true justice when the rule of laws can be amended and broken at the whims and fancies of those in power. By now the people must have realized which party brings nothing but misery and who are the ones that champion justice and fairness for all. For the apolitical and the fence-sitters, your decision is now. Let us not allow Teoh Beng Hock die in vain and just as he will fight for justice when alive, his soul will be a shining star to guide us to this path.

To Pakatan Rakyat: It is time for PR to wake-up and stay focus on the ultimate objective of forming the next government. It should realize by now the reasons behind all these questionings of the political secretaries of the DAP in Selangor by the MACC. Can PR survive the onslaught of the enemy? The clarion call for solidarity and unity among the PR parties is getting stronger now. As such PR must seize this opportunity to built a stronger foundation that is strong enough to withstand the onslaughts of the enemies. Th ability to smash the racial barriers among the people will be the strongest pylon of foundation for PR to build on.

To Barisan Nasional: The current sentiment of the people is full of anger and distrust now. The people have seen a lot of shits and heard a lot of bulls. Unfortunately for the people, this is not an election year. A call for an early election would have triggered a mother of all tsunamis that would have swept the pillars of power of BN away, paving a new hope for the people.

To all politicians: If they can conspire to frame in order to remove political enemies, no matter which side you are on, one can equally be removed with an iota of opportunity as long as you are not with them. Hence, these politicians must be brave enough to speak-up and fight the evils by joining forces with all right thinking Malaysians.

A picture paints a thousand words

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1) Look carefully and analyze the above picture of the Home Minister at his office.

Can you deduce the level of efficiency which we all dreaded when visiting a government department?

2) It is certainly a mountain of problems which are caused by some inept officials whose duties seem perfunctory that the applications are piled so high. While some managed to get their applications for citizenship and PR approved without much hazels, others who are more qualified are made to wait and run around in circles.

3) Inefficiency breeds inefficiency.

With the mountain of boxes, it will be extremely difficult for the official to identify and extract the file of an applicant. In the event an applicant was to ask for the status of the application, the most probable answer will be: file sudah hilang. So, the frustrating cycle of application continues.

4) The storage of the documents seemed so haphazardly organized and devoid of a good storage system. Unless, the applicants’ information are stored in the computer data system, the mountain of problems will continue to escalate.

5) Why must it take a new PM and Minister to expedite the application process?

Does it mean the previous Minister has been sleeping on the job all this while?

It clearly shows that it is the political will of the government that drives the efficiency of the system, but only if they want to. What a pitiful and stupid way to progress.

6) The engagement of agents to deal with government officials to hasten and smoothen one’s job is already a culture. While the above picture explains part of the reason, the rest is up to the relevant authorities to identify the causes.

A wake-up call

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As the world watched in horror at the deadly unrest in the capital of China’s Xinjiang region which left more than 150 people dead, it has brought back the memories of the nightmarish nights of the May 13^th 1969 racial riots which we all prayed that it will never happen again here in Malaysia.

If we take a hard look at the mayhem in the Xinjiang unrest, we will notice that there are some similarities to the 1969 riots: it is an ethnic clash, many innocent people were killed, properties were damaged and people lived in fear. While the unrest in Xinjiang is apparently due to oppression of the Uighurs by the Chinese government, the 1969 riots here is due to the highly charged political environment caused by the politicians.

Even today, the peace and harmony of our diversified society lie in the hands of the politicians. I sincerely hope the current turmoil in the world will make our politicians realize that no matter what political differences there are, it will be a folly for them to stir racial hatreds among the people, for we cannot afford to have a repeat of the 1969 incident. We need to let this diversity in ethnicity of our country be a major strength and not a hindrance to peace and prosperity for all.

Today, the world is bombarded with so many protests and unrest, political or otherwise, that one can only quivers and shivers if this ‘trend’ is spread worldwide and which we have already started to witness: from Iran to Thailand and from Honduras to Philippines. It will be most destructive to the country’s economy if this is allowed to continue and not quelled. The protests in Thailand by the red and yellow shirted supporters recently which have caused a huge lost in tourism revenue demonstrated the economic destructive nature of a political unrest.

Although we live in a multi-racial society and more often than not, while some dimwit politicians seemed to be keen on destroying our harmony, the bondage among the people still remains strong. It is the fervent wish of every Malaysians (except the dimwit politicians) that we must remain united to propel this country forward. This country is blessed with richness in natural resources and human capital which make the economic pie big enough for all.

Whether we can make this pie bigger will depends on all of us.

Life of a parent

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Every Saturday is a day that I normally look forward to with earnest like a child waiting to be taken out for an outing. My plan is to make every Saturday a family day, a day where all the family members can sit together over food to chit-chat and discuss matters of family interests.

One Saturday my eldest daughter called, “Papa, I am going for a movie with my boyfriend and will not be joining you for dinner.”

“But today is a Saturday which is supposed to be a family day,” I answered with a slightly raised voice.

“Aiya, I have been working and working. Got to enjoy a bit, you know,” she reasoned out and having said that hung-up, knowing very well that I will relent to her dating.

Hardly an hour later, I received another call, this time from my second daughter.

“Hi, papa I am attending a friend’s birthday party tonight and will be home late,” she sounded so excited and bubbly which she normally do.

“Ok, make sure you try to come back early and be careful when you friends fetch you back. The security is not good you know. Tell your friends to beware of mat rempits. Be careful. Just be careful,” my voice sounded with full of worries.

“When our daughters were schooling, you worried over their education. Now that they have grown-up and have graduated, you are worried over them mixing with the wrong friends,” complained my wife.

Well, maybe in the eyes of the parents, the children can never grow-up and hence, the worries will continue even when they are married.

When my two daughters called, I can either scold them or command them to come back by disallowing them their outings or to understand and allow them to enjoy their time with their friends.

I chose the later because I have come to realize that the children of today are very different from that of yesterday, especially the mentality and outlook in life. On the other hand, if I chose the former and ‘rule’ them under the clutches of my hands, then the children will be rebellious which will ultimately developed into a strained relationship between father and children that can cause great unhappiness in the family. Having said this, I would like to stressed that there must be a balance of what can and cannot be allowed for the children lest they become spoilt, ill-mannered and arrogant.

I have two grown-up daughters who have just graduated and started working and a son who is in Form Two and whom I worried a great deal over his future education. Like any parents, we love our children very much and always try to make them happy. In fact my wife and I have struggled to bring them up from the early parts of their childhood. It is certainly not easy when you are not born with a silver spoon and financially strong. We just ‘ploughed’ our way through this journey of bringing up our children to provide them a sound education and hopefully, happiness in them.

Whether my children are able to give me the kind of love that I have showered them is not important. As long as there is happiness in them, there will be happiness in the hearts of their parents.