49 years on...

This month Malaysians will be marking 49 years of nationhood, there will be the usual Merdeka Day parade in KL, fireworks and the whole works. But have we ever sat down and wondered what have we achieved as a nation in the past 49 years? Yeah we are one of the better off developing countries and the envy of the third world with a hi tech manufacturing and industrial based economy along with all those K-Economy and MSC hoohah thrown in. We have among the tallest buildings in the world in KL, we have a Formula 1 circuit and a brand new national capital.

Is that all you use to judge a country? As a people have we socially progressed in the past 49 years?..the other day i read somewhere we have only very marginally eradicated poverty despite the implementation of the New Economic Policy since 1970. This only proves affirmative action only works when it is applied based on need and not based on race. Only a select few have gotten rich beyond anyones wildest dreams through political patronage, while the rest are stuck in the rut struggling to survive in an increasingly expensive world.

We have constantly used our multiculturalism to stiffle any form of debate or dissent, you stick your head out it gets chopped off in the name of national security. We are one of the few countries left who still has detention without trials, now that the communists have gone...its opposition activist that are locked up instead. After 49 years its sad to see our politics are still race based, with the bulk of mainstream political parties being representative of a single ethnic group, we have clearly not seen beyond the colour of our skin. At the same time we are more polarized by the day, we see it in schools and universities. To fix it the government comes up with National Service, make these buggers live with each other for 3 months. Yet another quick fix scheme without actually acknowledging or accepting the root cause of the problem. Are we pathologically racially prejudiced? I think we're not ...in my fathers day i heard kids mixed in school freely without taking into account ones race. We have clearly and horribly gone wrong in the course of our existence as a nation.

And then theres our education system, over the years the standards just keep coming down. After 11 years of basic schooling most students are not able to think out of the box or string a proper sentence in English. Thousands of graduates from our local universities are unemployed or worse still unemployable. The task of getting an A in SPM is musch more easier now, in the good old days for you to get an A in any particular subject you had to be above average and excellent but now they seem to be wholesaling the A's. For university entrance race is as much a factor as your results are, we do not have a clear cut " the best guy gets it" system. Ultimately we tend to loose our best brains to countries like Singapore and the West who are more than willing to take them in. At the rate things are going we are churning out a bunch of dungus.

After 49 years of nationhood we are denied a sense of security and absolute justice, we had an excellent judiciary..independant and unbiased. Now with meddling by certain parties and persons to suit their ends, the term "excellent" no longer applies. You go against the powers to be ..you are screwed . Its tragic to see justice being able to be traded and manipulated with, and we're doing nothing about it. Some senior judge comes up with very damaging revelations, instead of an investigation they hush it up and make him resign. And then theres the police, you call them and they turn up an hour later. With widespread corruption, incompetence and brutality to boot how can you feel safe in your own country? Whats the point of living in an independant and sovereign nation , when people live in fear... the people who are supposed to protect us and enforce our laws are not doing a proper job. When an independent police watchdog is proposed, to impose some accountability into the force...they go all out against it.

Whatever decision the goverment makes, we just accept. They can step on our toes all they like and we never fight back. We are all led to believe that patriotism is the love for ones rulers. Its about time we realised that this is not how things are supposed to be, we must realise that we are the bosses and the govenrment is merely and employee employed on our behalf to help things to work. If their service is unsatisfactory we can always get someone else better to get the job done. These whole culture of blind loyalty has made us into a meek and subdued society, spineless, unable and unwilling to stand up. Its a very sorry state of affairs.

49 years have passed us by, we have a very long way to go to be on par with the developed world. To begin with we have to take note of the happenings in this country and stop being so ignorant. We have to realize that what we now have is not the best and we certainly deserve better, we must learn how to question and not just accept whatever has been decided. In the end a country is what it is because of its people, and if the people decide that they deserve better and do something about it, they might just make it work.