Chasing tails

another reason for the past week to be a very eventful week is because it was THE week for malaysians again. It is the UMNO general assembly.

I know very well that UMNO is for malays, but being the biggest party of the ruling coalition, i'm quite sure that many non-malays are interested in knowing what's going on.

Sadly, they refuse to televise their general assembly. Of course, i won't want every single tv station in malaysia to put up their boring speeches the whole day. Spare the community who just can't care less, please. But at least one tv station should be able to televise it. It's after all important to know what the main party in the ruling coalition wants for the country, to know their priorities, to make sure that racism is not touched and to make sure that the MPs we elect do protect their race as well as every human being they represent without judging their colour.

But we've gone a step backwards. I remember watching UMNO general assembly live telecast on tv in the past when i was in malaysia and i was quite sure i learned a thing or two from it. It's quite a pity that they have taken such a defensive move not to televise it. Being the main party of the ruling coalition, i was definitely hoping for some pro-activeness that was supposed to "membangunkan masyarakat glocal yang cemerlang, gemilang, terbilang".

Their reasoning that malaysians lack maturity to watch it is like telling your boss "hey, u don't know anything about the company".

I think i've repeated this time and time again, but hey, the rakyat is the boss! of course, the monarch protects us, and we are the ones who give power to our government to rule, not vice versa.

I think it's time for the leaders to realise that "I'm not ur boss, I'm here to serve." Imagine if one day a politican says "We shouldn't continue elections because the rakyat is too immature to vote".

Badawi once said "work with me, not for me". We would not be able to work with people who just brands us as immature bunch of people. We may be young. But hey, if you are not gonna teach us, and you don't let anybody teach us, the so-called harapan masa depan is just gonna crumble!

Another issue raised during the assembly was Khairy Jamaluddin's proposal on behalf of UMNO youth to take another step back and change the language of delivery of science and maths to BM, again.

Yes, in my opinion, the government did hurry into changing it to english a bit to quickly. Many problems arose. It is absolutely true. If it can happen in my urban area called Kuching, who knows what they are teaching in Long Belanga?

But, no we must not take a step back. The benefits of going forward definitely outweighs all these challenges. How can we be glocal if we were to stick to a language only used in such a small part of the world? How can we learn from all the resources online if we are bound by our language barrier. I have after all met a lot of malays who are very fluent in both languages. If it is possible in the urban area, why is it not possible in the rural area? Teachers can be taught, and should have been taught. If we switch back to the old ways, our teachers would not be able to get information and cooperate with other countries so well. Look forward, international cooperation for education is probably relatively unheard of currently. But with the internet expanding at such a rapid rate, distance is no longer a boundary.

I applaud the government of changing it. Yes, i was a product of the past. And let me tell you how studying in BM has help me. Since we don't really have malay terms for scientific and mathematic terms, we borrow all the words from english, just changing it slightly and confusing everyone of the pronounciation and spelling. If a student was told that it's vulcanization of rubber right in the beginning instead of pemvulkanan getah, there wouldn't be a problem would it? till this day, i still struggle here and there with spelling due to the confusion. Isn't it horrible?

I was hearten by some parts of the assembly, where they did remember that though they are indeed a party for malays by name, they are still after all the main party of a multiracial ruling coalition and has to protect the others and not just become to offensive against other races.

Yet there's still suspicion and doubt that this is all what we have known to well as the "pre election syndrome"

Yes, do expect many good things to happen from now to elections, and see them disappear soon after.

I was really sad and disappointed when i opened an article on the online nst website entitled "UMNO General Assembly: Punish those who incite racial hatred."

I was expecting that since it's after all an UMNO assembly, they would finally want to punish those in UMNO who incite racial hatred, especially in parliament. And i was actually expanding my expectations that it would include those who say mindless comments in parliament or in public that are sexist or just plain offensive.

What a big disappointment when i read that no, they were actually talking about people not in UMNO. They were actually talking about those challenging malay rights. I agree that is wrong, as it was our forefathers who agreed to the constitution before malaysia was even independent. But for goodness sake, it's UMNO's general assembly. It should be a time to look at yourself, examine the body, the leaders, not criticise others, but build yourself up.

It's time for somebody in UMNO itself to go against UMNO politicians who have spoken in parliament mindlessly. I'm not just pinpointing UMNO. In fact, every party should evaluate themselves during their general assembly if they were to serve the rakyat better, as they all pledge. Opposition and government alike.

Some talked about stopping illegal construction of illegal worship places. But have they examined themselves and checked whether the red-tape has to be slacken and whether they have put themselves in the non-bumi shoes to check how hard is it to get a permit for a non-Islam worship place?

Some talked about bloggers who spread lies on the internet. Yes, there are plenty. But how bout it UMNO itself?

Are you too sensitive that you mistook opinions for facts? It's so often that in Malaysia, opinions cannot be raised. Opinions can't be lies if handled properly, no matter how offensive it gets. Twisted facts are.

So another year has passed. Hopefully it would be a year of progress before the next agm, not a year of walking backwards. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against UMNO, nor am i for it. I'm for malaysia.