THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING (POLITICALLY) EARNEST

k ok.. i'm gonna get a little bit political in this entry. but you guys have to read it anyway - i don't care. it's important. eheh..

as some of you may know, i am currently commuting to work by carpooling with a fellow colleague. we work for the same department and he's from india. i am currently spending almot 4 hours sitting next to him everyday.. bracing the horrendous d*bai traffic together. he's like my new best friend (except for the fact that he's not). so since we have a lot of idle time together in the car, we've been talking. we've been talking about a lot of things. basically about his country, about my country and about d*bai. being a fellow masyarakat msia yg majmuk, i know a considerable lot about india.. at least the pop culture. and i know a little bit of bollywood too (which has never failed to amuse him). the other day the old song from bobby was on air (oh yeah i'm also listening to almost 4 hours of hindi music on a daily basis. matila lepas ni tampal poster abishek bachan kat bilik!) so i sang a long. that got him amused.

*gasps* "you know this song?"
"yeah..it's from bobby right?"
*double gasps*

i guess i have my mom to thank for this.

anyway one of the things that we talked about during our long journey from work was of course politics (sounds so grown up kan? well i am 27 already you know). as you guys know, i have my reservations about the political situation in the country. too many unintelligent people running it. unintelligent people with the worst of hearts. apparently he feels the same way about the politicians in his country. fine. but after that he asked me about freedom of media. i told him about what i know. you know - mainstream media is usually government controlled, newspapers need to renew their license every year, ISA. he was surprised to hear this. it's not the same in india. freedom of media is highly upheld over there. and i got surprised upon hearing that.

maybe it's just me, but i always assume that media censorship is normal in third world countries. apparently i am wrong. india doesn't practice it. suddenly i feel an increased level of respect for that country (although i still think the flag is a colour combination disaster).

how can we grow to become a glamer and meletopss country with media censorship? i don't think we can. media censorship and control surpresses information. it also makes the ruling government less liable for its actions or wrongdoings. this lack of accountability has already causing so much inefficiencies at the cost of the public funds. maybe i can illustrate this better be providing you with an example:

whenever i pass by a government school back home (you know, with it's cheapo windows, basic design, pasu bunga 2 ringgit placed in front of all the tiangs) it always get me thinking - how would the school would really look like of all the budgets were properly used? if no blowing up of prices and contracts were involved in the process? if there is no need to rebuild to computer labs which roof has fell down due to sub standards quality. i can guarantee that these schools would look much better and have better facilities. mcm skolah dlm high school musical tu... barula adek2 semua boleh nak feeling2 jadik zac. skarang ni boleh feeling zed zaidy dlm sembilu 2005 je la. hahahah.

right now, i've been reading msia today (the website) frequently. i only started reading it about 2 months ago. my sister has once asked me whether i read it and i said no. she asked why. i said, "i will only be interested if i think that i can do something about the matter" (kekwat kan?) at that point, ignorance was bliss. i know that the site contains all sorts of crap but what can i do about it, right? i'm only one (fabulous) person.

but one day, i decided to check the site out. and i've been checking it out regularly now. i'm not saying that whatever being said there is correct. but it provides you with a different source of information apart from the mainstream media. the mainstream media may or may not be lying to us, but we all know there's a lot of withholding of information which currently taking place. and knowledge, is power.

so for those of you who have not checked out the site, do give it try - even if you are not a fan of politics. i'm not a fan of politics either but i don't think ignoring it is the way to go. because the reality is it's affecting us, no matter how much we would like to avoid it. and since it's affecting us, we should do something about it.

life as a plu doesn't really need to be so self-focused, you know. sure, we have problems of our own (which has already taken up so much of our thinking time). but nonetheless, we are still citizens of this country. we are as much as responsible for it as the next straight guy (with the presumably bad tie-shirt colour coordination). it's not all about looking good and buying expensive stuff to look better. we pay taxes too (although, at the moment i don't. hehehe). we deserve to ascertain that it's being spent in the most efficient manner. we need to make sure that the money is spent in the best ways for the future generation - for our kids (or at least our nephews and nieces). kan? kan? kan?

there's something going on this saturday. some perarakan thing. you can read about it on the website. if i was in kl, i'd most definitely go. i saw the clips on the bar council's peace walk in putrajaya last month and i was so touched by it. wished that i was part of it. some people said that they were all syok sendiri and the government won't listen to them. well, we need just need tp be optimistic and believe that it will work because from believe, there will be hope. for those of you who believe, do take part in the perarakan. unless if you have an open house that day. then you don't need to go. god knows picking out an outfit for the open house is already too much of a challenge as it is. mana ada time nak gi perarakan kan?

hehehe... sorry la. sarcastic tak bertempat. i'm just disgruntled because i don't get to go to the open houses back home.. uwaaa...