Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Relevance of Hang Tuah's Words


Hang Tuah once said, “Tak Melayu hilang di dunia” and centuries after his disappearance, most of us, Malays, Chinese and Indians, remain inflicted by his another famous phrase, “Apakan daya, tangan terikat dilangit, kaki terpasak dibumi, jasad tidak setanding mimpi” – the words he said to Puteri Gunung Ledang when she asked him to join her and live happily ever after.

What a day for me today to be presented with 2 news that left me feel tremendously awakward.

Nadhirah, one of my Little Women of Penang, received her Oxford “A” Level results this morning – being amongst the top 10% in the world, she scored 4A*. Alhamdulillah, while her Mama and Leena are busy convincing her to pursue medicine overseas in Oxford/Cambridge/Monash/Dundee/Edinburgh/King’s/Imperial/UCL, ever-so-modest Kak Yah told me she wants to be trained and worked as a medical doctor in this Ibu Pertiwi - the kind of Ibu Pertiwi that has no qualms to delay construction of its pertinent infrastructure like roads, schools and hospitals.

Another news came from the other end of Kak Yah’s jolly excellent news – GMH, one of sub-con to the delayed Shah Alam Hospital, has been ushered under watchful eyes of Coward Men in Blue and 10 paid bodyguard out of their site office as their contract has been terminated by the Royal-Family-owned developer.

Just read Elvin Toh, GMH’s CEO response to this fiasco, ““You (Sunshine Fleet) tell the PWD to stop paying me, then you tell the bank not to give me money, you also take out an injunction to stop me from being paid, and you say it is my fault? You tie my hands and tie my legs and you say I don't do anything?”.

Since there would be one less hospital for deserving Rakyat and one less place for Kak Yah to gain her experience and impart her expertise (I know she’d be a great asset to any medical practice), I want to know how much longer can we allow ourselves to be stupefied by the powers-that-be.

Coming back to Hang Tuah's words, how I wish no one would ever have to say or hear that - whether you're in or out of love - that we can't do this and that. When there's a will, there's a way and as always, always remember that great words spoken by great men are meant to be served for good purpose.

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