Monday, February 7, 2011

Hold My Hands and Let's Rise Up


Astro First costs a mere RM15 for 3-day potato-couching, popcorn-crunching hours watching 4 local movies - I was told. That's a great bargain for a young family of 6 which movie tixs along could fetch more than RM50 for a show (sans petrol/toll/parking/pop corns and pop sodas/customary meal thereafter). Not to mention, they could get Opah/Atok/Bibik etc to watch them too on their fave couch!(today's quality time it seems). But such freedom has invited a good cry from some industry players - if lesser people go to cinemas to watch their movie, how can they survive?


Anyway, I ain't promoting Astro First but I have been glued to Al-Jazeera for Egypt's Uprising with a box of tissues (did i hear JT's "Cry me a river"?) and a pillow (a physical emotional shield when i watch the tellies with my parents - heck, I cry too much these days - nasib baik ada Ayman Mohyeldin).


But suddenly, I thought of something absurd, likening the two into a great realisation.


We marvel at the sheer courage, bravery and steadfastness of our brothers and sisters in Egypt - the land where once a great civilisation started along the bountiful Nile River. For once, they enliven the soul of their great ancestors for a civilised society would not have striking poverty and blatant corruption as a way of life.


We shed tears of joy and sadness at the same time when we saw people from all walks of life congregated at Tahrir Square calling for the dictator and his regime to step down so their beloved Egypt and its people could move forward in better light, holistically.


We cry when we saw how the protesters were attacked by the dictator's blind supporters while the army stood still as if watching a silent movie.


We realise how powerful army could be in times like this and this alone could explain why some defence contracts hardly cost million, but billions because satisfying your army (for whatever reasons) is just another act of 'buying their support' on the pretext of natinal defence.


Thanks to readily available information online (sadly most of us Malaysians despise reading which render us indifferent), we are inspired to see that a change can only happen when we, normal Rakyat, start to play an active role to ensure that we have true representative government, instead of mere 'musang berbulu ayam' MPs and YBs so that whatever is being planned at federal level would trickle down to us, the normal rakyat. Once we obtain the benefits of such fairness and goodness from a sound, empathic and democratic group of people we spent millions to get them elected every now and them (well, we have so far 14 buy-bye-by elections since GE12 2008), imagine the wonders we could bring about to our people and Ibu Pertiwi!


The Egyptians pay a huge price for their real freedom. We, Malaysian, may not have to go down the same history lane if we could exercise our rights, electing the right people to helm our government, at ballot boxes, NOW. I'm sure that's the easiest form of valour we could all do for the love of our country, no matter who we are, how indifferent you feel about others (at least think about your children and their children), how inclined you are to retain your 'ketuanan' (well, you could only be one when you are morally and socio-economically strong).


All uprisings bring people together in the most emotionally stable touch - as simple as holding each others' hands. In almost all religions, we see congregations are being held every now and them.


So, why not you hold my hands now and let's rise up to the occasion we have been presented with?

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