Yes, rejoice, there are no funny emoticons in this post.. and i apologise for the length, now you know why i wanted to stop cutting and pasting from MSN?? haha.. debates like this can run for hours, and pages...

Due to the fact that I was too busy cutting and pasting Nick’s reasons and arguments as to why he supports Barisan Nasional, to be honest I didn’t really give his points much thought (As a female, I can’t multitask after all.. so sad…), and couldn’t answer him properly. But that conversation, now that I look at it again, made me think of how I would like to structure my arguments properly. Because as Nick said to me, somewhere in the conversation, he claimed that I couldn’t even give him facts or reason on the party that I supported…

To me, this is a reply to Nicholas, because I feel that, he doesn’t seem to know both sides of the coin of Malaysian politics. This is in no way lashing out at him, but I am just stating my views. His views unfortunately to me, doesn’t seem to hold much political grounds at all, and it seems to be centralised only what is happening around him, politics involves the whole nation, it is a national issue.. It is not only about our PJU, and what we see happening around PJU or Selangor for that matter.

Please be informed that I actually do not like politics, but I know I can’t avoid it, so when I was eligible to vote, I started looking and reading up about both DAP and BN, and made my stand from there. Thus, I will humbly admit that my knowledge on politics is shallow, and apologise in advance for anything, which I might say, that might be offending, or irrelevant.

Honestly, this is a sensitive issue to debate about, and we could go on and on. It’s the same like debating with someone as to why I am a Buddhist and you a Christian.. I am sure this post will spark a lot of controversy among my blog readers, but please do not let this lead to blood shed.. (Figuratively speaking and well literally…)
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Firstly, he thanks the government i.e. BN for the fact that we have infrastructure, education, and that we have the highest human resource rate. The fact that we don’t need to work as maids, is something to be thankful for..

To me, any government that has been put into parliament will carry that out, that is called development, and it is an essential part to all countries. If the country doesn’t develop, then Malaysians will really still be living in trees and the current government won’t be around. It is the job of every government to develop the country, that is a given.

But the fact that we are arguing here is that, our development is too slow, this is where the politics really comes in, compared to other countries, and I will state known statistics. In the 1960’s (I think…) an average Malaysian was earning 3 times the income of an average South Korean, but what has happened now? It’s the total opposite now.

As a country that had a head start, as you said we had some help from the British, shouldn’t we be either on par or at least ahead of south Korea.. Why are we placed behind them? It might just be my way of thinking, but to me the reason why the government is slow in their development is just to ensure that they are in power longer. This is the politics I am talking about. Not about development and all. As I said it’s a given to develop, but it’s the rate of development, and the promises that the government makes.

My reasoning is that, the government HAS to develop, they have no choice, but they do it at a slower rate, to make sure that people don’t get educated so fast. Why? Look at our area, it’s full of educated people, and what do they get? They get people which they can’t lie to anymore, they can’t tell us, that the malays or the Chinese or Indians are bad people and they are going to slaughter us, they can’t do that.

Most of us urban folks have the internet, the media can cover up as much as they want, and the best example is the BERSIH rally which I have already posted before, there’s even an interview done by Al jazeera on youtube about it, they interviewed the ministers, who couldn’t give satisfactory answers. The key to the power of choice to the urban folks is that, we have the Internet. The government can’t lie to us anymore. We know that Najib used the government jet to travel to Kelantan with his daughter to campaign there. And act which, by constitution and legally he should not have done, as parliament has already been dissolved, he is basically just like the other candidates contesting, he should not be abusing government which is ideally public property.

That is only one of the instances where they abuse our taxpayer’s money. There are many more, they abuse their rights as well, government contracts are not given a public tender, instead nepotism is rampant, take for example in Kuching.. The CM gave the contract to his son without a public tender.. Because they (DUN I guess..) says that his son is capable. A contract for over 300 bridges!! Cronyism is running rampant in the government.

Studies have shown that when a government is in power for too long, nepotims and cronyism is bound to be rampant, corruption as well.. It’s a fact.. I can’t remember where I read it from, but I recall that same article as saying, with prolonged ruling by the same government, a country becomes less democratic and more autocratic.. I see that coming on… somehow…

So basically, the country needs and opposition. To dig out the dirty secrets of the current government and to inform the people on what is going on.. Or we will forever be complacent Malaysians who won’t even know what is going on in our own country.

The slow development of our country is like Shih Huang Tee (the first emperor who unified china) chopping the heads off people who are smarter or outspoken so as to prevent a revolution… Except that our government doesn’t exactly chop off heads, they just slow down development, because peasants who don’t what is going on, who have their daily bread and butter, are just content with what they have, and they won’t rally against the government for a change..

That’s is one of my stand about. As an educated person who has gone across the oceans for a year, and for one who is blessed with stability and with no worries of earning my daily income, I realise that there is unfairness going around. Unlike content peasants (not meant to be degrading, it’s just a figure of speech) I can read, and find out more about the government. I can find out that the UMNO leaders are lining their pockets more and more, while the peasants themselves remain poor. Is this what a government is supposed to do, they remain rich and comfortable, while the people remain poor?

The only ones that are living really comfortably, are those in the urban areas, the most developed state is Selangor, why? Because the capital of Malaysia is there… it’s also obvious that racism is still rampant around, why must I be treated like a second-class citizen in my own country? Why are the university quotas still there? Just because I didn’t go to a public university, that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the pinch. It’s because of those quotas, resulting in the difficulties to get into the local universities, not getting your choice of subjects, it’s the very reason why I (and my parents) chose to go to private institutions.

Because of the quota, people who deserve a place in universities are not getting in, those that don’t are getting in. imagine a straight A student being unable to get in, but a student with only 5As getting in, just because of his race. This has caused the levels of our education centres to drop so drastically. A lecturer who teaches in UM says that the students are hopeless, teach them how to build a 3 storey building, and when you ask them to build a 6 storey building, they will look at you and ask: “how do I do that?”

It is a fact, that this has been causing our quality of education to drop, so the opposition is fighting to abolish the quota system, and I support that. I don’t have to go to a public university to support such a decision.

What does this result in, more and more people are going overseas to pursue their education, especially the Chinese, because we believe in quality education for a better life. The government doesn’t give us a single cent for our education overseas; our parents have to stinge and save to send us all overseas.

And guess what, example are pharmacists, their parents’ stinge and save to send them overseas, and when they come back they have to serve the government for 3 years!! Where is the fairness in that? If they were sponsored by the government that is a different story.. It’s exploitation by the government. Imagine if my parents didn’t have to save for my education like that did, I would be living an even more luxurious life and be travelling every year.

If we had quality education here, we wouldn’t have to look across the oceans, we could save even more, as you said the exchange rate isn’t cheap..

My going overseas has nothing to do with the government, my parents work like everyone else, but they are just good in handling their finances, just because they were both serving in the government, and it’s like by a miracle that they manged to send us all overseas, isn’t true, they had to go through their hardships, an name callings (hey people call us low class, and stingy)

It’s the same about affording cars. It’s not like the government is subsidising or anything, it’s the people’s own savings or bank loans... but this also shows that our own people have no faith in our own national cars. Isn’t this a bad sign instead? I have a proton, and it sucks.. We only bought it because we can’t afford any other car, because we were saving for my (and my siblings) education..

The reason I m doing this (i.e. voting) is for the future generation and for my peers. I don’t only look at what is around me. I can obviously see that new highways are being built, but guess what, the highways and new buildings were built without consultation of the residents. (It’s stated in the constitution, they are supposed to meet with the residents to discuss the issue).

There is no equality in that, because the government has been in power too long, they have taken us for granted and are just doing things their way. This is our wrath, of the unfairness, of the corruption and racism we have tolerated for years. It’s not about development not about reducing taxes..

Though it is true that, maybe things like lower insurance and tax do occur, imagine if the government had hiked it up. There are things, which they MUST do to stay in power, you can’t just sit up there and do nothing, and they have to carry out policies. And this is just some of them to keep the people happy in the hope that they will vote them again in the next elections.

Honestly, I could go on and on, it never ends, the things that we want improvements of, but it would be easier for me, if you read other things besides the mainstream media like Malaysia today. I’m not asking you to read the oppositions’ magazines. But look at other news source like al jazeera.

We all know that our mainstream media is controlled as I’ve said before.. so we have to look at both sides of the coin and decide.

The reason I can tell you that everyone of my blog readers seem to be lashing out at you is because, what you are saying isn’t really political in nature, it’s just a naïve, narrow statement of someone who didn’t look at the whole picture as a whole.

You are just looking it at one point of view. Just because it doesn’t involve you (like the mentioned Chinese schools) you don’t seem to bother. It is a concern that we have to look into. I don’t know about other politics that you profess that you are good in, but this is our national politics, and it isn’t only bout what you say it is.

As one of the readers posted in the cbox:
Just because the Chinese is rich without the government’s help that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Maybe it’s because you have been stationed in Malaysia all the while so you don’t see the whole big picture, but those of us who have been, we’ve seen it all, and so we oppose the government. But I think that, although it plays a factor, that is not an excuse, because we live in a city and we have the Internet, we can make our own informed decisions if we have the correct attitude.

Even those Malays who are educated overseas, they don’t agree with the government. It’s a fact that our country is changing, and the young ones are speaking out, and we want a change. 50 years of ruling, and the country is still racially segregated.

We appreciate the development, but we know, that they could have done better, but they didn’t do so, just for their very own selfish reasons. Nick, you have to wake up and smell the roses. It’s not about seeing what they have done for you.

As I said.. If you don’t give other people a chance you won’t know, and it’s not like a rich man giving all his money away. The rich man take on projects where he has to part with a substantial amount of his money, to achieve greater results. Rich man take risks. Some calculated, and some not...

-Oracl3-

P/s: Nick don’t take this to personally… and sorry I couldn’t debate properly on MSN yesterday. Just take it as I’m someone who needs to collect her thoughts first before she can argue :p