Critical Thoughts

What else is there to say? The march towards Putrajaya must continue!

Published recently on The Malaysian Insider. This is my story.

If the principles of jus soli were strictly enforced in the country, I wouldn’t even be registered as a citizen of Malaysia. Thirty-one years ago, my father was working for a multinational corporation based in the Sillicon Valley and he brought his young bride along. I suppose I was conceived during this time. I was born in San Jose, California in the United States.

I even have a US birth certificate and a US passport (expired in 1988) to boot. The US recognises dual citizenship so I have no doubt that I am already recognised as a citizen of the US. But because my parents had the foresight to register me at the US Embassy in Washington, DC using Borang W, I became a Malaysian citizen at birth. My father could have made the decision to stay. But he didn’t. He came home to Malaysia with his family in tow.

I grew up in a middle-class family and was for most of my life based in Penang, having been enrolled into a private school (Sekolah Sri Inai). The majority of students were non-Muslim Chinese, I was only one of the very few Muslim students around in the whole school.

Regardless, I had a lot of inter-racial contact and I count a lot of non-Muslims and Muslims alike as among my closest friends during this time period. Back when we were children, the issue of race and religion did not count for much, not even during the 1990s.

Continue reading…

Quite a lot of things had happened since the last real update to this blog (am not referring to the filler posts in between) was actually written by yours truly. In my defense, I have been busy working on and developing a strong directory network, as well as travelling back and forth between KL and JB. Speaking of JB, I have a scathing criticism of this “city” which I plan to blog about soon, but not now. Lets just say that the end-result isn’t going to make JB citizens happy, but tough criticism is needed to lure some folks out of their self-delusion.

In brief, here are some major events that took place in the past couple of weeks.

• Japan earthquake and tsunami. My heart goes out to their people of Japan and my condolences for their loss and personal tragedy. I am as usual amazed at the Japanese resilience and steadfast determination to recoup and rebuild their losses in the wake of the massive destruction. I saw the videos of the earthquake and the tsunami destruction especially…it wasn’t pretty.
• Libyan uprising and revolt. The sooner that madman Muammar Gadhafi is kicked out of the country, the better it would be for Libya and its residents.
• Alleged DSAI “sex tape”. Nothing more than lies, lies and lies. BN will find out that continuously playing on this issue will only make them self-destruct in the end.
• Sarawak elections. I seriously doubt Taib Mahmud can be voted out of office (unfortunate as that may be), but miracles can happen. No one expected Barisan Nasional to lose their two-thirds majority in 2008, right?

Compared to the joker who “impressed” us all [not!] with his [lack of] “powderful England”, this man is certainly miles ahead although I wouldn’t say that it is perfect. But Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim sure is articulate and impressive.