Five days to 50 years

In five days, my home country, Malaysia, celebrates 50 years of independence from British rule.

What have we achieved?

Not much, apparently, especially when compared to South Korea.

Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it, so goes the famous saying.

It seems that our past is still our present.

Macam mana?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Imperfect Malaysia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. Tim

    Thanks for the link, that’s an enlightening article indeed.

    Aug 27, 2007 @ 6:59 am


  2. Sheryl

    “In 1957 more than 50% of the population lived below the poverty line; today, about 5.7% are classified as absolutely poor. About 97% of the entire citizenry has access to primary health care facilities while 93% are literate. Basic amenities such as piped water and electricity are available to well over 90% of the population. Few other independent states in the Global South can match Malaysia’s stupendous performance in the economic and social spheres.” Chandra Muzaffar writing in the Sun newspaper today.

    For all her flaws, Malaysia has achieved some.

    My 3 year old son and I put up the Malaysian flag at our house last weekend. We talked about why we love Malaysia – for me, it was the sun and beaches; for him it was the durian, his favourite! In the car later that day, we caught ourselves singing “Malaysia Berjaya”, although all he could remember from the song was 1 word – “Bersatu (unity)!”.

    But as a mother to a tod and a baby, I worry whether my children will have a place under the Malaysian sun.

    Still, I am proud to call Malaysia home. I will nurture my children with all the good things that she has to offer. And if all my 3 year old can remember from a patriotic song is “Bersatu”, that will do.

    Happy 50th Merdeka, Jenn.

    (By the way, you write masterfully – without pretense, and full of heart and substance – you do deserve the blogitzer. Your ramblings on parenthood often hit the spot and melt the heart. Your tech-savvy-ness (admittably way above the average mommy and even the average blogger!) and pictures make a classy blog. Blog on.)

    Thanks Sheryl. The husband and I had sort of the opposite kind of conversation yesterday. I asked him, “So how? Are we staying?” His answer: “What’s there to go back to?” I was sad not because I missed home but because there was no practical reason why we’d go home I could bring to the table. Nothing whatsoever.

    Aug 27, 2007 @ 11:24 pm


  3. Sheryl

    Don’t give up – on finding a practical reason, on going home!

    Start small Re: reasons:-
    (1) The food (whatever ppl say, you cannot replicate M’sian street food anywhere in the world, except on M’sian streets!).
    (2) The white sandy East Coast beaches.
    (3) The manned ‘automatic’ parking machines and barriers at our shopping centres (the man’s job is to slot your money into the machine or press the button to lift the barrier. That always comes handy for the arthritis sufferers and urbanites like me, who are incapable of performing complicated tasks like that).

    Sep 03, 2007 @ 10:04 pm

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