Merdeka!

31 August 1957 is oft-repeated in Malaysia as our Independence Day, commererated by the whole nation with lots of useless fireworks and parades. However, that day is immortalised in time as the independence of the Malaya, Peninsular Malaysia as it is now known. History books do not ignore the fact that Sabah and Sarawak only joined the Federation on 16 September 1963 and that is truly our real independance day, but they do not glorify it as much as we would like it. Maybe we shouldn't make such a big deal of it, after all, the land mass of both states are larger than Peninsular Malaysia, more diverse in their native population, one of the best diving spots in the world is located of the state of Sabah or that Sarawak has one of the world's largest reserves of natural gas yet the population in both states feel as if they have to celebrate 31 August when it would be better to celebrate and acknowledge the fact that we only became independent from British rule 16 September 1963 only to be ruled by the nationalist fervour of Peninsular Malays.

It saddens me to think that Malaysia is folding into herself even more and unable to be forward looking. In an age where almost everyone has access to the Internet, the free press is still controlled by the ruling party and all news about the government has to be positive. It is sad that my country still insists on censorship, if there is a kiss on screen it is deemed too racy and will be cut from the film. And the government wonders why we cannot eradicate black market DVD sellers at every pasar malam? It is because we are intelligent enough to know when we are being duped and would like to watch the full length movie in full.

It's time for me to stop rambling now, and collect my thoughts on the matter but I love my country, am really proud to be a Malaysian but some things are really to paradoxical for words.

Later.