Patriotic thought

Today is our country's independent day. Merdeka! merdeka! merdeka! I thought I want to take leave yesterday because I want to sit down and feel the meaning of merdeka. "Nak menghayati rasa kemerdekaan". But I changed my mind and cancelled leave because I have students to teach. It is more important to me. At the same time I still can continue to be patriotic. Due to Hari Raya holidays, there will be not enough time for them to prepare before the final exam. Teaching is absolutely tiring. When I came back in the evening, I missed my tarawih prayer due to exhaustion. I went to sleep early. I hope whatever I taught my students yesterday will help them in their coming exam and identify their deficiencies. From my opinion, minimal improvement is still an improvement. Take it as a challenge.

Basically, what I want to say is all about yearly event that we celebrated, month of August, merdeka month. I am very proud to be born here. Even though, originally, my great grandfather and grandfather came from Sumatra, Indonesia. My Dad this year 2010 already 90 years of age and he was born here. Feeling of love for Malaysia was stressed on me by my Dad. He, those days generation definitely know what "Merdeka" really mean. He went through a lot and managed to see the changes in our country before and after independence. From my opinion, merdeka means that you are free in your thinking process, free to express your feeling and free to do anything at all that beneficial to you and to others, as long as you are not going away from the right principles based on our culture, religion and values. Last Saturday, on the way to Selayang, I didn't see many "jalur gemilang" waving in front or on top of the commercial buildings along the road. A few houses did have "jalur gemilang". This scenery is so much different from Dr.M era as a Prime Minister. During that time, even though we were asked to put "jalur gemilang", but we put it up anyway because we did feel proud to do so. Now, people don't respect our "jalur gemilang" anymore. I am not talking about other people but Malaysian themselves. They don't even bother to put up our flag in the month of August. Our leaders don't really put stress on it. People take it very likely. That the reason why Indonesian dare enough to do all sort of terrible things to our "jalur gemilang", the pride and the maruah of our country. All Malaysian do nothing about it. We just sit back and be patience. The Indonesian government couldn't care less. If they think that our relationship with them means so much to them, they should have done something about it. However, they did nothing. Our children should be reminded all the time on the importance of "merdeka day". They feel so complaisant with the life style that they have. Today, my hospital, organised by the O&G department celebrating the merdeka babies that delivered in our hospital. I guess, the parents should be the one, responsible to instill the feeling of love to this country so that they don't forget the root.