Heritage vs Trend vs Changes

It caught my attention when I was flipping through the newspaper while I ate my bowl of spicy curry mee today morning. "We stand by our laws" - Many of our laws inherited from colonial days (The Star, page N23, 14 May 2008). And at the bottom of this news, on the same page, "Suhakam to focus on civil political rights".

Since 1957, 51 years ago, Malaysia gained a victory to end the British colonial, and all our forefathers and parents were shouting Merdeka that shook the then Malaya. 16 September 1963, our beautiful country was given a name "Malaysia"; a name that we all Malaysian are proud of till today. We inherit this spirit of Malaysia, and I believe all of us, in some way or another, are doing our best to be united under Jalur Gemilang, as we are all against violence, and we all love peace.

While we inherit this Malaysia spirit, we witnessed the change in our country; mindset, development, human rights, elections, laws and regulations etc. Believe it or not, most of the changes are trend-set, whether we are influenced by the globalization wave or to cope with the current trend in the mega environment. And it is impossible for a country to not to develop and change its policies; in Malaysia context, 50 plus years ago. and 50 plus years later.

The Malaysians have changed, and so it speaks in the 2008 election.

What caught my attention is the fact that reading this article, I have no choice but to remain surprised, by looking at the fact that our beautiful country has developed so much, with skyscrapers and LRT and world-class highways, but never have it been changes and development in term of mindset and willingness to change (or maybe only applicable to certain group of people).

The Malaysians have changed, and so are the expectations, and so it speaks in the 2008 election.

Or maybe, it will be simpler to say:

Malaysians WANT CHANGES.