I am proud to be Malaysian

*msn: It’s not supposed to be conditional.

First off, I must confess, for a university student living in the much-hyped Information Age, I am sadly never up to date with *ugh* news and *double ugh* current events.

(I think it’s called ignorance is bliss…)

But on the rare occasion that I do venture into the dark and seedy side of the world, I never leave without a reminder of why I should never return.

And so this time was no exception.

I’m much too lazy to hunt down the links; they seem to have disappeared from where I originally found them - The Star - but don’t take my word for it and hunt them down yourself if you like.

But basically the gist of it was this:

1. The Malaysian government (I think it’s the government anyway. Well some big big person) has suggested singing the Negaraku prior to the showing of films in the cinema.
2. The government of China has made it compulsory for all (ALL) China-based webmasters and bloggers to register their websites and blogs respectively with the government to facilitate scrutiny and (almost-legendary, this) possible censorship of their contents.

Right, I know the first one has been discussed to death (check out Kevin’s blog for example) and is nowhere near as far-reaching or unreasonable as the second, but I will have my say! *shakes fist weakly (lack of sleep) at computer screen*

Although the first one seems to be just another in a series of odd suggestions from the people that we (frighteningly enough) elect to make such suggestions and the second seems to be on the verge of infringing on human rights, the fundamental message behind both is much the same.

LOVE THY COUNTRY.

(or in the case of the second, pretend to.)

What saddened me most, I guess, was that they thought it necessary for such measures to begin with.

Why the patriotic singsong?

Why the gags?

I cannot help but feel that this is akin to either last-stage marriage counseling, where the parties involved are told to just behave the way they did when they were in love in hopes of prompting the feelings that prompted the original behaviour to begin with.

Or a crazed stalker writing “You love me you love me you love me you love me” over and over again in his/her (you see, I don’t discriminate) own blood on letter after letter to his/her object of adoration, hoping, perhaps, in time, that they will be persuaded so.

For the government of China, my opinion stops here. I’ve only been there once. For a day. Which I spent shopping. And I have no idea what it’s like to live there, nor if I’d have had anything worth censoring to say. But you know and I know that although too much freedom can be a bad thing, too little is far, far worse.

For Malaysia however, I believe I have every right to say anything I like. (Within reason, of course. And you have every right not to read.)

And so this is what I say:

Is it perfect? No.

Are they trying to make it perfect? Not hard enough, I sometimes think.

But I love it anyway because it’s home. And if the government wants me to stand and sing the national anthem before settling myself in for a two-hour movie, I will.

Will I feel silly? Maybe.

But if singing it will somehow remind those around me that there was once a time when we had no country, no name, no leaders to care more about us than about themselves (and yes, I do believe that deep down, they do care, even if just a little); when we had no song to sing even if we wanted to, when we were…no one;

Then yes I’ll bloody sing it, the way I would have if I had been there the first time it was sung.

And then…I’ll sing it again.