MUST READ Article from Aliran: "ACT NOW! - Vibrant democracy requires eternal vigilance"

Dear Readers,

I have just read best article regarding Democracy & Malaysia that I have ever read, perhaps even the best that I will ever read in my life. It is by Dr. Andrew Aeria from UNIMAS and you can read it at Aliran Monthly. It is entitled: "ACT NOW! Vibrant democracy requires eternal vigilance", and truer words have never been spoken. If you care for Democracy in our Nation, please read Dr. Aeria's article & encourage all your friends to read it too. Here is how he starts:

If we are passionate about Malaysia and our birthright, then we should ACT NOW to save our democracy, says Andrew Aeria.

In early March, University Malaya Law lecturer Azmi Sharom made a very pertinent observation in his weekly Star column that ‘Malaysians have this thing where they hope some mighty champion will sweep down from the mountains and solve their problems for them’.

His point was that instead of waiting for this ‘mighty champion’ to turn up and do the job for us, we should instead use whatever resources we have at hand and just ACT NOW if we want to mend our broken democracy and save it from our numerous ‘Bolehland-class’ politicians (defined as MPs, Aduns and party members who are either plain foul-mouthed, ‘tidak apa’, sexist, racist, lazy, corrupt, incompetent and even thuggish with only their personal and family’s material interests at heart). And by this, I also include many over-estimated opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) politicians and civil service bureaucrats as well.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding currently prevalent within our society that we do not need to do anything about our democracy since we have already elected PR (our ‘Mighty Champion’?) as our loyal parliamentary opposition serving King and country. As well, we elected them to govern in five states and so we have to ‘give them time’ to settle into the job. Unfortunately, this is self-deceiving and ultimately toxic to democracy. Simply because democracy is much more than just elections and what happens in parliament. And it certainly won’t flourish after merely being ‘given time’. ...

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Sincerely,
Malaysian Heart