Peace
Written on 1/15/2005 04:15:00 pm by sikapitan
It is the New Year, and time for new beginnings, supposedly. But let us not forget the past, for it is in the past that we have the prologue to the future. In a year where the Americans re-elected a loose-cannon hell-bent on imposing his will on the world, where the Thai Army made sardines out of shirtless young men, there are lessons to be learned.
I'm not finished with NS!
The first installment of the much-hyped about National Service started last year, and at a staggering cost of RM500 million (I bet it’s much more than that), can we say that it has made much difference? I propose that some university undertake a 5 year nationwide study on the effects of National Service on its participants and non-participants. It should be interesting isn’t it? Especially since that money can be spent on more important things like…getting better ambulances and medical facilities in government hospital, no? This year’s edition promises more, but ultimately will prove to offer nothing.
Alhamdulillah
Mention the word tsunami and we generous Malaysians just open up our wallets, Alhamdulillah. Thankfully, so has the rest of the world. Which begs me to wonder, being so close to ground zero and all, have we done enough? And I’m not just talking about helping other countries but our own. Foreign artists held concerts and made individual contributions (Leo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock, just to name a few) amounting to millions of ringgit. What have our artists done to contribute? Certainly I’m not asking for them to come up with millions and millions of ringgit, but where’s the charity concert, the plea for aid, television specials? THEY certainly were very enthusiastic when it comes to pleading that we don’t purchase pirated copies of their albums (as well we should, because it HAS really become quite pathetic, our local albums I mean). THEY were most definitely teary-eyed when trying to tell us how we fans made them what they are. So where are they now when MALAYSIANS, their fans, are counting on them? There’s no telethon, no special feature, no advertisements calling for contributions. Absolutely pathetic.
Talking about pathetic, what about our fellow Muslim countries, namely our oil-rich gulf states? Their government made a mockery of Islam when they only managed to cough up measly sums to help fellow Muslims. Saudi Arabia initially offered US$ 10 million, but after international outrage they “generously” tripled that amount. It doesn’t matter. The fact is that they make at least 10 times of that amount in A SINGLE DAY from oil sales. Considering that their income REALLY does come from nature itself, I would have thought they would be more respectful of God’s ability to take what’s given. Look at what the Americans and Europeans cough up to help us Asians. I don’t care if people say that it’s just a way for them to colonize us again and make us weep and beg, if it save lives then I’m all for it.
At the other end of the spectrum is the emotionally-unstable emo clan who goes on and on about how sad life is and how cruel God is and how we should all drop what we’re doing and go over there to built some shack. I do care, but life goes on you know? We all can do our part in it. By some weird logic (typical of me), even shopping can contribute. See, the world is one big interconnecting maze where people from one side of the world inevitably owe their existence to people from the other. When we purchase Nike goods, we are indirectly contributing to the Indonesian factory workers, regardless of how they have been so ill-treated. Or when we purchase software made in India, part of it goes to their national tax which will in turn be used to help the victims of tsunami. Hey, I know I’m stretching it but we play the hands that we’ve been dealt with yea?
However, if you do have your own money, and willing to contribute, here are some links to sites accepting credit-card donations. May God bless you all.
http://www.ifrc.org/helpnow/donate/donate_response.asp
http://www.give2asia.org/
http://www.unicef.org/
http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/
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