Murder in Malaysia

Today's star newspaper, I noticed two articles covering two separate murder cases that took place years ago.
One involved a carpenter/shop assistant who murdered his lover, and the other a successful businessman accused of killing his nephew with the help of two employees and his maid as a witness.
If you can't guess the outcome, I'll tell you- the poor guy gets death and the rich guy acquitted. The worst part is, he got away because he just simply didn't turn up to be served! What a joke, all he had to do was go live abroad for a few years and then the courts threw out his case.
If you're Malaysian you'd agree that this comes as no surprise to you, after all we're boleh-land. Can do is the attitude most Asians take when we need to get the job done. Can do means you'd better have the cash to put your money where your mouth is.
In the headlines today we also have a very prominent figure standing up to charges of fraud against the government. I can't predict the future, but as a Malaysian I already know the outcome.

Old Glory

Not long ago, the month of August would see an overwhelming amount of flag draped cars on the city streets. Everyone would be in the spirit of Merdeka, and on the eve,roads would be backed up for miles because of the hoards of people making their way into town to celebrate.
2010, things are a little different now. There are proposals to pass into law mandatory display of the flag on cars traveling on Merdeka day. There are peoples and groups that go out of their way to display defiance, writing anti themed songs, protest videos and such. Why all the disharmony? We have to look deep into ourselves for the answer. Denial is what comes to mind. Change is happening all right, in a slow but big way. For better or worse, depending on who you ask is very much debatable. For the bosses things are good for them, for the workers not so great. For the captains so-so. The bosses need only to keep the captains happy-ish. The captains will try to keep the workers happy-ish with false promises and small rewards. As long as bosses can close an eye on their captain's mischievous behavior and be able to absorb some small losses, it's better not to fire them. Without the support of the captains, the bosses wouldn't have the support of the workers, and would ultimately lose their title of 'boss'. This method would eventually fail as more workers become captains and bosses themselves. Yes, some will themselves fall into the cycle, but many now educated and realize that the rest of the successful world does not accept this kind of system. Most of them realize that it's a non-sustainable system, and everyone wants to live an honest life. Nobody wants their children to be like them. Nobody wants to see their children being unfairly treated. Everybody wants a fair and equal chance of making it in this world without being hindered by the color of their skin or whatever god they believe in.
My country has a fantastic opportunity to make good on the promises our forefathers made. My country sometimes i don't know if I have the right to call my own, depending again on who you ask. My country can be great, but it's not going to take fancy slogans to do it. Tall buildings are great but that's not gonna do. Great fortune and wealth isn't gonna cut it either. All the bickering only serves to create more confusion and distrust. People want good people, and we can get good people for sure, it's what we're born with so that should be a piece of cake. We are all born perfect, why didn't we remain perfect as we grew up? If we choose, we're not far from being the perfect person we were born to be. We were once perfect, so somewhere inside us lies this perfect person we once called ourselves. When we can come to terms with our perfect selves, problems will be easy to resolve.
I saw less than five cars with flags this year.