It’s been a hectic couple of
months for me (changed jobs, puasa, raya). I know I said I wanted to restart the blog, I did that and I
stopped. Blurrgh.
BUT I did update my photography
blog when I recently went to Dhaka, Bangladesh on a mission. Can read it here: http://syazwanrahimy.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/bangladesh-the-forgotten-country/
Didn’t really want to give an in
depth view of what I saw there and how it is compared to Malaysia. I actually
like the country and do not want other people’s view of the country to be skewed
by my point of view. Sufficed to say, the country is not progressing as fast as
the rest of the world. I fear though, that if Malaysia doesn’t buck up, we
might end up on the same track.
We won’t, of course, end up
exactly like Bangladesh as we have progressed quite well. But I fear more for
the wealth gap between the poor and the rich.
If you want to experience
Dhaka, you have to go out on the town at night. It may be dark but it would shed some
light on the situation. You can see big buildings, so colourful, so bright, and
so opulent but does nothing for the many that stands and even sleeps outside its
gates.
At first dismissing it as
something that happens only to third world countries, to my surprise, 3-4 weeks
after my return from Bangladesh I read a feature in The Star which kind of
confirms my fears. Thousands are homeless and living in KL - our proud capital
city which houses the rich and the famous and yes, big, colourful, bright, opulent
buildings.
Forget not being able to afford a
house in PJ or not being able to drink cappuccino at Starbucks, if thousands
living on the streets doesn’t speak of great income disparity, what does?
My only counsel is that we should
keep the powers that be in check. No matter who is the government, there’s
every chance that the administration will screw up. But even though Government have executive power the people have the power to
decide. Enough pressure and they’ll turn their heads.
With election around the corner,
we’ll be seeing a lot of PROMISES, ACCUSATIONS, thieves bearing GIFTS and the
whole lot - words, mostly words. What we need to do is understand the facts
behind those words, the reality behind the deception, the tears behind the joys
and so on so forth.
Figuring all these things out
once every 5 years is not exactly the hardest part, but making sure the
government stands by certain principles is. In the end, you will never know if
you’ve chosen the right government; but for the one you’ve chosen*, try to make
them choose the right actions. That is a continuous tiring process, but someone’s
gotta do it.
* Yes, I know for some of us the
government we wanted is not exactly the one that is chosen, but we can still do
something about that. No, not overthrow. Remind.
