Negaraku
"Negaraku" - malay for "My country", also the title of my national anthem.
This is the you-tube rap video that has made it all over the Malaysian/Malaysian-related online community late last week (yeah, I know, an internet age ago). It's really quite good - musically, as well as the salient points the rap makes. The rap is really satirical and funny, and very true. (I'll translate it some day when I have the time)
I actually only got sent the video link after I got an email from a colleague, a Brit who had lived in Malaysia for 4 years during his youth, with a news article with the title: "Malaysia in quandary over YouTube rapper" (full text below, after this post).
The government claims the video is seditious, and the foreign minister (whose name I had never heard of before 10 Aug) is quoted as having said: "I don't understand how a person can do that sort of thing". It makes me laugh.
How can a person do that sort of thing??
The question rather is: how can Mr Foreign Minister himself have the gall to even raise his head to face the world, and say something as ridiculously ironic as that?
Does he think the entire world is deaf, blind, and mute?
Anyone who knows anything at all about Malaysia knows the situation. My above-mentioned colleague who had lived there and studied in an international school. He was forwarded he article by other foreign friends who probably used to go to school with him. Even my French classmate who had only lived in Malaysia for a mere 5 months more than 10 years ago, knew of the gross racial discrimination, learnt the racial stereotypes, and still remembers. And he'd only been there for a mere 5 months!
Malaysia has been haemorrhaging her best people and will continue to do so unless things change. I suppose the government thinks there will always be sufficient chinese (and indians) who stay on to keep the economy afloat, and keep things ticking over. I have sympathy for those who don't have the means to escape. But for those who have the means/skills to migrate, I don't know why they remain.
I won't be rejected my own country, treated as a second class citizen, just for being of the wrong faith, and having the wrong skin colour. It is ridiculous. I simply won't stand for it. It's not that I don't love my country. I love her lands-her mountains, rice fields, rainforests, islands, and reefs. I love Malaysian food. But the last time someone asked me: "How do you feel about your country?" I responded, after some thought: "I love the Malaysia, the geographical entity", and the boy, who I'd just gotten to know responded: "Wow, you are clearly passionate and patriotic huh" And I had to explain. Why a girl like me, who had truly been patriotic when I was young, has to be so restrained in her statements now.
Malaysia has just turned 50. It's time to mature, to be responsible, to let your citizens including the native "bumiputeras" (literally princes of the earth) take responsibility for their own lives and actions. To acknowledge past wrongs, and start afresh, the right way this time.
Article below:
"Malaysia in quandary over YouTube rapper
From correspondents in Kuala Lumpur
August 10, 2007 04:53am
MALAYSIA faces hurdles in its attempt to prosecute a student for rapping in a YouTube video to the national anthem using allegedly seditious lyrics, the foreign minister said today.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said it was unlikely the Malaysian student could be recalled from a Taiwan university, amid outrage from rights groups over the Government's threat to lay sedition charges.
"If a Malaysian citizen commits something unlawful under Malaysian law in a foreign land, we cannot recall him or her except to frame charges," Syed Hamid told reporters.
"We can recall him if he is on a government scholarship. Once the charges are in place only then we can apply for an extradition and that also depends on whether there is an extradition treaty between us and that particular country." Malaysia does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan.
Wee Meng Chee, 24, known as Namewee on the Internet, has developed a cult following of sorts among young Malaysians after airing a six-minute rap video on YouTube that has been viewed by over half a million people.
The rap, a mixture of Mandarin and Bahasa, contains lyrics that the government said touched on racially sensitive issues. It also portrays Malaysian police as corrupt extortionists, the government said.
Authorities earlier said they were investigating whether Namewee could be prosecuted under Malaysia's strict Sedition Act, which is punishable by up to three years in prison and a 5000-ringgit fine.
But rights groups countered that the move was represssive and disregarded basic rights such as freedom of expression.
Syed Hamid said todayy it was up to the police and the attorney general to decide the next course of action against Namawee.
"I don't understand how a person can do that sort of thing," Syed Hamid said, referring to Namawee's video.
Malaysia does not tolerate open dissent against the government, and often uses the Sedition Act to muzzle critics, rights groups charge.
Namewee's case comes just a month after Prime Minister Abduallah Ahmad Badawi warned Internet bloggers that his government would take action against those overstepping their bounds."
source: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,22220529-10388,00.html
This is the you-tube rap video that has made it all over the Malaysian/Malaysian-related online community late last week (yeah, I know, an internet age ago). It's really quite good - musically, as well as the salient points the rap makes. The rap is really satirical and funny, and very true. (I'll translate it some day when I have the time)
I actually only got sent the video link after I got an email from a colleague, a Brit who had lived in Malaysia for 4 years during his youth, with a news article with the title: "Malaysia in quandary over YouTube rapper" (full text below, after this post).
The government claims the video is seditious, and the foreign minister (whose name I had never heard of before 10 Aug) is quoted as having said: "I don't understand how a person can do that sort of thing". It makes me laugh.
How can a person do that sort of thing??
The question rather is: how can Mr Foreign Minister himself have the gall to even raise his head to face the world, and say something as ridiculously ironic as that?
Does he think the entire world is deaf, blind, and mute?
Anyone who knows anything at all about Malaysia knows the situation. My above-mentioned colleague who had lived there and studied in an international school. He was forwarded he article by other foreign friends who probably used to go to school with him. Even my French classmate who had only lived in Malaysia for a mere 5 months more than 10 years ago, knew of the gross racial discrimination, learnt the racial stereotypes, and still remembers. And he'd only been there for a mere 5 months!
Malaysia has been haemorrhaging her best people and will continue to do so unless things change. I suppose the government thinks there will always be sufficient chinese (and indians) who stay on to keep the economy afloat, and keep things ticking over. I have sympathy for those who don't have the means to escape. But for those who have the means/skills to migrate, I don't know why they remain.
I won't be rejected my own country, treated as a second class citizen, just for being of the wrong faith, and having the wrong skin colour. It is ridiculous. I simply won't stand for it. It's not that I don't love my country. I love her lands-her mountains, rice fields, rainforests, islands, and reefs. I love Malaysian food. But the last time someone asked me: "How do you feel about your country?" I responded, after some thought: "I love the Malaysia, the geographical entity", and the boy, who I'd just gotten to know responded: "Wow, you are clearly passionate and patriotic huh" And I had to explain. Why a girl like me, who had truly been patriotic when I was young, has to be so restrained in her statements now.
Malaysia has just turned 50. It's time to mature, to be responsible, to let your citizens including the native "bumiputeras" (literally princes of the earth) take responsibility for their own lives and actions. To acknowledge past wrongs, and start afresh, the right way this time.
Article below:
"Malaysia in quandary over YouTube rapper
From correspondents in Kuala Lumpur
August 10, 2007 04:53am
MALAYSIA faces hurdles in its attempt to prosecute a student for rapping in a YouTube video to the national anthem using allegedly seditious lyrics, the foreign minister said today.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said it was unlikely the Malaysian student could be recalled from a Taiwan university, amid outrage from rights groups over the Government's threat to lay sedition charges.
"If a Malaysian citizen commits something unlawful under Malaysian law in a foreign land, we cannot recall him or her except to frame charges," Syed Hamid told reporters.
"We can recall him if he is on a government scholarship. Once the charges are in place only then we can apply for an extradition and that also depends on whether there is an extradition treaty between us and that particular country." Malaysia does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan.
Wee Meng Chee, 24, known as Namewee on the Internet, has developed a cult following of sorts among young Malaysians after airing a six-minute rap video on YouTube that has been viewed by over half a million people.
The rap, a mixture of Mandarin and Bahasa, contains lyrics that the government said touched on racially sensitive issues. It also portrays Malaysian police as corrupt extortionists, the government said.
Authorities earlier said they were investigating whether Namewee could be prosecuted under Malaysia's strict Sedition Act, which is punishable by up to three years in prison and a 5000-ringgit fine.
But rights groups countered that the move was represssive and disregarded basic rights such as freedom of expression.
Syed Hamid said todayy it was up to the police and the attorney general to decide the next course of action against Namawee.
"I don't understand how a person can do that sort of thing," Syed Hamid said, referring to Namawee's video.
Malaysia does not tolerate open dissent against the government, and often uses the Sedition Act to muzzle critics, rights groups charge.
Namewee's case comes just a month after Prime Minister Abduallah Ahmad Badawi warned Internet bloggers that his government would take action against those overstepping their bounds."
source: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,22220529-10388,00.html
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