High Time We All Wisen Up

Knowledge is power. Seriously.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. People nowadays do not read enough.

When people don’t read enough, they won’t be aware of what’s going on. Crooks love swooping down on these uninformed souls, propagandizing their minds to support their twisted agendas. Now creeping up like a disease among my generation – the young people of this day – this lack of awareness is best and horrifically displayed in the recent ‘1 Million Youth Gathering’ in Putrajaya organized by our prime minister.

He called on these youth to help him ‘defend Putrajaya’. During the event (borne by the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, mind you), he launched into passionate, or rather, desperation-infused tirades on the flaws and foibles of opposition parties.

He was quoted as saying: “Even if our bodies are crushed and our lives lost, brothers and sisters, whatever happens, we must defend Putrajaya.”

Defend it from what?!

Putrajaya is the federal administrative center for the whole of Malaysia. It’s not like he and his cronies possess exclusive passes to the place for the use of ‘relieving themselves of the pressure-building days spent on advancing the country’.

It is absolutely ridiculous if you think about it.

What’s even more distressing is that they youths who attended the event came out all beaming and exclaiming what a good experience it was. Like duuudes, weren’t you able to discern what you see and hear? You don’t know enough about what’s happening under the table to be so simply and easily swept into a cause. Wisen up, c’mon!

I tweeted him about this; that if this event was truly in the interest of helping young people develop the country and become future leaders, the agenda would not be so flimsily based on his eleventh-hour resorts.

He didn’t reply. He never does. Not that I expect him to anyway.

But I just needed to make my point.

Today, just a few days after this rally, news headlines report upcoming price hikes in electricity, petrol and food.

Again.

With no increases in job salaries.

Again.

Why, let’s all start planting cabbages in our garden, grow a banana tree in the corner, ride about on bicycles and dress minimally. Worse come to worse, we’ll fall back to the lifestyle of Stone Age times and unite ourselves with the Flintstones.

To all those people who refuse to vote, this is the crap you get. Not wanting to vote is synonymous to this continual nonsense shoved in your face and a herald of worse things to come.

This does not allow you non-voters to complain. You cannot go “Oh, this stupid government ah!” or “Aiya, how’re we gonna survive?”

Because you DO NOT deserve to complain.

Because YOU choose not to vote.

If change is what you want, then at least lift a finger. The benefits are for you and your kids.

Stop dallying and assuming that it’s ‘other people’s job’. You need to pitch in too.

Think about it. It’s high time time everybody wisened up.

Justine is an open-minded student intent on breaking convention. She enjoys listening to fresh ideas and opinion from others and writing out her thoughts into fluid forms of expression.