squeak. speak. roar!

I have been very ill in the past two days. On Monday I felt an extremely sharp pain on my right abdomen. The pain subsided after some painkillers and I was back at work the next day. However, I woke up on Wednesday in cold sweat and the pain was back. I was officially having a fever and this mysterious pain near my belly.

I’ve been on MC for two days now and will be on another one tomorrow. I went to Assunta Hospital today and the doctor said it was UTI more than appendicitis although my dad (who is also a doctor) suspects otherwise. But both the doctors are arguing the same thing - the symptoms that I have does not resemble appendicitis or UTI completely so it’s still pretty grey. All I know is that the pain is now prominent on my right abdomen, frequent fever, nausea (just started about 1 hour ago), no diarrhea, no vomiting, lots of cold sweat and extreme body ache all over.

Nat’s been taking care of me :) *hugs*

While lying down in bed (I’m up now because I’ve decided to test the power of the mind to will the pain and sickness away), I thought of how I’d start this blog post.

My body aches for the nation.

It does. I just read about how the cabinet has rejected Namewee’s apology. I reproduce below:

Cabinet rejects apology from Negaraku rapper

KUALA LUMPUR: The Cabinet has not accepted student Wee Meng Chee’s apology for the furore caused by his Negaraku rap videoclip on video-sharing web portal YouTube.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the Cabinet had decided yesterday that they were not in the position to forgive him and that “the law would have to take its course”.

“The offence was not against the Prime Minister or ministers concerned but against the nation,” Nazri told reporters after the launch of the International Conference on Media and Information Warfare: A Global Challenge of the 21st Century here.

“If he had committed an offence, which I think was an offence, then we must allow the Attorney General to investigate and decide whether to take him to court,” he said.

Wee had on Tuesday apologised for the parody and agreed to remove the videoclip from his blog.

Nazri said Wee’s apology could be used as mitigation in sentencing but not as a reason to not prosecute him.

“To not prosecute him is not ‘on’ at all because he has committed an offence against the nation and no one, not the Cabinet or political parties, are in the position to forgive him,” he said.

Wee could be charged under the Sedition Act because he had insulted the symbol of the nation, he said.

“We cannot be like the West where you can have the underwear with the design of the Union Jack. In Britain, you can insult the Queen or the flag, I don’t care, but in this country we have laws and we cannot create a precedent where you commit an offence, apologise and get away with it,” he said adding that Wee was not a boy but a 24-year-old man and he should be held responsible for the act.

“It is not an issue of ethnicity or being racial but against national interest,” he said.

When asked how Wee had insulted the national anthem, Nazri said the song was supposed to be sung based on how it should be sung, otherwise, it would mean insulting the song, especially when the lyrics were changed.

“Malaysia Negaraku ku. ‘Ku ku’ can also mean ‘cuckoo’ so it was insulting. I don’t think this was done out of ignorance. He was a university student and he meant to insult the national song,” he said.

On whether Wee would be called home to answer charges against him, Nazri said the AG would have to investigate and if he comes to the decision to prosecute him, then when Wee returns, he would have to face the charges.

He also said that he wanted action to be taken against video-sharing portal YouTube and other bloggers who have allowed sensitive material to be published that went against the law of our country.

OMFG. My heart officially bleeds for this nation.

We are talking abut a Malaysian who is young, talented, creative and patriotic by all means …. I mean, look at his photo!

There’s a Malaysian flag there. I mean c’mon, even I don’t have a freaking flag in my room. Recently I recently wrote about how people are just pure hypocrites to say other people are not patriotic or are racist. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. I’m not even religious but that saying sure makes a lot of sense.

I guess many would argue that being patriotic does not merely mean having a flag by your table but by respecting your national anthem. Have any one of us not complain about how awfully boring our national anthem is? First it was the awfully slow beat which later switched to tempo di marcia - in a marching tempo so that it sound more interesting for youths to sing it. It swapped back to the original snail-paced beat a couple years ago. I think still it wasn’t patriotic enough that the government even proposed to have Negaraku sung in cinemas before the movie starts like right smack between beer and sanitary pad commercials.

Look, if the people don’t respect the song, don’t force them to! You can only breed further contempt if nothing else. You can’t force people to love the country or the national anthem by rejecting apologies by those who say it. That is an autocratic action if you ask me.

And if the cabinet is in no position to accept the apology and bog off, Nazri - your statement doesn’t mean a thing and neither does the cabinet in this matter. A statement from the AG would be more appropriate, who cares what this de facto law minister has to say. Let’s not forget the ‘racist’ slurs he has uttered himself, I’ve obviously not forgiven him yet and I’d let this be known through the ballot box.

As for wearing the Union Jack as underwear - now that is true patriotism. Who in the right mind would wear the Jalur Gemilang around? It’s embarrassing. It is real patriotism when your flag becomes an icon and a symbol recognise by everybody. Heck, some people think the Jalur Gemilang is a mini-rip off from the American flag. Now now, if you start saying “those damn Africans don’t know a thing” just means your arrogant. That African might know more about humanity and survival than anyone of us so don’t be rude.

Politically speaking, MCA is officially a lame duck. After trying so hard to pacify the Chinese community and Wee’s family, you get Umno and all its ‘cabinet’ (minus Health Ministry I guess) rejecting it. Disunited, petty and discontent - that’s what they are. And don’t forget, Umno extremism is the flavour for months to come as they try to out-extreme each other for seats and power. I predict more heads will roll in coming weeks.

What a way to celebrate Merdeka. To run the country like a police state and to scar young Malaysians for life. I’m sure Wee will live longer than Nazri. I sure hope there would be more Wees than Nazris around by then - a generation of fighters, not inciters.

The government has much, much, MUCH to learn about respect. You cannot command or use fear to gain respect from the rakyat, it is EARNED through sincere and laudable values and policies.

EARN it Barisan Nasional. Good luck trying.