Fresh fruits of jujube - a relative of Ziziphus lotus

For years I yearn to listen to and see our elected representatives perform in the Parliament and I remember being excited when RTM decided to air an hour of the whole Parliamentary session. I have the opportunity to watch the session twice but it is a very disappointing as it is too short and more time is spent interviewing the governing coalition's MP rather than enabling the mass to evaluate every MP's performance and not flooding our mind with the government's propaganda which are not all the time correct - just like phantasmagoria!

I remember my first experience with those elected representatives back in 2ooo when my Master during my pupillage. It is a very exciting moment for me since it'll be my first seeing those politicians in flesh. I start to wonder if I were an MP or at least an ADUN but that's beside the point.

Now, finally I can see and listen to them online live and not a recorded or short session just like in TV. Thanks to the Internet age and globalisation as now I especially do not RTM, TV3 or Astro to enjoy my favourite debate. It is just a dream twenty or even ten years ago in rural areas. Then again, I am wary that this luxury may not be there forever when certain unsatisfied and narrow minded people start to complain and the government in all its artificial wisdom block such session through the MMC just like what happened to Malaysia Today before the ban is lifted later. Hopefully, this will not happened in my lifetime.

The session enables me to assess both the government and opposition. Admittedly, not everything that the government is saying or doing is unacceptable but after so many years of being spoon feeding by government-filtered information such freedom is just like a blessing. Once I am firm believer in the government and BN and consider myself allergic to the Opposition. I even become an admirer of TDM, for me that time he's a true Malaysian hero, a true Statesman. Perhaps, during that time it is true but time has change and now we have the opportunity to listen to the other side. Since then, the other side has re engineered and reinvent themselves to become more presentable with novel ideas to help the mass.

Everything is not there or here forever sooner or later and gradually it will crumble just like what happened to the Ottoman Empire, the Roman civilisation and our own Malacca Sultanate. If we fail to reinvent and re energised ourselves to the present and current situation then we are doomed to extinction and decline. Being in power for too long is intoxicating like the effects of the Lotus Plant in the Lotus Eaters in Odyssey by Homer. I see that the present coalition is now still groggy with the waning and disappearing effect of power. Perhaps, that is the case in Malaysia today.

"I like the story ' The Lotus Eater' by William Somerset Maugham"