Bienvenue 2015!

Welcoming 2015 when February 2015 is almost ending ha ha ha. My dearest blog, forgive me for neglecting you for so long. You are an important part of me and I never meant to hurt you. You are as important as my three furry kids Mickey, Tam and Comot. Yes I have three furry kids now. You are always on my mind and I feel guilty about abandoning you for quite some time.

A lot has been and is on my mind. However I do tend to have strong opinions about many things and for the time being I do not think those thoughts in my head can be put black and white on you my dearest. There is the thing about freedom of expression. A lot has been said about them. Some people say freedom of expression is their culture, it is their way of life. They mock everything, their government, their religion and other people's religion. Is freedom of expression absolute? Perhaps that is a tough question but still to me every freedom comes with responsibilities. What about the freedom to not be insulted for the other party? On the other hand should we as rationale individuals react violently by gunning down the perpetrators of the mockery? There will always be people with the tendency to mock and denigrate others. In any establishment even in small group of people. You just can't afford to kill everyone of them. You will be consumed by anger and you will lose yourself in the maelstrom of hate and vengeance. It definitely does not solve anything in my opinion. On 16 December 2014 in some faraway place some people massacred 132 defenceless school children and 13 teachers and staffs of a school in the name of revenge. They proudly admitted the brutal slaying declaring that the action is justified because the military offensives brought on upon them had killed many of their comrades. I feel sad that at present because of the actions of certain groups that hide behind their faith and use the faith to justify many of their barbaric actions, we have to be apologetic always to others. We always have to explain that our religion is not like that and we are not like them. The violence perpetrated only serve to highlight the crimes but remain hidden are many other facets of extremism of why, who, what, where and when of it. More often than not, there are deeper underlying reasons towards that end. And more often than not, the deeper underlying reasons are manipulated by politicians, religious leaders and the big powers of the world.

The country experienced massive flooding in several states as we ushered in 2015 in very sombre mood. Many people lost everything and as the water subsided many families resorted to living under tents amids the debris and destruction. It is indeed heart-breaking to see. I am just wondering if the cleaning-up action is really completed even by today as the flood has been seemingly humongous. Let us hope that the relevant authorities will take the necessary actions to prevent such a flood from happening again in future. I mean, really really study the recent flood and really really take preventive measures. No lackadaisical attitude like accepting flood is a natural occurrence and is nothing new and therefore is nothing to be feared. We already had our lesson in late 2014.

I am apprehensive about the future. I really really hope that are still many of leaders who are genuinely concerned about this beautiful country of ours. I hope they put sincere efforts at steering the country into much more steadier economic situation. It doesn't take an economic genius to understand that for the time being Malaysia is not doing that well economically. I watch Euronews and DW channels all the time. I watch how the newly elected Greece government is trying desperately to extend the deadline to pay their debts to creditors like Germany, French and US. When you are debt-ridden, you are at the mercy of your loan-sharks and you have to beg from your creditors to stop meddling on how you are going to handle your domestic life. Greece is reprimanded for not sticking to the austerity-drive measures suggested by the EU. The new government for example,  rehire all the government officers made redundant in the austerity-drive put forward by the previous government. Greece is on the brink of being bankrupt and on top of that there is the fear that they may be expelled from the EU. Of course Malaysia is not at the same footage as Greece for the time being. However if a great many of our leaders are in denial mode and keep professing that we are economically very much okay, God forbids, one day we might go the same path.

For the time being, I am thankful that I am still here, I am still generally in good health and still very independent. I am thankful for the health and safety of my family and my friends. For all the wars and the violence in the world, I still believe that the Lord will always help us if we put effort to live in peace. My two great hopes for 2015 are not much. First, may more and more Malaysians be more sensitive about animal welfare and more and more pet owners realise the importance of pet neutering. Second, is for Malaysians to stop the littering habit. We have a beautiful country, let us keep it clean and keep the environment healthy.