Looking out the oval shape window, I could see endless clouds for miles and miles ahead hovering over a landscape that is all too familiar by now. Peering across my son still asleep after an almost 12 hour non-stop flight from where we resided for the last 15 years since early 2010. Coming back to my birth place, although 3 visits made in the past, this time, it’s different. Different because now we are returning to help rebuild a nation out of a long drawn concealed cancerous ruin and allow our children to really grow up to become a new breed of countrymen without fear and prejudice.
I sadly recall the time when we made our final bid for farewell after successfully applied for residence in a country where its culture is still alien to us. But we adapted well and my son had since graduated and went on to become a prominent consultant to the education ministry of our host country who gladly accepted us then for our merit.
We continued to follow up on events and happenings in our birth country amid all the uncertainty thru the years and advising those needed help and a way out of their situation. With rare precious occasional visits by family and friends which we gladly put them up to know face to face of detail updates brought our hearts closer to home.
2009 was the year of that fateful event. It was the year where new policies and regulations implemented to curb the ever increasing flow of information in that digital age. The government invested some RM5 billion installing the latest state of the art software and hardware system capable to monitor and track down every insinuation made on the digital hemispheres. We see our friendly neighbours, their children and friends, being arrested for speaking their mind of the government’s short comings that once fought their rights for freedom of speech. From the very government who gave us independence.
Demonstrations and protests did not deter them from their stands and the continuance of seemingly lawful arrests, to a point where every police station in the nations were congested and trials were becoming too tedious for the judiciary to preside. Eventually, one can wait for years before even having his, her or theirs first hearings.
The opposition had failed in their mandate to take over the country and slowly, one by one of their ministers in parliament were beginning to disappear from sight and fighting for the nation rights in a different environment – detention. Aptly named to have a clean sweep in a single venue, Operation “Kenduri” 2009, came out in full force where every citizen who dare speak, write or express in any forms, were dealt with quickly and swiftly. Even college students were not spared.
However, the opposition leader was spared and became a recluse with little or no air time in the media and parliament with his every movement closely watched and guarded considering his connections and the implications of strong international backlash. When we return this time, he would have been 85.
The ruling party continued to reign in the country and when the 13th general election came around in 2013, it barely manages a menial majority even though they fought against what they called greenhorns from the opposition. The people cast their votes and elected seemingly inexperienced opposition representatives to show once again, like they did in the previous 12th general election, the ruling party their grievances since most of the capable contenders were still in detention.
This set the foundation for further aggression as more “private” public listed businesses began to lose their competitive in the global economy with mismanagement and massive funds siphoned away never to be heard again. This was contributed by the insertion of loyalist from the ruling party with little or no prior experiences in dealing with the ever complexities of the business world into privately owned established organizations. With their authorities over the company’s day to day operations, they had inadvertently caused the business to deteriorate and viabilities of competitiveness against the world market. However, their standings and connections brought in unconditional bailing outs by the government and taking a further stakes in the company’s coffers. Some of these well known ousted founders from those organizations, after tremendous pressures from the government, had resided in a foreign country with their pay off.
More arrest were made thereafter, while Operation “Kenduri” 2009 never seem to have any closure in sight, with all the detainees still in their forced habitat, in the year of 2014, Operation “Kenduri 2” came into force. This time, journalist, writers, novelist and even entertainment celebrities and sportsmen/women, were called up or arrested for their views of the nations predicament. Even those with a one off comment were brought in for questioning and warned for citing assumedly harmless truth.
By 2018, the 14th General Election came out with more surprises. The ruling party returned to parliament in all their full glory with massive wins over every electoral constitutions and districts. It was a result the ruling party did not expect. Since the people dare not speak publicly of their sentiments. That result will go down in history as the most wins ever for the ruling party. Most speculated, restricted mainly over coffee shops, mamak stalls, travelling in private cars, etc, that the people voted out of fear. “Put them back where they want to be and see if they can perform better”, so said most.
Apparently, it was not to be. The ruling party confidently releases most detainees from Operation Kenduri I & II deeming them no longer a security threat to the nation since the ruling party once again dominated completely the entire political scene. But a new movement was already forming secretly even before the ruling party’s political triumph that year.
Upon release from detention, this same population smelt a renew wave of revolution albeit under suppression but carefully and slowly crafted their return with even more precision. Operating from global networks which the ruling government could not access, ‘international waters’ so to speak, citizens residing overseas who helped to spread the ever increasing patriotic sentiments, stronger and full hearty this time around, begin to rise up once more.
Even with their sophisticated investment, the government was unable to track down any of these descendants of the previous metaphor. It was a simple system of hosting it offshore in neutral territories where contributors’ identity is only privy to the host master. The influx of information and intelligences are channel thru a middle host and vetted thru in detail on their authenticity before arriving at the final site where it will be release. Therefore, none of the posting can be traced to its’ original source unless the government issue an order to the host country to reveal the owner. Multi usernames and passwords at both stages were necessary to deter intrusion and prevent jacking. It was a long and tedious strife for them and the coming years later was beginning to bear fruit.
2020 came and went without the realization of an industrialized or elevation to first world nation status, what with the same monopoly being played in politics and businesses. The 15th general election that year saw the opposition gaining additional seats in parliament. Most of the earlier descendants from Operations Kenduri 1 and 2 are now back in politics.
While the nation still struggles to recoup the lost of earlier failed ventures, our oil resources were beginning to reside. More ventures and projects were scraped as the national coffer was slowly dwindling. By year 2022, our oil reserve is nil – zero! Our partnering oil nations were progressing on their own and no longer needing our expertise having since graduated in terms of educations and wiser on world economy and development.
While the general population accepted this fate, an increasing gripe was taking place underground. All appears calm on the surface and the people go about their daily affairs without a second whisper of what’s happening. The underground network generated so much interest even from international communities that it was necessary to rope in expert analysts and investigators to conduct researches and verifies all postings with sufficient facts and evidences. But all these personnel are based overseas so there’s no jurisdiction over them even if they reveal themselves. And the ruling party could not issue such order to avoid scrutiny and valid justifications from the host country.
In the months leading to the 16th general election, those in the ruling party are beginning to feel weary of any improvement to the political scenario. Accusations adrift within the ruling party of mismanaged & disappearing funds, award preferences to tenders, policies backfired and more bickering than ever before till at one parliament session, it had to be stopped 30 minutes into the session due to extremely tensed vocal exchanges especially from ministers who failed to get “a bigger slice of the cake” from policies implemented. Those suspected to have stashed away huge sum of money overseas were complacent and oblivious to the happenings in the country.
As they were no more external obstacles, internal squabbles were the order of the day. Their objectives for the nation had strayed far beyond repair even with the forthcoming general election in 2 months time.
The whole nation was watching gleefully all these fracas right before their very eyes on live coverage. It was clearly an opportune time for the opposition to take heed of the situation since it is obvious the ruling party may be at their most vulnerable.
The country’s 16th general election year 2023, political analyst have estimated that the ruling party spent an approximate RM150 million on the campaign on TV commercials and advertisements, celebrity styled grand ceramahs, giant life size bill boards across the country and for the first time in election history, sponsored unity concerts performed by local and invited international artists.
The opposition’s campaign was dwarf in comparison to the mammoth programmes of the ruling party. Impressive turned outs to all these events appears to have seal the ruling party’s confidence. It would seem that another massive victory is in sight for the ruling party, or so they thought.
Sunday, March 10, 2023, on the stroke of midnight, the electoral commission and its officers commenced counting the votes after 2 months of furious campaigning. By 5.00 A.M. the whole nation’s vote tabulations was completed.
Joys of tears was seen, shouts of relieved, fists pounding the air, phone lines congestions, etc. The people may not have been heard all these years, but their eyes were never closed.
From 12.00 noon onward, half the ministers of the old ruling party were seen in our airport with their families readying to board the next available flight. This will continue until the last airplane taking off for the rest of the day. Those managed to be interviewed at the departure hall said they are taking their family on a long deserved holiday after months of stressful campaigning. Later, it was discovered that these ex-ministers have exiled themselves with their families in another country. And in the immediate months to come, high ranking officers, prominent figures and business leaders began relinquishing and tendering resignation from their positions.
The Nation, will undergo a transformation for the next few months, opposition party, now the ruling party, will be at task to rejuvenate the country and start a new brand of patriotism. Changes will be imminent in parliament and cabinets and it wouldn’t be for another 12 months before any physical effect will be evident. While this has been genuinely unexpected, celebrations, jubilations, festivals, etc, went on for months and months. Families are united once again and as more and more cases of funds misappropriation uncovered, with more citizens coming forward to testify, stream of individuals are apprehended and placed under protected house arrest to safeguard them from public retaliations even in police custodies.
The process to recover all those funds would exhaust the new government efforts and resources for years to come. The new government was careful not to let this due process of justice becoming a witch-hunt with the slightest suspicion and each case is treated in its own merit. While it may be considered a priority, it still proceeded ahead with other reforms in the civil services, police forces, health, housing industries, agriculture, transportations, trades and development and most importantly, education.
Early 2024, the new government, in realizing that a whole lot of challenges and fair policies need to be implemented with the right human resources and capabilities, called out for its citizens around the world to return home and to steer the country into a new nation without fear and prejudice starting with our children, revamping our education system among others to be on par with world standards and acceptance. And to eventually lead this country to even greater heights and recognition.
One day, my son asked me, “Let me return and be a part of the new nation building where I can really make my contribution with what I know”.
I said to him, “No son, we all did our part from where we are, let us all return and continue to make that contribution as a whole family”.
Those memories were interrupted by the captain’s announcement to fasten our seat belts for our landing.
I sadly recall the time when we made our final bid for farewell after successfully applied for residence in a country where its culture is still alien to us. But we adapted well and my son had since graduated and went on to become a prominent consultant to the education ministry of our host country who gladly accepted us then for our merit.
We continued to follow up on events and happenings in our birth country amid all the uncertainty thru the years and advising those needed help and a way out of their situation. With rare precious occasional visits by family and friends which we gladly put them up to know face to face of detail updates brought our hearts closer to home.
2009 was the year of that fateful event. It was the year where new policies and regulations implemented to curb the ever increasing flow of information in that digital age. The government invested some RM5 billion installing the latest state of the art software and hardware system capable to monitor and track down every insinuation made on the digital hemispheres. We see our friendly neighbours, their children and friends, being arrested for speaking their mind of the government’s short comings that once fought their rights for freedom of speech. From the very government who gave us independence.
Demonstrations and protests did not deter them from their stands and the continuance of seemingly lawful arrests, to a point where every police station in the nations were congested and trials were becoming too tedious for the judiciary to preside. Eventually, one can wait for years before even having his, her or theirs first hearings.
The opposition had failed in their mandate to take over the country and slowly, one by one of their ministers in parliament were beginning to disappear from sight and fighting for the nation rights in a different environment – detention. Aptly named to have a clean sweep in a single venue, Operation “Kenduri” 2009, came out in full force where every citizen who dare speak, write or express in any forms, were dealt with quickly and swiftly. Even college students were not spared.
However, the opposition leader was spared and became a recluse with little or no air time in the media and parliament with his every movement closely watched and guarded considering his connections and the implications of strong international backlash. When we return this time, he would have been 85.
The ruling party continued to reign in the country and when the 13th general election came around in 2013, it barely manages a menial majority even though they fought against what they called greenhorns from the opposition. The people cast their votes and elected seemingly inexperienced opposition representatives to show once again, like they did in the previous 12th general election, the ruling party their grievances since most of the capable contenders were still in detention.
This set the foundation for further aggression as more “private” public listed businesses began to lose their competitive in the global economy with mismanagement and massive funds siphoned away never to be heard again. This was contributed by the insertion of loyalist from the ruling party with little or no prior experiences in dealing with the ever complexities of the business world into privately owned established organizations. With their authorities over the company’s day to day operations, they had inadvertently caused the business to deteriorate and viabilities of competitiveness against the world market. However, their standings and connections brought in unconditional bailing outs by the government and taking a further stakes in the company’s coffers. Some of these well known ousted founders from those organizations, after tremendous pressures from the government, had resided in a foreign country with their pay off.
More arrest were made thereafter, while Operation “Kenduri” 2009 never seem to have any closure in sight, with all the detainees still in their forced habitat, in the year of 2014, Operation “Kenduri 2” came into force. This time, journalist, writers, novelist and even entertainment celebrities and sportsmen/women, were called up or arrested for their views of the nations predicament. Even those with a one off comment were brought in for questioning and warned for citing assumedly harmless truth.
By 2018, the 14th General Election came out with more surprises. The ruling party returned to parliament in all their full glory with massive wins over every electoral constitutions and districts. It was a result the ruling party did not expect. Since the people dare not speak publicly of their sentiments. That result will go down in history as the most wins ever for the ruling party. Most speculated, restricted mainly over coffee shops, mamak stalls, travelling in private cars, etc, that the people voted out of fear. “Put them back where they want to be and see if they can perform better”, so said most.
Apparently, it was not to be. The ruling party confidently releases most detainees from Operation Kenduri I & II deeming them no longer a security threat to the nation since the ruling party once again dominated completely the entire political scene. But a new movement was already forming secretly even before the ruling party’s political triumph that year.
Upon release from detention, this same population smelt a renew wave of revolution albeit under suppression but carefully and slowly crafted their return with even more precision. Operating from global networks which the ruling government could not access, ‘international waters’ so to speak, citizens residing overseas who helped to spread the ever increasing patriotic sentiments, stronger and full hearty this time around, begin to rise up once more.
Even with their sophisticated investment, the government was unable to track down any of these descendants of the previous metaphor. It was a simple system of hosting it offshore in neutral territories where contributors’ identity is only privy to the host master. The influx of information and intelligences are channel thru a middle host and vetted thru in detail on their authenticity before arriving at the final site where it will be release. Therefore, none of the posting can be traced to its’ original source unless the government issue an order to the host country to reveal the owner. Multi usernames and passwords at both stages were necessary to deter intrusion and prevent jacking. It was a long and tedious strife for them and the coming years later was beginning to bear fruit.
2020 came and went without the realization of an industrialized or elevation to first world nation status, what with the same monopoly being played in politics and businesses. The 15th general election that year saw the opposition gaining additional seats in parliament. Most of the earlier descendants from Operations Kenduri 1 and 2 are now back in politics.
While the nation still struggles to recoup the lost of earlier failed ventures, our oil resources were beginning to reside. More ventures and projects were scraped as the national coffer was slowly dwindling. By year 2022, our oil reserve is nil – zero! Our partnering oil nations were progressing on their own and no longer needing our expertise having since graduated in terms of educations and wiser on world economy and development.
While the general population accepted this fate, an increasing gripe was taking place underground. All appears calm on the surface and the people go about their daily affairs without a second whisper of what’s happening. The underground network generated so much interest even from international communities that it was necessary to rope in expert analysts and investigators to conduct researches and verifies all postings with sufficient facts and evidences. But all these personnel are based overseas so there’s no jurisdiction over them even if they reveal themselves. And the ruling party could not issue such order to avoid scrutiny and valid justifications from the host country.
In the months leading to the 16th general election, those in the ruling party are beginning to feel weary of any improvement to the political scenario. Accusations adrift within the ruling party of mismanaged & disappearing funds, award preferences to tenders, policies backfired and more bickering than ever before till at one parliament session, it had to be stopped 30 minutes into the session due to extremely tensed vocal exchanges especially from ministers who failed to get “a bigger slice of the cake” from policies implemented. Those suspected to have stashed away huge sum of money overseas were complacent and oblivious to the happenings in the country.
As they were no more external obstacles, internal squabbles were the order of the day. Their objectives for the nation had strayed far beyond repair even with the forthcoming general election in 2 months time.
The whole nation was watching gleefully all these fracas right before their very eyes on live coverage. It was clearly an opportune time for the opposition to take heed of the situation since it is obvious the ruling party may be at their most vulnerable.
The country’s 16th general election year 2023, political analyst have estimated that the ruling party spent an approximate RM150 million on the campaign on TV commercials and advertisements, celebrity styled grand ceramahs, giant life size bill boards across the country and for the first time in election history, sponsored unity concerts performed by local and invited international artists.
The opposition’s campaign was dwarf in comparison to the mammoth programmes of the ruling party. Impressive turned outs to all these events appears to have seal the ruling party’s confidence. It would seem that another massive victory is in sight for the ruling party, or so they thought.
Sunday, March 10, 2023, on the stroke of midnight, the electoral commission and its officers commenced counting the votes after 2 months of furious campaigning. By 5.00 A.M. the whole nation’s vote tabulations was completed.
Joys of tears was seen, shouts of relieved, fists pounding the air, phone lines congestions, etc. The people may not have been heard all these years, but their eyes were never closed.
From 12.00 noon onward, half the ministers of the old ruling party were seen in our airport with their families readying to board the next available flight. This will continue until the last airplane taking off for the rest of the day. Those managed to be interviewed at the departure hall said they are taking their family on a long deserved holiday after months of stressful campaigning. Later, it was discovered that these ex-ministers have exiled themselves with their families in another country. And in the immediate months to come, high ranking officers, prominent figures and business leaders began relinquishing and tendering resignation from their positions.
The Nation, will undergo a transformation for the next few months, opposition party, now the ruling party, will be at task to rejuvenate the country and start a new brand of patriotism. Changes will be imminent in parliament and cabinets and it wouldn’t be for another 12 months before any physical effect will be evident. While this has been genuinely unexpected, celebrations, jubilations, festivals, etc, went on for months and months. Families are united once again and as more and more cases of funds misappropriation uncovered, with more citizens coming forward to testify, stream of individuals are apprehended and placed under protected house arrest to safeguard them from public retaliations even in police custodies.
The process to recover all those funds would exhaust the new government efforts and resources for years to come. The new government was careful not to let this due process of justice becoming a witch-hunt with the slightest suspicion and each case is treated in its own merit. While it may be considered a priority, it still proceeded ahead with other reforms in the civil services, police forces, health, housing industries, agriculture, transportations, trades and development and most importantly, education.
Early 2024, the new government, in realizing that a whole lot of challenges and fair policies need to be implemented with the right human resources and capabilities, called out for its citizens around the world to return home and to steer the country into a new nation without fear and prejudice starting with our children, revamping our education system among others to be on par with world standards and acceptance. And to eventually lead this country to even greater heights and recognition.
One day, my son asked me, “Let me return and be a part of the new nation building where I can really make my contribution with what I know”.
I said to him, “No son, we all did our part from where we are, let us all return and continue to make that contribution as a whole family”.
Those memories were interrupted by the captain’s announcement to fasten our seat belts for our landing.
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