I support BN supporters!

To all my friends who are supporters of Barisan Nasional: I support you.

I fully support your right to choose a BN representative to represent you and your fellow constituents. I fully support your right to vote for this person, to make speeches for him or her, to work in his or her campaign, to gain similar support from your friends or family and even to donate your time or effort to his or her political cause and career.

I whole-heartedly, 100%, completely agree you have every right to do all this.

And in the same way, every single eligible Malaysian has a right to make a similar choice. Whether for BN or not is irrelevant. The right to vote for and support a politician of your choice is enshrined in our constitution.

In the same way I respect and support your rights, I expect you to offer me the same respect and support. Whom I wish to represent me and my family is not important at all and doesn’t figure in this statement nor in my philosophy in general.

Now, if you have read thus far and think ‘OK I can give John my respect, no matter his choice’ then do read on.

If you’ve come this far and think ‘I know where John is headed and it’s not in BN’s direction and there’s no way I can accept that’ then you might just as well stop now for what I have to say is for right-thinking Malaysians who are rational and mature.

OK, ready to read on?

Firstly, let me say I still support the Bersih movement, now in version 3.0 as it were. I still support the 8 original demands from Bersih 2.0 and am in agreement with the 3 additional demands in Bersih 3.0. Here’s the thing - you don’t have to agree with my choice here. Not at all. If you do, then you’re my friend for more reasons than maybe even I initially thought.

If you don’t, then let’s talk a bit more…

To carry on, I would like you to divorce Bersih from our political leanings for a while - the two are, after all, actually independent of each other. Let’s also just take BN or PR or whatever out of our minds for just a few moments and talk about our rights in general, for that is where I started this conversation. After all, we’ve already agreed you and I both have a right to vote for whomever we please, right? So whomever we choose at this point is not relevant.

What is relevant is that we both have a right to choose. And by extension of this right, our choice of candidates have their rights too.

What rights might this be, you ask?

Well, firstly, they have a right to be chosen by Malaysians who are truly, unambiguously, incorruptibly, undeniably, irrefutably and honestly allowed to by law. That means simply that they live or maintain a home in the area where they vote. It also means they must not be barred by law and uhm… alive. But of course… They also must not be bribed or coerced.

What happens if a person maintains a home in that constituency but cannot be present to vote? If he has the right to vote, then it follows that the system should present every opportunity for him to exercise that right, don’t you agree? Well, I guess then that that person should be given the right to vote by post. This would be wonderful for our armed forces helping to maintain peace all over the world (remember Somalia?) or aid workers in various disaster areas and so on. After all, our candidates, if they are to fairly fight for the right to represent a particular set of constituents, should be given every opportunity to be voted for or against by the constituents of the area they wish to represent.

Just ask yourself, if this were a BN politician you’re thinking of, would you be in agreement thus far? Yes? Good… on to the next point.

Would you like to ensure that an opposing candidate doesn’t have the same person vote for him twice? That just would not be fair, right? What could we do to prevent this? Well, there are expensive electronic systems we can put in place. And then there is the cheap and proven use of indelible ink. A voter gets his ballot papers, casts his vote then has his thumb or finger dipped in ink he can’t wash away until all the votes have been cast and counted. So, if there are 1000 people in your area, you would expect a total of no more than 1000 votes. I’m sure you agree it just wouldn’t be right if your candidate had 500 votes and the other guy had 501.

If, like me, you’ve travelled through much of Malaysia (well I must admit I haven’t seen much of Sabah and Sarawak but would love to) you’ll know there are still many beautiful and quite unspoilt areas around. I especially love parts of Endau Rompin National Park and even Tasik Bera. Some of these areas have no TV or phone reception and the internet is non-existent for people who live there. If they get newspapers it’s days late. But they do live in Malaysia and are represented in Parliament by elected representatives.

Shouldn’t these representatives have every right to access these voters too, and tell them about their plans and programmes and what they’re going to do for them? Well, if you were a candidate and had to travel to meet people from the towns and cities as well as these more remote people, wouldn’t you need more time to do so? I think it’s only right if you think your candidate needs a bit more time than say a week in order to campaign. In fact I completely agree all candidates need a bit more time than just a week or so. Maybe 3 weeks? In fact when we had our very first elections in 1955, we campaigned for 42 days! Agree? Good, now let’s move on.

We now get our news from a variety of sources and it’s only natural that some media owners would have their own preferences or biases. Don’t you think media owners have a responsibility above and beyond their biases though? By that I mean they should be fair in their reporting and should not spread false or uncorroborated stories. After all, what they say influences many and as Spiderman learnt, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Media owners should thus be careful about what they say.

I think this works for your candidate, considering the rise of the alternative media. It would not be right for any media owner to publish untruths or rumours that would damage your candidate’s credibility. I completely agree with that. In fact I also think they should offer all candidates a chance to be heard. Why play favourites and report only the utterances of their preferred candidates? Yours should have a chance too.

Come to think of it, everyone in the elections should be restrained in their comments about others. Leave out things that are not relevant to the electoral or democratic process. Gutter journalism has no place in modern society for we now live in a world where the word has truly taken on a might to challenge the sword. But worse, it can incite some to raise the sword. With great power comes great responsibility…

Agreed? Good…

Let’s have a quick chat now about something really cool. Did you know it now takes less time to get a Malaysian passport renewed than a Singaporean one? I had mine done at Subang in 3 hours while my Singaporean friend had to wait days!Great, huh?

Well, if the Immigration Department can be efficient, don’t you think it would be good if other government agencies could be too? Take the Elections Commission for example. A friend of mine recently registered to vote and, like me and everyone else, it took 6 months for his name to appear on the roll. Imagine if many people were influenced by your choice but could not vote because they were not registered in time… Not good right?

What if they, like my friend, then found mistakes in their registration?

You see, my friend is a guy but he found that he was registered as a woman instead. If he had not found out and turned up to vote, his vote would not have been counted.

You wouldn’t want your fellow supporters to be disqualified because of mistakes like this would you?

You also would not want your or your fellow supporters’ votes to be jeopardised because of threats and so on, right? Imagine if you turned up to vote and were put off by opposition supporters behaving threateningly. That would not be right and you would expect the Police, among others, to protect your rights, correct? I agree with you - that’s what the Police are supposed to do and if you were in any way threatened while trying to exercise your democratic right I would be one of the first to stand up and shout ‘That must be stopped!’ So, fair reporting and better government agencies too - we seem to agree on a lot of things.

In fact, if you’ve read this far, I think we’re just about in total agreement - except maybe in our choice of candidates but we did say we would leave that out of this discussion.

So, what have we discussed really? And where do we stand now?

Well, we discussed - and agreed - on our rights and the rights of our candidates. No arguments there. I support your candidate’s every right as mentioned above.

And I say ‘Congratulations!’
‘For what?’ you ask?
‘For joining Bersih.’

Because every single one of the things we agreed on above is mentioned in the 8 demands of the Bersih movement. Every. Single. One. And not one more. Nor one less. So, when you nodded in agreement with what I said above, you also nodded in agreement with all those who have supported the Bersih movement.

So you see, when I loudly proclaimed last July that I was being non-partisan and that everything about Bersih is non-partisan, I wasn’t lying or exaggerating. It is the truth. And it is also true that it is in EVERYONE’s interest that the demands of Bersih 2.0 and 3.0 are met. Everyone. Every single Malaysian.

I really don’t give a hoot about who each of us supports politically. I do give a hoot and more about whether our support is expressed in a general elections that is clean and fair. That is all we want. And if you are as right-thinking and mature as I hope you are, then it is all you want too.

So, join me. And many others in our call for what is right. And for our rights.

Let Me Come Clean

Some time ago I was posting all sorts of stuff during the Singapore General Elections. Might have seemed strange to some especially since one hot topic then was the impact of foreigners. Of which I am one here of course. Thing is I understand the problems faced by average Singaporeans and I appreciate how their frustrations could be targeted at PRs and foreigners.

Some people asked why I was even bothered - more bothered (I prefer the term someone used - ‘engaged’) it seems than many Singaporeans.

The answer is simple. Almost everywhere we go, we interact with the society there. We cannot avoid this. Even if we choose to avoid greater society, our act of seclusion means we are interacting with that society - through being an uncontributing component. Think of it as a speed hump or rock-in-the-middle-of-the-road in that society’s journey.

I believe that when we are part of something, we have a responsibility towards that something. If you’re the passenger in a car being driven by someone else, you have a responsibility to do anything from looking out in dangerous conditions to engaging the driver to stave off sleepiness on a long journey.
Well, Singapore happened to be on a difficult journey to many, and it seemed too that the people who mattered had fallen asleep at the wheel. And that happens when society fails to engage fully with The People Who Make Decisions, not just the other way around. And so I needed to be a passenger in that car engaging with the driver - or, to stretch the metaphor even further, the other passengers for I could not vote.

So now we come to the Malaysian scene. Yes I have now lived away from longer than I have lived in Malaysia. However, I still have very strong ties and I still have our family home which some in my family still occupy, 54 years after they moved in. I carry my MyKad and Malaysian Passport with some degree of pride and of course there was my CelebrateMalaysia! bicycle ride of 2007.

So despite the 350km distance, I still feel very much a part of Malaysian Society, and thus the rationale applies yet again.

So, let me come clean. In fact, let me come Bersih.

Yes, I support Bersih. For these simple reasons:

Bersih 2.0 is an apolitical coalition of NGOs coming together to ask for 8 things which will ensure that every Malaysian - that's you and me - has a voice and a chance to vote for the people who will lead us.
This means that an UMNO supporter gets an equal chance to a DAP supporter. Everyone, who is of legal voting standing will get a fair chance - without intimidation or coercion, and without dealing with the imbalance of corruption - to cast a vote in favour of the candidate of their choice.

Now, I don't care which political party you support - I only care that you and I both get to vote in free, fair and clean elections.

This is why a few of us here in Singapore have set up Bersih 2.0 Singapore.

Over the last few days we’ve been busy signing people up for our positive ‘I (heart) Malaysia’ campaign. I’ll tell you more about this in the next post.

I’ll also deal with some of the responses I have received. You see, I sent out emails asking people to support what we are doing and some of the responses have not gone down too well with me. So, I will address them here in this blog and let you work out who makes more sense.

Stay tuned.

Us and Them (With thanks to Pink Floyd)

My nephew who is studying law had his first encounter with overt racism just the other day. A lecturer made some pretty disparaging, but increasingly common, remarks about the Chinese going home.


Us and them
and after all we're only ordinary men
me and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do


One can’t help but reflect on the parlous state of affairs in Malaysia presently. Contrast this with my own positive outlook just 3 years ago when I went cycling to, as the New Straits Times put it ‘reaffirm my faith in Malaysia’. See some of my blog entries from that time.. When I just finished the Celebrate Malaysia! ride, and my articles in The Star here and here.

At that time, I declared the Malaysia of old still exists. Certainly there was evidence of this in my encounters with the rural or less-urban folk. It would seem, however, that the intervening years have conspired to undermine my optimism. The numerous cases in recent times of increased racial intolerance seem to be evidence of a rising tide that we would do well to be more than just wary of.

In many ways I am unmoved. I still hold out some hope that things will be resolved and that one day we will move away form the politics of division, suspicion and hate and back to the ideals my generation and the generations before me grew up with.

But it seems those clinging on to power (and its attendant benefits and rewards) have an opposing view, using every tool at their disposal to create wedges and divisions among the racial groups that once lived in harmony.


forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
and the General sat, and the lines on the map
moved from side to side


In a way, this is not unlike a war. One where the Generals sit, manipulating the armies through governmental policies, the insidious propagation of racial stereotypes and thus racism, the refusal to condemn (and thus implicitly supporting) racist groupings or individuals and the tight control over any attempt to express a contrary opinion.

As it was in the Great War, the infantry were the sacrificial lambs, expendable and indeed, expended in great numbers. The difference lies partly in the fact the sacrificial lambs are not losing their lives, though many are losing their livelihoods.

The main difference though lies in the fact the Generals today are not manoeuvring to gain an advantage in a just and honourable battle. This is an economic fight and the rewards are personal financial gains, no matter the cost to the pawns. I won’t discuss the strategies, the reasons and the benefits of this modern equivalent of the ‘divide and rule’ ideology. We know how it works. We know they’re trying to make it work. And we know that with each passing day, their hold on power is gradually slipping and like the desperate lunges of a drowning man, they cling ever harder to the only way they know how to rule.


Black and blue
and who knows which is which and who is who
up and down
and in the end it's only round and round and round


Amongst the pawns, there are those who know no better and thus we can begin to forgive them their racist transgressions. But when one encounters an educationist who spews ignorant, intolerant, reprehensible invective as has been the case with my nephew’s encounter or with the two recent cases reported in the press, one can’t help but feel some sense of alarm.


haven't you heard it's a battle of words
the poster bearer cried
listen, son, said the man with the gun
there's room for you inside


I encouraged my nephew to speak up the next time he has a similar experience. Being his first time, he was understandably nervous and caught off-guard. I am hoping he will not be the next time.


Down and out
it can't be helped but there's a lot of it about
with, without
and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about


Silence and neutrality benefit the status quo. And the status quo right now is totally unacceptable. It is, in fact, abhorrent. As citizens of a democratic society it is our duty to speak up and to protest against the ignorance and intolerance that is insidiously seeping into every aspect of everyday life.


out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind
for want of the price of tea and a slice
the old man died 


The foundation of how we operate as a society is based on certain tenets including respect for and acceptance of one another. Every society needs to engage within itself and without too, in order to grow and survive. Racism diminishes a society’s ability to prosper whether economically or culturally. Any government that chooses to allow racism to fester eventually corrodes from within and falls in on itself. History has enough examples of that.

If they were Singaporean, no more would die.

I don’t care for the Singapore Minister of Transport. I find him arrogant and ineffectual.

And in the next couple of posts I’m going to lay into the good Mr Raymond Lim and provide some suggestions he and his team may wish to consider. Well, perhaps they will then actually do some work.

Let’s start with one area where I think the Ministry of Transport has failed abysmally -  protecting the safety of migrant/foreign workers on their way to and from work.

Currently Singapore is one of the few, if not the only developed country, which allows the transport of general workers in the back of trucks normally meant for carrying cargo. Besides the obvious safety issues, these poor guys are often exposed to the elements and I’ve frequently seen them huddling together under a tarpaulin or canvas sheet when being ferried somewhere in the rain.

A couple of years ago, Mei and I witnessed a truly horrific accident on the Pan-Island Expressway. Early that morning, we were going to our car which was parked at the multi-storey carpark adjacent to to our apartment block. This carpark is just a few metres from the PIE and as we walked to the car I heard a short screech of locked wheels then a series of bumps. Having followed motor rallies in Malaysia, I immediately recognised this as the sound of a vehicle turning over and we rushed to the side to look onto the highway. I shall never forget what we saw: a car was stopped on the slow lane, facing the wrong way while a few metres up the road, a 14-foot truck lay upside-down across two lanes. In its wake was scattered a trail of debris. And bodies.

Then I noticed some of these bodies were still moving and one was crawling on his hands and knees. I heard a keening cry ‘boss! boss!’ and then another person wailing in pain. I urged Mei not to look and called for an ambulance, screaming at the call centre operator in frustration when he insisted on taking down my name and phone number ‘There are bodies on the highway. Stop wasting time and send ambulances NOW!!!’ I think he realised something was up because I spied some of my neighbours on the phone too - the switchboard must have suddenly lit up. Not too long after, the emergency vehicles did indeed arrive en masse.

We later found out one of the workers had died. Considering the carnage we saw, this was a miracle. Not, I’m sure, to his grieving relative who was interviewed at the hospital where he lamented ‘I brought him here to get a better life. What am I to tell his family now?’

This accident was discussed quite a lot over the next few days and a friend summed it up best for all of us when he said ‘This has been going on for too long, but sadly nothing much is going to change unless a Singaporean family dies’. We all agreed cynically, but correctly as it turned out.

Two years later and check out these stories:
4 die after lorry hits trailer
Lorry was overcrowded
and so on.

In the intervening time, the Land Transport Authority hasn’t exactly done nothing. They did introduce some new laws. Essentially, trucks can still carry passengers in the back/cargo deck, but the seats in the cab must first be filled. Then, the occupants at the back must sit with the tops of their heads no more than 1.1 metres from the base of the cargo deck.

OK, firstly, why make things so complicated? I’ve seen a traffic cop walk up to inspect a passenger-laden lorry armed with a tape measure. A tape measure for heaven’s sake!

If I had drafted this law, I would have made it at-a-glance simple: Passengers at the back to sit on the floor of the truck and to have their elbow line below the level of the side rails/body panel. Simple. Easy to spot when an offence is committed. No need for tape measures and so on.

That is to say IF I agreed with the idea of trucks being used to ferry workers which I utterly and completely DO NOT.

And take a look at the regulations to come:
More Stringent Measures To Enhance Safety Of Workers Transported On Lorries

By 2012, all that need be done is to install higher railings. Also, workers will have additional space around them, effectively reducing the number of workers allowed on the cargo deck of each truck.

THAT’S ALL??? And it’s going to take two whole years to do this?

Look, here’s a picture of a truck. 

 It is meant for carrying goods and cargo.

These are a couple of pictures of buses.

They are meant for carrying people.

Can you not grasp the difference between the two?

Cannot? OK, then sit down, yes sit right down Mr multi-million-dollar minister, and let me help you understand it a little better…

Why trucks are not safe for carrying passengers:
1.    Trucks when carrying little in the back are very nose-heavy leading to higher chance of rear-wheel skidding. People weigh little. So, when a truck is only carrying people, it has a higher chance of skidding than if it carried cargo.

2.    Trucks have more primitive suspension systems. These are meant to withstand the weight of heavy loads and as a consequence are not as pliant as say, the suspension of a bus. As a direct consequence of this, trucks, when unladen, are not as stable as buses.

3.    Trucks have no seats. Therefore no seat belts. Even if the truck doesn’t turn turtle in an accident, there’s no way a person seated at the back is going to be able to hold on in the event of an accident. Ever been on a roller-coaster? You know why those things have harnesses or seat belts? Because you’d fall right out otherwise, right? Well, would it surprise you to know that the force a passenger feels in an accident is greater than that on the average rollercoaster? So, without a seat and a belt, how on earth do you expect a human body not to be flung right out onto the road when the truck he is traveling in slams on its brakes, or worse, slams into something else, decelerating from 50 km/h to 0 in a split-second?

4.    Truck cargo areas have no bodywork. Even after those new regulations kick in in 2012, they will still have no bodywork. In case it has also escaped you, railings have gaps in them. Bodywork does not. In an accident, even if the railings kept his body within the truck, his arms, legs and (shudder) head may stick out. I once saw a video of former world champ Carlos Sainz rolling his Toyota Celica rally car in the Rally of Australia in 1991. As it tumbled at speed, I saw Carlos’ head stick out through the open window. It was a miracle he didn’t lose it. A foreign worker in a truck may not be so lucky in the event of an accident - even if the truck didn’t turn over.

Do I need to go on?

OK, here’s the rub. Trucks are not safe for transporting workers. Buses are. Simple as that.
Outlaw the use of trucks for the purpose of ferrying people. And guess what? You can be credited with creating a whole new industry - that of general worker transport. I can just see Comfort, Prime, SMRT and a string of other taxi companies jumping onto the bandwagon of bidding for bus COEs, and setting up bus chartering services for the thousands of factories and construction companies around.

Oh! A thought suddenly occurred to me. Perhaps the reason you've been reluctant to implement this is the fact that a certain neighbour to the north has indeed been doing this rather successfully. For oh, maybe 30 years or so? Yes, Malaysia has indeed had a thriving ‘Bas Kilang’ (factory bus) industry for many many years. Heck, if you take a look at the queue of traffic coming into and going out of Singapore every day, you’d see maybe hundreds of blue Bas Kilang.

But I guess that would be real hard to swallow wouldn’t it? Admitting that maybe you had something to learn from Malaysia.

Note: All pics downloaded from the web. Some cannot be credited. Thanks to all for helping make the point that workers must not be ferried on the cargo decks of trucks.

Next:

The complete and utterly despicable ignoring of Bicycles as a form of public transport, and the safety and wellbeing of cyclists.

Oi, Najis!

On the matter of the recent Sibu buy-election and the failed blatant bribery attempt by the PM, this is what I have to say to you, Najis Razak:
Pffffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

Revolution of the mind, yeah!

I've been checking out the Jom Bangkit! song entries and kinda like this one. What do you think?

Who's calling me 'Dummy'?

If you read the ‘alternative media’ in Singapore, e.g. The Online Citizen, Temasek Review and so on, you’ll find that a whole heap of Singaporeans have quite a bit to say on the subject of ‘the elites’. I can’t even bring myself to capitalise the ‘e’…

These are essentially the so called ‘men in white’ - thus named for the preferred uniform of the PAP politicians. The elites is a grouping that covers these ‘men in white’ as well as others in the civil service who have the distinction of having been government scholars and/or are in charge of prominent bodies, government-linked companies or statutory boards.

These elites have been getting a fair bit of stick recently for their dismissive and self-congratulatory tone. Dismissive of the general populace that is.

All too often recently, however, quite a fair few have been making real boo-boos. The Minister of Education recently implied that the problem of many students’ stress in learning their mother tongue would be dealt with by a reduction in the weightage or importance of the language in the overall assessment. Now he says he didn’t imply that at all and that he was misunderstood. However, the telling point is that it took many days before he claimed that, and then only in conjunction with an official announcement that mother tongue would not be less important at all. Yeah, right, Mr Minister.

The one that really got my goat however was Philip Imbecile Yeo, the Chairman of Spring Singapore who, in an interview, basically called people who buy all sorts of apps on Apple’s App Store ‘dummies’. Look, I have an iPhone 3GS which I love dearly and for which I’ve downloaded more than a few apps. I’ve paid for some but also have many free apps. Needless to say, I take great umbrage at his remarks.

One of the apps which may seem frivolous and which cost me $0.99 is Talking Carl. This would clearly fall into the category of being a ‘dumb’ purchase but let me tell you something, Philip Idiot Yeo, not only did Talking Carl provide endless hours of amusement during the recent Chinese New Year (and I have the family videos to show that) it also did something much more amazing.

My mother suffers from Parkinson’s and Dementia. I have written about this previously. She has her good moments and her less good ones. She still laughs at things she finds amusing and I have rarely seen her laugh as much as when I passed her the iPhone and Talking Carl. She tickled the cute character (it laughs uproariously), she poked it (it goes ‘Ouch’, “Ooh’ or ‘Ow!’), and she spoke to it (it repeats what you said in a squeaky voice). She spent many happy minutes playing with it, smiling broadly. I have rarely seen her as engrossed as when she played with Talking Carl.

So, Philip Nincompoop Yeo, what do you think now, eh? 

You want to know what I think? I think you’re too full of self-importance. You’ve been surrounded by sycophants for so long (and the reporter who conducted the interview clearly was one, judging by his laugh at your very unfunny comment) you’ve lost track of who normal people are. You think you can get away with your dismissive disdain. 

Well, the sad thing is that you probably can. Despite how abhorrent you are, Philip Cretin Yeo, nothing will probably ever happen because somehow, despite all the boo-hooing and gnashing of teeth, ranting and raving online, we all kinda suspect that when it comes time to make a difference, most Singaporeans become sheep who tick the ‘white’ boxes at the ballot. 

Perhaps Singaporeans really deserve the ‘dumb’ moniker after all.

Jom Bangkit!

I just can’t keep my mouth shut most times. Gets me in trouble sometimes, but it’s usually worth it.

So, if you’re a young Malaysian who also loves to mouth off sometimes, here’s an opportunity to do your bit for your country at the same time. I append the contents of an email announcing the Bangkit initiative. Go check it out yourself and then get off your arse and do something for the country.



Email sent to me:

Dear Blogger,
You will be aware that there are a number of youth-oriented programs in progress. Many of these are directly aimed at getting the youth to vote. And many of these are getting a lot of visible support from the online and offline communities.
Bangkit, the Youth Outreach initiative of Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia is taking a less direct approach. We believe that youth tend to resist directives, simply because they have had it for most of their lives. Therefore, instead of telling the youth what they must do, we want to ask the youth to tell us what they are thinking about, what are their dreams and aspirations. We believe that, in the process of talking to us, they will engage with us and be primed to catch our underlying message to them - that their future is in their hands.
The Bangkit project talks to the youth in their favourite language - music. By keeping language/dialect and genre open, we are providing a channel for youth from all walks of life. The more talented can speak out to us through their music. Those less talented can tell us what they feel through the songs that they vote for. And, at the end of the day, we will have a Compilation CD that belongs to the Youth of Malaysia and continues to carry their message.
We need you to carry this message to the youth of Malaysia. Tell them about Bangkit.
Don't just publish a single article and expect them to remember Bangkit. That will only get us a spike in visits and then things will die out. If you truly support our initiative, then place a prominent link in your sidebar for the duration of the competition. We need people to keep coming back to catch updates and vote for incoming songs.
Song entries will be received until midnight of 15th May 2010.
Voting will remain open until midnight of 31st May 2010.
Our URLs are http://jombangkit.org or http://jombangkit.wordpress.com
Many suitable graphics are available from our website for your use to create a link. If you need it, the HTML code for the link is also provided. These are found under the "Tell The World" page.
Please help us to awaken our youth and urge them to arise. Jom Bangkit.