A New Dawn, A New Beginning

Friday, 11 April 2008

A New Dawn, A New Beginning

I never thought how powerful a simple cross on a piece of paper made by a humble looking pencil could be, until that fateful day they now refer to as “The New Dawn”. It was the 8th of March in the year 2008. It was the day I realized that my single vote did count. It was also the day my own little voice sang in unison with the voices of hundreds of thousands of passionate Penangites, so loud that it shattered the shackles of fifty long years of poor governance in our island state.

It was the day I voted for the first time in my life.

For nearly twenty years, I shirked my responsibility to vote in the general elections. The tide was too strong for me to counter it, so why bother to swim? Various logistic factors further dissuaded me from registering as a voter. Why go through all the hassle when at the end of the day, the same party will be voted in, election after election.

Looking back at these lame excuses, I realize now it is because of this very fact that the same incompetent party is returned every election that we should have stood up, and voted for change a long ago. By being a bystander, I have allowed plunderers to haphazardly rape our charming green island and seeded our land with ugly scaffoldings which they call buildings and towers.

Due to the leaders’ lack of vision and planning, George Town has become a cacophony of creaking walls and leaking roofs, intertwined by mind boggling bumpy brick roads. On the other side of the island, lush green hills fronting the Batu Ferringhi coast line are being carved and bled for the purpose of building more gigantic towers. Each time it rains, the runoff from these construction sites spill into the sea to create a bloody soup of clay and mud in these once idyllic emerald bays.

And no one seems to care. No one seems to care whether George Town collapses on itself or Batu Ferringhi turns into a swamp, just like what happened to Gurney Drive after the massive land reclamation in Tanjung Tokong.

That was why I voted on March the 8th.

I, together with hundreds of thousands of other Penangites sang in unison that day to welcome in The New Dawn. That was the day Penangites were empowered by the humble looking pencil. And the rest, they say, is HISTORY.

We now have a brand new State Government and a vibrant and colourful new Chief Minister of Penang – Mr Lim Guan Eng. It is still too early to judge their capability yet but the current mood in Penang is generally optimistic. The previous government had driven our State down to rock bottom. Therefore the only direction to go now is upwards. And that, they say, is the FUTURE.

Jari meyusun sirih sehelai
Nikmat menanti kapur membelai
Purnama tiga cukup benderang
Ketua baru subuh menjelang

Posted by Edmond R at 17:21