Stand Up, Speak Out

This post is specially dedicated to the NATO-members. (No Action, Talk Only)

During the year 1910 at the Sorbonne, Paris; Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States said, ”It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

This is what I have to say after listening to a few members who “talked”.

We have been knocked down, badly. VERY badly indeed. While I was driving today, a quote from a famous person suddenly came to my mind.

Dan Quayle, the 44th Vice President of the United States quoted “The question in life is not whether you get knocked down. You will. The question is, are you ready to get back up and fight for what you believe in.”

It is true that we have been knocked down. We have fallen. But are we ready to get back up and fight for what we believe in? The Bukit Bendera Division Youth committee just had a meeting yesterday. Of course, the main agenda was about the defeat we have suffered and how we are standing back again.

It’s a positive sign for the committee that most of the members turn up during the meeting. Despite defeat, every single one of us are still committed to get back up! It is a sign given by the key people in the Division Youth that we are STANDING UP, SPEAKING OUT!

We have succumbed to a heavy defeat to the DAP-PKR-PAS in the 12th General Elections. Analysis and soul-searching have been done. All the facts and statements of the reason of our loss have been released in meetings at branch levels, division levels, state levels, national levels and even in coffee or teh tarik sessions. I give full respect to the leaders and the intellects of the party who have made such in-detailed analysis of the reasons on what had happened during the polls.

One of it is of course the famous “Arrogance of UMNO”.

It’s funny how some times I see how some of the members react to this particular cause of defeat. Yes, it is true that UMNO has caused us problems in the elections. But, shouldn’t we have asked ourselves what have we done to stop them from being arrogant at the very first place? From what I see in post-election meetings and regular chatting sessions, some of the members keep stressing on the point of arrogance of UMNO. They shouted with so much expression of anger as if the UMNO are the main cause of the defeat. Why blame them? Why don’t we take RESPONSIBILITY and blame ourselves for not doing the right thing at the first place and letting UMNO grow their arrogance? Why don’t we be the leaders of UMNO to blame ourselves instead of others and take the initiative to bring matters back to order?

Saudara & Saudari, don’t you think so?

The Barisan National coalition suffered a strong blow in the General Elections 2008 despite of winning in the Parliament seats. A strong blow, as everyone knows, BN only maintained a simple majority in the Parliament and lost 5 states to the opposition. UMNO, MCA, MIC, Gerakan & PPP suffered great loss of seats in the Peninsular Malaysia. So, what are the next steps for them? What are they planning to do to win back the 2/3 majority in Parliament and the 5 states that they have lost?