There is a Reason Why We Kept on Saying Jalur Gemilang

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The Americans are known to have loads of achievements in their aerospace industry - hell, they put a man on the moon! The Japanese are proud of their electronics (Although, I think, the Koreans have beaten them (Japanese)). Germans are inseparable from their engineering particularly the automobile industry. And, for a Gen X like me, I must give credit to Russian's Kasparov for Chess games and Siamese Wattana for a 147 Perfect! in Snooker. So what about us Malaysians?

GEMILANG is a Malay word for Glory. The Malaysian flag is called the Jalur Gemilang, or, in English, the Glorious Stripes, as, of course, the flag does have stripes. What we do want to enlighten ourselves (Malaysians) is how do we justify the 'Gemilang' bit? How far has Malaysia progressed and whether Malaysians have indeed made some worthy achievements to support the Gemilang notion that we all love to associate with when we fly our flags high. The Americans are known to have loads of achievements in their aerospace industry - hell, they put a man on the moon! The Japanese are proud of their electronics (Although, I think, the Koreans have beaten them (Japanese)). Germans are inseparable from their engineering particularly the automobile industry. And, for a Gen X like me, I must give credit to Russian's Kasparov for Chess games and Siamese Wattana for a 147 Perfect! in Snooker. So what about us Malaysians?  

I am sick and fed up of the zombies on the social media who kept on giving negative remarks about fellow Malaysians who did their best for the country. It is as if they (who gave the negative comments) had done so much for the country. For me, I have always asked 2 things: Have you paid your taxes and have you discharged your responsibility as a voter? If the answers for those 2 are crappy, they shut the fuck up! If you have indeed addressed those 2 elements, then go do something that can make us all proud of Malaysia and yourselves, as fellow Malaysians. In any case, let us not be emotional and answer the question I posted earlier: ..... how do we justify the 'Gemilang' bit?

Every now and then we hear pleasant news about some fellow Malaysian winning something across the globe. We'd say, "Hey! Awesome,.... ", and then we forget. We forget those names but we still remember foreign names like Kasparov and Wattana. I am guilty as charged. So, let us remind ourselves who, amongst us, Malaysians, had achieved such glory worthy of remembrance. If we cannot remember the distant past, let us remember 2016 at least. To my delight, I stumbled upon a newspaper article that provides me with just that! A fact sheet for remembrance. It was in the New Straits Times (NST), 11 January 2017, Page 6. where the following list was shouted:

1. HARITH ISKANDAR was crowned as the funniest man in the World after beating other international contestants in the Funniest Person in the World Contest held in Levi, Finland, on 10 December 2016.

2. NUR ADLYKA AINUL ANNUAR, an Astrophysics PhD student, was among a group of astronomers who discovered evidence of black holes in our cosmic backyard on 9 January 2016.

3. DR MUZLIFAH HANIFFA, a Penang-born scientist living in Britain, was awarded a fellowship for research into white blood cells and the immune system on 11 September 2016.

4. CHAN HON MENG, an Ipoh-born hawker who operates a hawker stall in Singapore, was awarded with a Michelin star, and he is one of the World's first hawker to receive one. This was in July 2016.

5. YUNA, a singer song-writer, had her album listed in the Billboard's Top 10 Best Rhythm and Blues Album of the Year on 23 November 2016. She is also up for nomination in the Gammy's.

6. FNATIC, an electronic sports athlete group created history when they got 4th place at the International Dota 2 tournament held in Seattle winning USD1.4 million on 14 August 2016.

7. MUHAMMAD ZIYAD ZOLKEFLI, MOHAMAD RIDZUAN MOHAMAD PUZI and ABDUL LATIF ROMLY achieved Malaysia's best outing at the 2016 Paralympics, each winning gold medal in their individual events on 11 September 2016.

8. DR MOHD LUTFI FADIL LOKMAN, a medical officer, was selected on 20 September 2016 as a United Nations Young Leader from a list of 18,000 nominations from 186 countries, for establishing an organisation with a mission to build healthcare facilities serving underprivileged communities.

9. KHAIRUL IDHAM PAWI became the first Malaysian to emerge as the winner for the MotoGP World Championship after winning the Moto3 race in the Argentina Motorcycle Grand Prix on 4 April 2016.

10. DATUK LEE CHONG WEI won silver on 20 August 2016 at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, securing his ranking No. 1 badminton player in the World.

So there you go! We have a list of 10 names. So let it be written. So let be known. These are our heroes. These are our justification to the word Gemilang. Let this be the vibe when we fly our flags high. Let us all be proud of our fellow Malaysians who have done their best for the country. Of course we hope for many more victories in the future.... and as I was hoping for it, the same NST reported that a fellow Malaysian, MOHD FAIZ SUBRI, won the prestigious Puskas Award at The Best FIFA Football Awards 2016 ceremony in Zurich, last night – making him the first Asian player to win the prestigious prize. Mind you, Ronaldo won this years ago as well! So there you have it! Let us all be proud of Malaysia and fellow Malaysians. It is this positive feeling that our country is so much lacking at, at the moment, and we all need it really bad now. To close this post, I present to you the link to the YouTube for Faiz's winning ball kick -- Faiz's Winning Kick

* kopihangtuah

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