I watched a powerful movie two nights ago.
About a group of US Navy SEALS who go out on a mission and how one of them, whose wife back home is expecting a child, throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades.
In the final scene, the funeral of the fallen officer, a voice over reads aloud a letter he had penned to his unborn child.
The video clip below bears those words that the soldier never lived to impart directly to his child.
After the movie, my thoughts went back to my discussion with a group of young Malaysian students after my talk in Canberra last October 28th. That discussion was so potent that I shared details of the same when I spoke in Sydney a few days later.
The video below is a short excerpt of that speech in Sydney.
I want to now turn to the first two lines of our national anthem.
Negaraku, Tanah tumpahnya darah ku.
My country, for whom I will give my blood.
We all know these words.
In rote.
How many carry those words in our hearts, in our blood, in our very being?
How many would take up arms to defend the realm from an outside threat?
How many would defend her from an enemy from within?
Ask a foreign worker in Lahad Datu at the material time last year to take up arms to defend our sovereignty.
What would be his response?
“Ini bukan Negaraku. Tanah ini saya tumpah peluhku”, is what he would likely say..
“This is not my country. I just toil here ( to cari makan )”.
Are you no different from him?
If you are no different from him as seeing our nation as just a place to “cari makan”, maybe you cannot be faulted.
Regime after regime in power may have left you to feel that the country does not love you, and that you do not belong.
But then, maybe, over time, the nation, too,began to feel that you felt no love for the nation, and you did not feel you were part of it.
That, like the foreign worker who ‘tumpah peluh”, you just saw her as a place to amass wealth, looking to move away from her shores when you had wealth aplenty.
This can all change, if you want it to change.
ABU and Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia are working for that change.
Join us.
The People's Parliament 
Ian Liew
February 22, 2014
Haris, I was told before that “Tanah tumpahnya darahku” refers to where we are born, when the first bits of blood from the mother’s womb is spilt onto the ground at birth. Technically it isn’t our blood, I think, but the symbol is supposed to refer to our birth, not our death (or wounds). I had always thought it meant getting injured or killed in battle, but my teacher told me otherwise. Was she mistaken?
Bro,
Your teacher may well have been right, but each of us will read and feel it as we do.
I guess in that sense, there may be no one meaning
My 2 sen
Another Anak Bangsa Malaysia
February 23, 2014
Haris,
Moving words, indeed.
We should have more Haris Ibrahims in Malaysia 🙂
More power to you, Haris Ibrahim 🙂
Karenlee
February 23, 2014
Dear Sir,
I am a 42 year old mum with 2 boys aged 10 and 12. I have signed up for the Askar Wataniah training this April just so to have an identity where only a true Malaysian can be a part of. While many migrants from other countries can claim to have the Malaysian IC, only a citizen of Malaysia can have the army IC. Not only that, the claim that Malaysian Chinese aren’t a patriotic lot isn’t true either as a bunch of us, ranging from 23 to 42 will be joining the rest of the fellow Malaysians regardless of races, for a one month training in the camp.
I am leaving my children behind for a month. Some of us had to forgo our pay. And all of us will leave behind our lifestyles to come together as Malaysians who are going in with different colours but leaving camp in one…….. completely tanned with similar haircut and attire. That is going to be truly 1 Malaysia and if that isn’t patriotism, I don’t know what is.
I hope to serve as an example to my children and students that serving our country can be in various forms and joining Askar Wataniah is just one of them. I hope to inspire them to join the Royal Military College in the future.
Invictus
February 23, 2014
“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mandela understood the essence of tanah tumpahnya darahku. Our tragedy is that most of us do not. We have become no better than the foreign workers of whom you speak, who merely ‘tumpah peluh”, looking for opportunities to move away from these shores. Yes, including Malays.
“Join us”? I have some experience in writing and other specific areas of communication. Let me know if I can help from time to time.
Bro,
Email me at thepeoplesparliament@gmail.com and we will take it from there.
God bless
Taipan
February 23, 2014
Let’s see how much some of you out there can make out from this short poem “Moss-Gathering” by Theodore Roethke:
To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber
And lift up a patch, dark-green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,
Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat,
The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots,
And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top, —
That was moss-gathering.
But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets
Of green, or plunged to my elbows in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:
And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
The word “desecration”, to me, has a lot to do with what is happening to our country today. I think it is this that brings me here to stand like a rock in this river of sound – the wordless voice of longing that resonates within us! I could have chosen otherwise.
Looks like I may have to drag these old bones of mine for that extra mile!
bigjoe
February 23, 2014
The truth is those that you fight, they think the country belongs to them and not you or me. We are “pendatang”. They set the agenda and therefore is more likely the country itself. How do you spill blood, patriotic for a country that think you belong only if you are Dhimmi – rights of residence for taxes? This is the very crux and evil that is Mahathirism – the foreign perversion that is Tunku fought literally at his deathbed.
Its why I believe, if you going to frame the issue as Patriotism, then its inevitable you look at Mahathir as a foreign invasion and the patriotic duty to re-claim that. THAT has much implication from intellectual debate to even probable armed struggle..We, gentle Malaysian, are not even close to that kind of frame of mind.
shakuntala
February 23, 2014
Taipan…… nice poem to mull over on a Sunday……we the Rakyat are the living planet…God’s special lives on this “living planet”. We cannot allow the desecration…..how we do it,though, is the question, as we have been called “gentle Malaysians.” …bigjoe, some even say we are noble Malaysians. So nice, so soothing, so precious. Quite right too. We are gentle because of the conglomerate of various bloods in us.
Great big feeling, indeed.
Still…….how? Ya start with a resolve and a fortitude and sing the song of life, with who else but ABU.
Many thanks Haris for this grand infusion. Looks like we all have drunk deep into the elixir of life and are not thinking of dying, at this moment of resolve.
Salleh
February 23, 2014
Haris
We have seen US TV programmes where individuals sang their national anthem before a baseball game, an American football game and other big public events.
Perhaps we should ask our Ministers to sing ‘Negaraku’ solo at their next major public functions. I would love to hear them sing for the rakyat to hear. I suspect some of them will find extreme difficulty.
Maybe, even make it a requirement that anyone who wants to stand for State and Parliament election should stand up and sing the anthem.
But, first, does any of us have the guts to even ask our Ministers to sing the national anthem?
annabrella
February 23, 2014
“Negaraku – Tanah tumpahnya darah ku”.
My understanding of the literal and metaphorical meaning of the first and second lines of lyric in the national anthem is as follows.
The words first assume that Malaysian citizens are all born on Malaysian soil/territory. This is not necessarily true because a Malaysian citizen can be born on non-Malaysian territory and people nowadays can choose their national identities through naturalisation in the countries they reside in or can change their citizenship by choice when eligible to do so from their country of birth to another country of their choice for their national identity.
So following on from the simplistic assumption that a Malaysian citizen is always born in Malaysia, then the literal meaning I can see is this:
It means the earth/ground/soil on which the blood of a new born Malaysian citizen baby was first spilt when it was born and its umbilical cord enjoining it to its biological mother for its life was cut and its blood mixed with that of its mother’s spilt in that place where it is born.
The metaphoric meaning in it that I can see is this:
When that new born baby’s umbilical cord is severed and it becomes separated from its biological mother for its life, survival, nurture, growth and protection then at that very moment that baby also becomes a national child of its Malaysian-Motherland or homeland for its life, survival, growth and protection.
That is why I suppose one generally feels a sense of belonging to and love (called patriotism or more appropriately, respect) for one’s motherland/homeland because one knows that place where one was born was where one was allowed to live and grow and be loved, nurtured, protected and respected and where one naturally bonded and found a true sense belonging or of national identity as that motherland’s citizen/child.
So, where may I ask, is all that implied “negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku” sense of true bonding/belonging and the quid-pro-quo mutual love/respect for the Malaysian-Motherland/homeland by its Malaysian citizens and conversely, by the Malaysian-Motherland homeland for all her Malaysian citizens/children?
Another chicken and egg question or another rakyat and government question perhaps?
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.
tebing tinggi
February 23, 2014
Haris,
Ini negaraku tumpahnya darah ku, it’s only easy to say the done , I believe Malaysia would be lucky if all it’s I/C holders would think that way, not thinking ” ini negaraku tempat aku berolih kehidupan “.
The lahat Datu incidence !, didn’t I hear someone say it’s sindawara ?.
annabrella
February 23, 2014
Rabindranath Tagore said: “Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man”
I have to agree with that beautiful poetic insight. But to be fair, I would say that every new born shows us in its miraculous appearance advertising human perfection in every bit of its miniscule form that the Almighty perhaps does indeed exist and if so, is not yet discouraged enough of man and woman and so has not yet decided to give up on us sorry miserable lot in toto.
So there is still hope for Malaysians to change and I suggest they start ASAP by showing some common and basic human decency like giving to the circa 120,000 (or more) stateless Malaysians, 40% of whom are Malaysian children, their lives and their hopes that they deserve as of right from their Malaysian-Motherland homeland as part of that “negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darah ku” birthright. The UMNO/BN government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for this grotesque UNHCR global Report 2010 statistic.
I attach a link here to a well written piece on the grotesque statistic by the Editor at Malaysian Law Students the UK and Eire (KPUM), Mr Vivegavalen Vadi Valu.
http://www.kpum.org/2013/12/saya-anak-bangsa-malaysia-a-withering-dream-of-the-stateless-child/
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.
annabrella
February 24, 2014
Final post on this subject today:
This inspirational song is dedicated to Malaysia and to all her true Malaysian sons and daughters wherever they may be because you are needed by ABU to save a Malaysia in Distress!
THE YOUNG ONES
Written by: Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett
Sung by: Sir Cliff Richard
Oh, the young ones
Darling, we’re the young ones
And the young ones
Shouldn’t be afraid
To live, love
While the flame is strong
‘Cos we may not be the young ones
Very long
Tomorrow
Why wait until tomorrow?
‘Cos tomorrow sometimes never comes
So love me
There’s a song to be sung
And the best time is to sing it
While we’re young
Once in every lifetime
Comes a love like this
Oh, I need you
And you need me
Oh, my darling
Can’t you see?
Young dreams
Should be dreamed together
And the young hearts
Shouldn’t be afraid
And some day when the years have flown
Darling, then we’ll teach the young ones
Of our own
For once in every lifetime
Comes a love like this
Oh, I need you
And you need me
Oh, my darling
Can’t you see?
Young dreams
Should be dreamed together
And the young hearts
Shouldn’t be afraid
And some day while the years have flown
Darling then we’ll teach the young ones
Of our own
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.