The SABM message goes to ground

The SABM message goes to ground

February 27, 2010

This is how it works.

You attend one of the SABM forums, and the message delivered at the forum resonates with all that you feel.

Or if you haven’t attended any of the forums, but you’ve seen video clips of messages delivered or heard of the same from friends and you think “Why our politicians don’t think and talk like that, ah?”.

Whichever, you now want to share that message with your family, friends and colleagues.

Get in touch with SABM. e-mail us at events(at)sayaanakbangsamalaysia.net or call us at 03-2095 0435 from Wednesday to Sunday between 12noon-7pm.

Or you can send me an e-mail at thepeoplesparliament@gmail.com.

Organise some teh tarik at your home, your office, or at some stall. Get your family, friends and colleagues to come round.

We’ll come and partake of your fellowship and share our message.

________________________________________________

After the KL Roadshow and forum on 23rd January, a young student who attended the forum contacted us.

This led to a “lepak session” between about 12 local university students and 4 SABM core-groupers, myself included.

For me, personally, it reinforced my conviction that the hopes of this nation rest with our young.

A second “lepak session” is scheduled for later this month.

Yesterday, an anak Bangsa Malaysia who had also attended the KL forum played host to a teh tarik session in Cheras.

She contacted me through Facebook last week and it culminated in yesterday’s fellowship.

Robert and I attended.

We shared the 5 SABM key messages and then there followed a sharing of thoughts, concerns, fears and hopes.

As always, for me, it was an enriching experience meeting new people.

And like so many other similar fellowships that I’ve attended in the past, I was left with the impression yesterday that there are good people in our midst who have for a long time languished under a sense of hopelessness, who want so much to come forward and help make a difference and make our country a better place for all, but succumb to the fears that the best from amongst us have.

Family.

Putting food on the table.

Job.

We all need a reason to believe that any effort by us to help take this country back from the ugly forces that now sit in the driving seat of this nation will not be in vain.

I offer you two reasons to believe.

First, anchor our effort to bring justice and equality to this nation in an unshakable faith that God is with us on this difficult journey.

To my brothers and sisters of the Christian faith who made time yesterday to share their thoughts with Robert and I, allow me to share with you a verse from your scripture that has always inspired me to overcome my own fears.

“Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me” – Psalms 23 verse 4.

Second, know that we have it in ourselves to set this nation right.

Know that collectively, the good people of this nation are an insurmountable force to be reckoned with.

Acknowledge our faults of the past in allowing the nation to slip into the state that it is in now and say “No more”.

Resolve to work together with all fair-minded anak Bangsa Malaysia to take our country back for our children and their children.

I want to reproduce here an excerpt of something I posted here when this blog was but 5 days old, entitled “Set the picture frame right”.

“Imagine a picture frame hanging on the wall which appears lopsided to you, as you observe it seated in your armchair. Try as hard as she does, the adjustments to the same by the maid just does not seem to get it right. Either it is too much to the left or too much to the right. You have a choice. Sit there and gripe until death brings an end to your misery. Or get off that armchair and set the picture frame right.
You and I have the same set of choices about the state of mismanagement of this country. Sit and gripe or get up and set things right. …I believe that Malaysians by and large are decent, caring people who, in truth, are greatly concerned about the wrongs that are being inflicted to a great many of our fellow Malaysians.
I believe that the seeming silence of the greater number is not out of indifference to those wrongs but is brought about by an unfounded fear to dare to stand up and ‘set the picture frame right’. It is my hope that this blog may help to rally together like-minded Malaysians to dare to stand up and ‘set the picture frame right’.
What is my aspiration for this country?
The comment by A. Williams to my first post sums up so succintly, the problem that grips us as a nation and, that which must come to pass if we are to emerge from this national crisis as a just and caring people. I pray that we have the strength and courage to ’set the picture frame right’.

“The government meant to serve us, the people of this land, has hijacked the power that belongs to us to fire those that have disgraced the sacred seats of Parliament. Our rights over the years have been whittled down by draconian laws. The wealth of this country that belongs to the citizenry has been squandered by irresponsible men and women.

And we, the people, have been sleeping, lulled into thinking we are the servants of the government we chose. We have accepted false measures of what a nation should be, what our rights and responsibilities are, and many of us have turned the other way rather than face our failure to be a people faithful to the truth, protective of our children’s future and loyal to our Constitution.

We voted in our government servants and promptly became subservient to them. We have such a low opinion of ourselves as a people able to bring dignity back to our Parliament and able to change the destiny of our nation. Why? Because we are on the whole self-serving too, at our own level. We live in enclaves of self-preservation and want the other man to fight for us.

The time has come to change. And change must begin with us. We need to change our mindset of apathy. We need to forge a new alliance among ourselves, a unity founded on a love and respect for all peoples of this nation. We need to carve on our hearts that every man not given justice is our brother and every woman shackled by the discriminatory laws and customs is our sister .

There is no other road to restoration but that of commitment. We must rise as a people if we want a People’s Parliament”.