Woke up today, feeling happy. Like most others on MyOSS, I was up until 3am, and went to sleep after knowing that the state I live in Selangor will be in opposition hands.

A common comment amongst others was the feeling of being Malaysian. This about sums up the feeling for me. Knowing so many others feel that there is a need for change away from corruption and racial politics, makes me feel more optimistic about Malaysia's future. It makes me feel more empowered as a citizen and that my concerns will actually be heard and acted upon.

I don't expect sudden change, but even minor changes around here like improvements to the basic parks, roads, crossing etc. would be good things to look forward soon. In the long term, I hope things like the crime rate and state economy will do well. At least I know that my rep Hannah Yeoh (I even know her name!) would at least be approachable and not some arrogant BN politician who could care less for people here.

Another day to be proud to be Malaysian!

Update: Looks like change is already starting, this is what the new MB of Kedah (PAS) said as reported in The Star today,

"He said Independent candidate V. Arumugam, who won the Bukit Selambau seat against an MIC candidate, would be invited to join the exco to represent the Indian community."

Playing DVDs was not an issue, but I found problems doing DVD backups, dvdrip basically hung and tzcat went crazy. Looking for command line, I found dvdbackup. Still no go, finally I found out that you needed libdvdcss form this blog post.

Funny that this is not in repositories, but you need to run a script to install it. FreeBSD has this in ports by the way.

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

And it'll fetch and install a deb package.

Usually when we mention TPM, it's Technology Park Malaysia, but in this case it refers to "Technology Prevention Measures". Of course these have been proven time and time again to be broken. So what do they do? Evil big media (through US government) have already pushed for these laws to be implemented in Malaysia.

This is something I keep spreading awareness of.

By downloading that library and making a copy of a "legally bought" DVD, you can report me to the police and under Malaysian law I could be sentenced to jail for 5 years, fined RM100,000 or both (as I recall). If Malaysia signs an FTA with the US, they want similar laws to be more inclusive with stiffer punishments. They (US government and their local proxies) actually compared drug penalties (death) with copyright penalties, and say it's too light.

By making a backup of a legally bought DVD for my daughter, so that she can continue seeing her favourite shows even if she scratches the original DVD, her dad can be sent to jail for 5 years! Am I that harmful to Malaysian society to be locked up for making a copy of Elmo's Favourite Songs?

Citizens define the laws, by electing law makers. Are our law makers representing the rights of citizens in this case or the interests of powerful foreign media corporations?

In the US most of the elected lawmakers are on the side of corporations. I wonder if local elected MPs are willing to look after the interests of Malaysians for IPR related issues whether they are from BN or the opposition.

I applaud the positive actions and posts of Malaysian Indians like danny, ditesh and byte in response to the HINDRAF rally.

I am however very disappointed that some have tried to portray all Malaysians negatively, as much as calling us an apartheid nation and asking foreigners for the boycott of Malaysian businesses. I state again that this is the corrupt BN government against all Malaysians irrespective of race.

This was a Malay Malaysian at Batu Burok who was shot with live bullets by police at a ceramah (public speech) for fair elections recently in Terengganu. Just to repeat that again, they were shot at. One was hit in the chest, another was hit in the neck. How quickly we forget, or maybe because the guys were Malay,  we can look the other way? And if we replace this with Indian it's not ok?

There is a lesson here on why Malaysian rights should be race free. Sticking up for the rights of your race only, doesn't help us build a better multiracial country. We should stick up for the rights that apply to all Malaysians, so whether you're Malay, Indian, Chinese, Iban, Penan, Orang Asli etc. if we see another being deprived of their Malaysian rights that have been accorded to others, we have to stick up for them. If peaceful protestors have been hosed down by FRU, we have to help them (see Kampung Baru folk). Why? Because they're Malaysians. The moment you start having different sets of rights, is when we get into trouble like my example above, and you start being racist yourself. I'm only going to stick for the rights of my own kind!

HINDRAF rally is just the latest in ongoing disputes the Malaysian people have against the current government. It goes to show that the BN government are running scared and cracking down on anything and everything to ensure that the current corrupt system is in place.

Imagine how difficult it would be to get into KL city centre soon for anybody,

• Wearing yellow shirts (or any yellow apparel)
  
• Wearing light blue shirts
• Wearing green and kopiah (skull cap)
• Looks like an Indian Malaysian (I don't know what the criteria they use for this)
• Have an interest in building hobby rockets (particular red in colour)
  
• Calling themselves a blogger
  
• Wearing a Tux T-shirt?
  

We're heading towards a new generation now, with new ideas, and I'd like for us to all move together away from the past racial system and instead work to protect our rights equally as Malaysians.

For example, everybody should have a right to eat what they want, so instead of fighting for the right to have beef or pork banned everywhere based on racial and religious lines, we should instead settle on a set of equal rights where we say, each place of eating should state clearly what they are serving to respect the rights of others to not eat something taboo to their beliefs. Now this would respect the rights of all Malaysians. I believe this is the direction we need to go for the future.

That's one of the problems with having a name translated as "Hindu Action Force".

I see a few articles in the international press, that for those unfamiliar with Malaysia could see this is a religious thing.  Also it gives impression that it's racial as in a Malay vs Indian as in the actions of the person on the street. We don't have things like toilets, parking lots, shops, buses on seats that says Bumi and Others. We do not discriminate in our day to day lives. We do however have racial economic policies that are instituted by the current government.

To make it clear, the main issue of the protest are that many rights have been taken away from Malaysian Indians. These are the same economic rights that have been taken away from the Chinese. When it comes to human rights, these are rights that have been taken also from all Malaysians irrespective of race., although more so for ethnic Malaysian Indians. Their right to voice their opinions peacefully for example, have also been taken away from other Malaysians irrespective of race. One can argue also that due to corruption, economic rights have also been taken away from all Malaysians. For example take AP import rights on cars. Do you think that really benefits all Malays?

I was happy to see the protesters waving the Malaysian flag. This is the important point, they are Malaysians and as Malaysians deserve all the rights that Malaysians would want, irrespective of race. For this you will see that your fellow Malaysians, irrespective of race will be supporting you.

Danny from the Dhanesh Project as somebody who was there blogs about this.

Thank you to those who protested, again you're real Malaysians who are doing their part to make the county better.

To the 40,000 or so of you who braved the rain and police to demonstrate for free and fair elections, you make me proud to be Malaysian. These are real Malaysians who are fighting to change the present corrupt politicians who are running the country. These Malaysians and not stupid space tourists are who we should be proud off. Malaysia will be a better place because of them and the new generation that wants to see the old corrupt and racist system go away. They are doing their part. Now let's all work towards voting out the current government in the next election!

Of course there is a local media blackout of this. "We are not Pakistan?", well mister (mis)-Information Minister, this is similar to what Musharraf did to the press and communications in Pakistan. Luckily for us, we can't shut down the Internet here in Malaysia, and the younger, smarter and more knowledgable Malaysians have taken full advantage of the free knowledge sharing tools on the Internet to bring us the real news and images.

You can get the summary of the event on WIkipedia. Check the various videos also on YouTube including the Aljazeera coverage.