Independence days of countries

El Salvador's independence day is on 15 September.

Mexico's independence day is on 16 September. Viva Mexico ;)

Malaysia's actual formation is on 16 September too.

It's called Hari Malaysia whereby Sabah and Sarawak as well as Temasik joined the peninsular to form what I now call home.

If these little pieces of land on the map did not join together to become a country, then chances are that my mom and my dad would not have met each other. And I would not have been born. You would not be reading this post. My entire blog would not have been codified in the HTML computer language the way it is now. Things would have been different. For better or for worse, I do not know.

The Australian study break was held a few hours back.

I liked how the presenters acknowledged the Indigenous people of the country and spoke of their music, soul as well as culture. There was an emphasis about how the people were 'sheltered' under the Flora and Fauna Act initially and were deemed to not be able to take care of themselves. A little history time introduced 'the assimilation process' that happened around the 1930's whereby little children were taken away from their families and subsequently taught to forget their roots. The struggle that the people had.

It weighed down the atmosphere too much. I thought that the approach was slightly reprimanding on the current generation of innocent children who are not of indigenous roots. Not that I can't understand the amount of pain and sorrow that were inflicted upon the Indigenous people. On a slight turn, I appreciated how the next presenter said something along these lines: 'Every country has its history. This is part of Australia's history.'

I find that I like Archie Roach's music. ;)

As the Aussies were presenting, I found myself questioning myself about when and how will Malaysians finally be able to talk about the so-called sensitive issues in a transparent and healthy manner. What about May 13, 1969? Why can I not find proper information about it? Why is it still regarded as a taboo? There is this quote by Socrates that used to appear on our history books a few years back that conveys the meaning of: 'Those who forget the past will surely repeat it again.' Or something of that sense.

There is another quote by him that goes: 'There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.' And we Malaysians are currently living in a whole lot of ignorance. Not to say that other parts of the world are not but we should measure ourselves against ourselves. There has been a change in mindset of the people, especially with widespread internet usage. However, a sheep herded society formed from years of weird education policies conveys a bigger threat to the progress of the nation with the random usage of technology. What's worrying is that the balancing scale of people who think and agree versus people who follow and agree is heavily weighted to one side. For the time being.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.- Murakami