Social Studies assignment.. do correct me for any mistake

Issues and implication of Democracy in Malaysia

Nowadays, there are basically two types of government which are autocracy and democracy. In Malaysia, we practices parliamentary democracy. Democracy is a concept that is very crucial for a country that respects the freedom of individual in determining the leadership of a country. All too often, democracy is connected with the expression such as the voice of the people, their freedom, or the people that rule. The main mechanism that plays an important role in sustaining democracy is through the general election which gives the people the right to choose the ruler of a country and gives them the right to represent the people in the Parliament and the State Legislative Assembly.

The first issue that might come up in our mind would be the issue of general election and the right for the people to choose the ruler. As I have explained in the previous paragraph, the ruler in Malaysia can only be chosen through the election. The general election in Malaysia is usually held once in five years. Through voting, the winner party will be the ruler and he or she will decide on the policy that they wanted to establish. In order to give a depth understanding in this issue, we can refer to the National Key Result Area (NKRA) which was recently established. In this NKRA, one of its main prospects is to ensure that education gets more attention and everyone to attend school. Through this, there would be no more students being left out from study.

Malaysian is given the right to speak up their mind. This is when the democracy gives the people the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech here does not mean that you can easily blurt out what is in your head but, you must follow certain rule and regulation. This are done to ensure that the words that being uttered by you does not represent any form of ethnic or racism in it. If any coincident that the word you said touches the sensitivity of other races or religion or it have the element that can harmed the harmony of the people, you can be put under ISA which stands for the International Security Act.

In order to elaborate more, I would like to highlight on the issue of Bersih rally that was held in Kuala Lumpur recently. The group behind the 28 April rally is called Bersih, which translates simply as "clean". It is a coalition of 84 non-governmental organisations united by the belief that Malaysia's voting system is rotten to the core. Despite all of the chaos, the rally manages to gather almost 100,000 people to turn up. The Bersih rally was mainly held to oppose the current ruler party in Malaysia. The rally also encouraging the university students to present there and as a result, a student from UiTM was being drop from his study and was brought for justice. The Malaysian especially the students nowadays were given the right to speak but they misused it. As college students, we should be thankful when we were given the right and not to use it in a wrong way.

They demand for the abolishment of PTPTN which they find as one of the burden to the people. This unauthorized gathering brought chaos and resulted in bloodshed. In my opinion, PTPTN which act as the main fund that help to lessen the burden of the people should not be banned. I agree if they said that the PTPTN took interest on the student’s payment but, without it there would be hard for them to further their studies and if the manages to acquire high pointer, the PTPTN will be automatically changed into scholarship. This in the end will result in the high achievement of the students as they strive to be the best and they do not need to pay even a cent.

The ruler that were chosen by the people via democracy will act accordingly align with the demand of the people. Previously, Science and Mathematics were thought in English, this is when Tun Dr Mahathir was our prime minister. But, since many people demand that the PPSMI which stands for the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English to be re-examine,   so the government through the ministry of education tried to sort it out. So, they come up with the new education policy which is MBMMBI (upholding Malay Languages, Strengthening English Language). Despite all of the effort made by the government, there still exist some people from particular organization that opposed the decision; hence they held the Bersih rally.

Though the educational reform had taken place in the educational system, we still struggle to ensure that we managed to get the best education. Even though PPSMI was changed into MBMMBI, the qualities of education still remain at its best. Some people may find it to be a lot easier and the student can understand more if they studied using their mother tongue. But, if we look at the bad side, in future, there might be many loop holes that we must cover since the outer nation and developed country were using English as their main language to teach Mathematics and Science. Imagine that our son and daughter are going to the states to further their studies, there; they must struggle once again to understand the subjects in English.

What will spur out of our mind when I talk about 13 May 1969? Well, I am sure that everyone will talk about the riots. This was the tragedy that reform Malaysian politics. The riots occur because of the unexpected gain by the non-malay opposition parties in 1969 general election. The excitement showed by the non-malay caused big fuzz and making the Malay to become intimidated and as a result, many people died. Because of this, the government had taken some drastic approach. In order to prevent such act to ever happen again, a New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced. Through this, the existing communal economic imbalance was corrected. Next, Rukunegara was promulgated. Lastly, a new political formula was negotiated to expand the concept of ethnic cooperation under the Alliance, which is formally known now as Barisan Nasional (BN).

Another issue that rise up when we talk about democracy is the issue of religion. Malaysia consists of diverse ethnicity and religion. In Malaysia mainly we have three main religion which are Islam, Hindu and Christian. Late last year, we were shocked by the memorandum made by the Malaysian Hindu Right Action Force (Hindraf) that demanded many unreasonable rights from the government. Above all, they wanted to make Hindu’s temple at the highest place among other thing. Everyone realized that Islam is the National Religion in Malaysia and the claim made by Hindraf was way off limit. Due to this, Hindraf was banned from Malaysia. The reasons for the banning of Hindraf were not solely related with their demand on religion but, Hindraf had made many unreasonable demands since its establishment. Firstly, they wanted the non-malay to carry the duty of the prime minister of Malaysia. Apart from that, they wanted the government to support the right for free sex. 

In a nut shell, the democracy in Malaysia is based on the people and it is for the people. Without the system of democracy that we have I doubted that we could have a harmonious life like today. As a Malaysian, I would like to urge everyone to start working together in order to make Malaysia a better place to live in. The political party that we have nowadays also need to work hand in hand so that our nation would not end up in a catastrophe. Unity that we experience after a lot of bloodshed and suffering should be cherished, and the youngsters that we have should be thought about the issues so that the history would not repeat itself.