With all that's going on in the country right now a friend of mine commented that it's a depressing time to be a Malaysian.

I beg to differ. I can't think of a better time to be a Malaysian than right now. We are more well informed and educated enough now to effect change. Malaysia now stands at the cusp, we could go one way or the other and events happening now, today, are what will determine where we stand in the future.

People fear change only if they don't understand it. And, proudly so, Malaysian are pretty much a fearless lot. Change is a product of evolution, how people change is in direct proportion to their surroundings. Some years ago a bunch of Malayans got together and dared to push the boundaries of what was, and thanks to them we celebrated our 50th year of Independence this year. If they hadn't we'd still be singing God Save the Queen at school assemblies, get it?

On Sunday 9 people were arrested for peacefully marching to celebrate International Human Rights Day, a date recognised by the UN since 1950 (before those brave lads and lasses we owe so much to even got around to asking "What if?"). Today Jeff Ooi was asked to come into Bukit Aman's Commercial Crimes Division to answer questions about an Al-Jazeera interview he made that had been cam-corded and up-loaded onto YouTube. Huh? Not the interview itself apparently....

Look around folks, are you truly happy with what we have? If you are, do something about it. And if you're not, do something about it. According to the official statistics 74% (of the 1250 people surveyed, you got a calculator?) say we have fair and impartial elections in this country. The 40,000 that marched with yellow t-shirts a couple of weeks back would beg to differ but hey, lets not split hairs here eh? If you haven't already, go register to vote. And if you have registered, exercise your democratic right at the much rumored General Election coming up.

I'm listening to Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" right now... how apt.

Peace.