Time and time again I have protested that the so called National Service Programme for kids here in Malaysia is there only to fatten a few cronnies and keep some over weight ex-servicemen gainfully employed. Millions of tax-ringgits are spent annually from transport to food to clothes to rental of camps. All run by some who's got "friends" in high places. The programme itself is a scam !
We are never going to war with anyone. Not in the near future or in this millinium. History has proven that this country is rid of communist with the death of Chin Peng. We have no colonial masters to wage war against, as history clearly says that Chin Peng took care of that too. The undeclared war between Chin Peng and our then colonial masters in pre-Merdeka days ended with the colonial masters inviting us, as 3 major races, to England to accept our independence.
Little skirmishes with some rag-tag out-fit known as Suluks from the Philippines too has ended with some warm hand-shakes and smiles all around re-affirming the Suluks rightful claim of Sabah with our acknowledgement of that annual "rental" fee our government pays to the Sultan of Sulu for the occupancy of Sabah. So there !
Why do we need this silly NS program ? Has any good come out of this 3 month stint a child has to undergo ? All we can see is the children of the lesser people ( read you and me !) has to spend 3 months of their lives at around the age of 17 or 18 and hope to "inter-grate"( a word mostly used by politicians to make them sound intellegent and astute, perhaps ? ) with children of other races when for a given fact, from a very tender age of 5 to 17 years, these same children are segregated in schools by way of the education system, religious systems, at home and in neighbourhoods either by parents or teachers who'd pass of as racists and/or bigots.
What can these kids achieve in 3 months when we grant them 17 years of a flawed education system ? There's been 22 deaths since December 2003 in these NS camps. Most were by drowning. In 2004 there was a rape of a teenage girl by a guardian of the camp.
Today we read in the news how a child's life was brutally taken away from him for simply jumping a queue during breakfast last Sunday. A murder.
Who wants to tell that child's parents that their son died defending the country ? Read here .
