When our climber, Magendran Munisamy and Mohandas Nagappan scaled the Everest in 1997, the spirit of Malaysia Boleh began to be used as a motivation for Malaysians to achieve great success in the any field. It was in fact introduced by Tun Dr. Mahathir, our former Prime Minister. Of course there are some achievements which deserved to be recognized to show the world that we can. But, over the years, I feel that this Malaysia Boleh thing has been over-rated sometimes.In this post, I'll take some of the examples of the what we should recognize as Malaysia Boleh and what we should rather put it as 'Malaysia Boleh'.
Take Nicol David's success as an example. This girl from Penang has came a long way before becoming the world champion and world number one, the youngest ever. And there’s a saying which goes; it's easier to win something than defending it. But Nicol proved that Malaysia Boleh by successfully defending her world crown late last year. By doing this, she got to compete against the best with players, among others from Australia, England and New Zealand. Up till now, she still remain the world number one player in squash.
Recently our badminton pair of Koo Kien Kiat-Tan Boon Heong won the men's doubles crown in the All-England finals. This victory is achieved after a lapse of 25 years as the last Malaysian pair to won the title was the Sidek's brothers of Jalani and Razif, in 1982. And during that time, I wasn't even born yet! Although this young pair were making their debut in the competition, their determination and resilience take them through all the way to the final and beating the world champions and top seed from China, Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng.A few years back, Hafiz Hashim won the men's singles title as well. But since then, he failed to win any major tournaments. Here comes a question of the reason why Malaysians athletics, sportsmen and sportswomen have a tendency of failing to maintain a consistency after they won a major tournament or championship. Today they could be the hero, but the next day, they just turned zero. So, time will tell whether this young pair of Koo Kien Kiat-Tan Boon Heong has what it takes to be a world top pair.
Now, we'll see some examples of 'Malaysia Boleh' so-called achievement. Take the world's biggest court complex as an example. The complex will house 30 High Courts, 21 Sessions Courts and 26 magistrate courts, and will have 500 parking bays for the public, 300 bays for court staff and 200 bays for judges and magistrates. Enough on the stats. But what does this exactly tells us? It just tells the world that we have high crime rate. Now we have the world's biggest court. So, what's next? The world's biggest prison will not be a bad idea either.
Over the years, the opportunity to have their name placed in the Malaysia Book of Record has made Malaysians set out to create creative, wonderful but sometimes unpractical and weird records. Recently, a 362.8m line of kuih ketayap was formed by students from UiTM. This wasn't a new thing as we have had the highest can stacking, the biggest dinner gathering, the biggest the tarik event, the longest line of sandwiches, the tallest building formed by mooncakes, and the list goes on. 'Malaysia Boleh', eh?
Above are just a friction of examples about the difference between Malaysia Boleh and 'Malaysia Boleh' spirit. It will be nice and I'm looking forward to get more examples from you guys out there.
Above are just a friction of examples about the difference between Malaysia Boleh and 'Malaysia Boleh' spirit. It will be nice and I'm looking forward to get more examples from you guys out there.
