Read. Inquire. Scrutinize. Question.

This post is specially dedicated to my fellow friends.

With the upcoming general election in Malaysia (speculated to be held in March), parties have been busy campaigning and bloggers like Lim Kit Siang and Raja Petra just can't have much break. Local newspapers like Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, and The New Straits Times also have started to warm up for the election. Well, while these people are busy preparing for the election, I wonder if we are doing the same.

Although most of us are students, be it local or abroad, I just felt the urge to write this post because I do believe that a lot of us do not really have much interest to know about what is going on in our country as far as politics is concerned. It is well understood that we are all busy with studies and personal matters, but lately I also think that being 21 and over has brought us a new responsibility that we should not take for granted - and this is the responsibility to vote.

And because of this new responsibility, I feel that we need to start at least know what is actually going on in Malaysia. Therefore, I'd like to encourage all of us, myself especially, to get to know at least the basic stuffs that we need as voters.

We need to know the procedures on how to register as a voter. We need to know the basics of a government and what it does. We need to know what parties are involved. We need to know expectations of what we should get from a government and also government's expectations of us. We need to be realistic enough to think that no administration is perfect, but at the same time know our rights as citizens. We need to read - Read the local newspapers, watch news on the televisions, read blogs on the internet, read people's comments on the blogs, find useful information and get to know what people are talking about nowadays, be it from the opposition side or the ruling party.

I'd say the best move for us is to read a lot and read from all kinds of sources, and not to stick to just one biased source. Why? Because the best judgement that we can make is after considering all kinds of information that we have acquired. Knowing about current issues are just vital. Therefore, inquire. Be critical. Ask questions. Get involved.

One more tip when reading news, blogs and reports is to always scrutinize the contents. Humans write according to their perspectives, so sometimes even the best bloggers could be wrong. Sometimes they make mistakes, but sometimes their ideas is just undeniably genius. I personally like Farish A. Noor of Othermalaysia.org due to his neutrality in his writings.

If you need other recommendations, I would say use Google and type keywords like Utusan, NST, The Star, UMNO, Pemuda UMNO, MCA, MIC, Barisan Nasional, PKR, DAP, PAS, Malaysiakini, Harakahdaily, Jeff Ooi, Lim Kit Siang and OtherMalaysia.org, Malaysia Today. These are all good sources to read from. Youtube is another interesting source. Whatever it is, just keep an open mind when you're surfing.

Well, I do not intend to sound too smart, or sound like I know about everything - because I don't. In fact, I actually regard myself as a newbie to this. Bus as far as knowing about the goings-on in Malaysia, I should say that I've learned more now than I ever did before. And I think it should be a really huge benefit for all of us to learn some basics and issues in Malaysian politics. I would therefore again, urge all of us including myself to equip ourselves with some useful knowledge about the country, especially now with the election coming close.

Anyway, we're Malaysian citizens, so aren't we the ones responsible to care about our own country and make it a better place to live?