Growing up, I have always wondered why our most celebrated heroes all die of horrible deaths?
Lt Adnan, was a fine soldier. He's great. Served his country. Held on till the last breath. But he died, in the end. Killed by Japanese. His body was hung upside down, and each soldier to pass would stick a bayonet in him.
Bukit Kepong. They ALL died.
I mean, I am not questioning the heroic status of these legends. They are legends. They are heroic.
But... don't we have any heroes who survived? Heroes who triumphed? Why does everyone have to die? Horribly? It's okay if they died of old age or something.
You know what that does to our psyche? Fatalism. Morbid fatalism.
"No matter how great we are, how hard we fight, someone would come and kill us all."
Yeah, Scotland's greatest hero William Wallace died. But he died after accomplishing what kings and lords and whoever couldn't do. Unite the barbarians.
I believe that Malaysia's propaganda machine in the past was not working very well. They failed to realise what these stories would do to the nation's psyche. As a result, we are a people ruled by guilt. Survivors' guilt. Stockholm syndrome. A masochistic society. An apathetic one.
The biggest thing about Kanang Anak Langkau, to me, is the fact that later on in life, he was mostly forgotten. That was the story.
I see Malaysians as becoming like African Americans. Needing manufactured heroes like Undercover Brother and Black Dynamite. How Americans need Superman and merged the founding fathers with Jesus so as to create heroes they can believe in, in their love affair with Capitalism and cynicism.
Our movies hardly had the spirit of the trailer voice guy.
We can't do, "In a world, where laughter is sin, ONE MAN dares it all."
Or
"In a time, where rempits ruled the streets, ONE MAN challenges himself to wrest control and reign as King Rempit."
I watch TV, right, and ALL the dramas about struggle, about how ONE MAN dared to be hardworking and take on three jobs at a time, are solved with the ONE MAN marrying a rich girl, or a is a rich man's son who pretends to be poor to find true love.
What utter bullshit.
So, "No matter how hard I work, or how successful I am, the only thing I need to do is get married."
BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!!!
Give me some TV contracts, motherfucker. I'll spin tales of hard work and being smart without being a bastard about it. And in 40 years, when those kids grow up, they'll carry these values within them and be the next generation of Malaysian heroes.
And they don't have to be killed. Horribly.
