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IT's been a mad year, to say the least. As I handed in my dissertation last week, the topic of which was (surprise, surprise) Malaysia's political scenario, I wondered what lies in the future. For me, for the country.
The dissertation I handed in was not the one I had wanted to hand in, due to some malignant last-minute IT fiasco that I shall not seethe about here. But it was nonetheless still a love story to my country.
This whole year in London, I realise, has all been about this search to understand it more. I may be a journalist and a wannabe political sociologist, but deep down I am still very much a child. Just like I am my father's only daughter, I am my country's youngest child.
I am not the eldest, like the Merdeka-era freedom-fighting generation, who faced the most pressure and expectations. I am not the middle child, like my parents' toil-and-rise generation, a little ignored and left to their own devices to do the best they could. I am the youngest, like millions of my peers, and we have been indulged, quite spoiled, and are used to getting what we want.
This is not a bad thing, if we can keep a balanced, reasoning head on our shoulders. My generation, in particular, is said to be the end of the bewildered, slightly lost Generation-X, and at the cusp of the super confident, info-dependent "Y" Generation. Our challenge is to navigate between the practical, hard lessons of our parents, who lived through wars and a world filled with bittersweet democratisation and breakdowns, and the sweeping idealisms of the "Yes We Can", take-no-prisoners crowd now best exemplified by Ba-rack Obama's youthful supporters.
The past year preceding this Merdeka has therefore been a great lesson. Armed with information at our fingertips -- both diverse and immediate -- we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly ride on the wave of what's possible in our country.
It's an ongoing battle. Personally, it was hard to try and step back and take a neutral look at things from the outside. To try and be professionally balanced and academically analytical, and still grip your passions close to your mushy-as-mash heart -- it was a ceaselessly interesting exercise.
Not least because our country was becoming increasingly interesting as well. In terms of democratisation, Malaysia was previously thought of as one of the more "boring" countries in a seriously complex region. Among past and present democratic breakdown and reversals, we saw Suharto reinstituting the iron grip after the period of "Keterbukaan" in Indonesia, Thailand slipping in and out of military coups, Singapore increasing its civil liberties but still with a gaping hole where an opposition should be.
The Philippines and Indonesia, now old hands at people-power protests, are now working at their post-authoritarian democracies slowly and with less turbulence. Socialist Vietnam is starting to roar economically. Myanmar is still stuck in a sad time-warp.
And in the midst of it all, Malaysia's suddenly become the poster nation of "interesting". We are seeing the enhancements towards "rechtsstaat" -- a state subject to law -- and one that is fundamental in allowing citizens to exercise their political rights with full freedom and independence.
We have also seen the emergence of what scholars Almond and Verba call "The Self-Confident Citizen": one who is more active politically and believes himself to be important to his country and community's affairs.
But it is noteworthy that the civic culture theorists say once the system is in place, the ordinary citizen must turn power over to elites so that they can rule. "Thus the democratic citizen is called on to pursue contradictory goals; he must be active, yet passive; involved, yet not too involved; influential, yet deferential," they wrote in 1989.
Serious questions still need to be asked. Do we really believe in "toppling" a democratically elected government? What would we do in the event of a reversal of new-earned liberties? Some people will harp on endlessly about our country now being down in the dumps, but is it really the gloom and doom people make it out to be?
Some people will disbelieve and trounce everything the ruling government says and hold every word of anti-establishment cyber warriors as gold, but is that fair? In our quest to become "better", have we substituted one brand of elitism for another?
Post-Merdeka and into Ramadan, perhaps we have now a little breathing space for reflection, before the next round of dramatics. I guess it is okay for the cynic, idealist and adjudicator within to be constantly at loggerheads.
As Khalil Gibran once said: "Reason ruling alone is a force confining, and passion unattended is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes."
I am my country's child, and there are millions exactly like me. But this is not an unconditional bond of blood, it is a proof-based bond of trust. If our leaders, of whatever partisan leaning, can understand us more and keep that in mind, this family can only grow stronger. - nst
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The Blogs 
What's Malaysian? Malaysian = Tuan?
What's Tuan? Bumi Malay - [(Bumi Non-Malay) (Non-Bumi)] = Tuan?
What's Independence? Britain-colony --> BN-colony = Independence?
It's time to revisit the true meaning of Merdeka and Malaysia.