SUBANG JAYA, Sept 11 — Veterans group Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan (Patriot) has released a poem-video to chastise the country’s leaders and to highlight Malaysia’s standing issues.
The 12-stanza poem titled Obor Akinabalu (Torch of Grandfather Mountain) was composed by natural medicine practitioner Saroja Theavy Balakrishnan and takes aim at politicians and parties which put their own interests above that of the nation.
Its accompanying six-minute long video features air stewardess and singer Assya Yen dressed in traditional Sabahan clothing and reciting the poem amid a backdrop of pictures of the state.
Patriot president Brigadier General (Rtd) Datuk Mohamed Arshad Raji said the poem speaks of corruption, misbehaving parliamentarians, economic woes, the quality of education, environmental pollution, lack of institutional reforms, and the ever-present security threat Sabah faces.
“We chose Sabah to reflect the fact that many members of the Armed Forces have spent years serving there and in Sarawak. To us, it is a second home,” he said during the press conference launching the video.
Arshad said the poem reflects the bottled-up frustrations of the rakyat overall.
“The underlying message is to call for all Malaysians to unite, love and respect each other; unity in diversity, mutual respect in our multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural land of shared destiny.
“Our nation is now faced with a number of issues with increasing seriousness and concerns, besides having to combat and contain the spread of Covid-19 that has already caused so much economic turmoil. Yet politicians are busy with their agenda for political self-survival,” he said.
