This has been going on and on over facebook, and frankly, I'm getting sick and tired over it so I decided to write an article about it.
This annoyance finally reached me when a junior of mine from UiTM Lendu tried to play the smarty pants attitude.
I was sad for her because she has fallen victim to the idiocy of politics where the Rakyat gets stupid enough to be the puppets of... whatever.
Where were we, ah yes, smarty pants.
To make you understand why am i annoyed by this matter, I should explain what's going on first.
As we all know, the government decided to give us RM 200 worth in a form of 4 pieces of RM 50 gift vouchers for our books to be used for our education.
However, some people decided they actually wanted money because they really need it for something else.
So what they did was they sold the vouchers through the internet via mudah.my
Some people also advertise that they accept the vouchers as token for money if they wanted to buy cellphones and stuff like that.
The government of course was made aware of this situation and decided to do something drastic about it.
So, since the STUDENTS seemed to be misusing the vouchers that they have been given, the government reported this action to the police and they stated that this action is a serious criminal offence and students selling or misusing the vouchers can be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, besides getting the whip of the cane and fined.
NOW.
Back to the main story.
The actual reason why I'm so annoyed by this is because a junior of mine became a dog of politics (to put it in Fullmetal Alchemist terminology).
She actually tried to make people see how evil the government is, (please note that I remain neutral in any political business because I simply don't care and politics actually destroys many peoples life).
I quote
"menteri rompak juta2 ..penjara 1 tahun je.. baucer yg rm200 5 tahun...akal ada ka??"
"it's just not fair, can't you see?? orang2 besar dalam kerajaan buat hal, kena penjara, setahun je.. makan rasuah berjuta2..."
"budak2 yang terdesak nak guna duit, swap THEIR BV to cash, kena penjara siap sebat ape sume."
As you can read, she is clearly running away from the point of why this is a simple yet heinous crime.
She tried to justify that the higher up's in the government do lots of crimes and only get sentenced to one year in prison, so why should just a mere case of the voucher be sentenced to 5 years in jail besides getting caned and fined.
She even said that students need real money instead of vouchers.
So, in response to her, I said this,
"i don't see much of a point, never mind the government politics.. even when ptptn is given to students, they use it just to buy new handphones, in the past when ptptn was given to full amount terus to the student, student actually terus beli kereta guna duit tu. terdesak with money is the reason why students apply for ptptn, if it is not enough they find part time jobs to support themself. now for a rm 200 book voucher, why the fuss?"
Obviously she was not satisfied so she asked,
" LET'S MAKE IT SIMPLE my dear, i just want u to think.. IS IT FAIR FOR THIS 2 CASES? terima rasuah berjuta=penjara setahun. jual BV=penjara+sebat+denda. takya lah cakap pasal budak2 yang swap2 tu. THIS IS THE MAIN THING."
Now, I actually tried to reason with her so that she actually state a clever point without involving any politics in her reason.
She did so and she said this,
"ape yg i fikir ? i rasa tak patut dpenjarakan, kerana ini adalah hak masing, selain dari tu, yg jual kebanyykn memerlukn duit, terpulangla duit itu nk kemana,itu hak masing2. tidak perlu pertikai kenapa dan knpe kerana meraka ade sbb.
kn lebih baik bg duit, sbb rasanya semua tahu yg pelajar universiti memerlukn duit dr voucher yg xseberapa tusbb dari segi voucher itu dijual, rasanya sblm beri mereka da fikir kesan daripada bg voucher tu
samaada advantages or disadvantage
so why nk keluarkn sekarang undang2 tu ?
knpe x tulis je dekat voucher tu, siapa yang menjual voucher bodoh satu malaysia ini akn dpenjara 5 tahun, sebat smpai mati pucuk xkira lelaki perempuan
ok opinion without political view.
And this was what I had to say to her,
"voucher tu macam diskaun voucher solely just for our books, kalau nak duit or perlukan duit, ada proper channels, zakat, etc. benda tu is given just to kurangkan cost pembelajaran siswa dan siswi, not exactly a charity drive to give money. this voucher thingy i guess was done without proper planning, didn't occur to them that students might actually misuse the voucher. like some bodies actually accept the voucer to be exchange with multiple items like handphones, etc. so the implementation of 5 years of prison and sebat is just a message that this act is a serious offence.i believe benda ni terjadi sebab kerajaan mendapati bahawa terlalu ramai pelajar yang membuat habit untuk photostat buku teks mereka, this itself is a crime and may bring you up to 10 years of prison.."
"Dalam hal kesalahan (a) hingga (f), denda tidak kurang RM2 000 dan tidak melebihi RM20 000 bagi setiap salinan langgaran, atau penjara bagi suatu tempoh tidak melebihi lima tahun atau kedua-duanya dan bagi apa-apa kesalahan kali kemudian, denda tidak kurang dari RM4 000 dan tidak melebihi RM40 000 bagi setiap salinan langgaran untuk kesalahan kedua dan seterusnya. Hukuman penjara juga boleh dikenakan tidak melebihi 10 tahun atau kedua-duanya iaitu denda dan hukuman penjara.
Dalam hal kesalahan (h) hingga (j), denda tidak melebihi RM250 000 atau penjara bagi suatu tempoh tidak melebihi 10 tahun atau kedua-duanya."
Dalam hal kesalahan (h) hingga (j), denda tidak melebihi RM250 000 atau penjara bagi suatu tempoh tidak melebihi 10 tahun atau kedua-duanya."
End of story, she was speechless.
I imagined her face would be like this,
