Hilmi Ramlan – 6th June 2011
Many of my friends and family know that I am, what a friend describes as a prolific twitter user. Many ask me why I tweet so much? I didn’t know the answer to this until I had to think of what to write for this blog post. As you are aware, Twitter is like an extension to freedom of speech (although recent cases prove otherwise). It is a platform for people to communicate and share thoughts, ideas and many more. I think of it as a stage of free speech. Allow me to explain why I’m too attached to Twitter.
I hope I’m not generalising when I say that for the average boy living in Malaysia, speaking up for what you think is right is a rare thing. Although speech is a freedom that is obviously available, many dared not to. We usually think ‘That’s OK-lah’ or ‘Nevermind-lah’ when we were faced with issues that questions our beliefs and principles. We never had the need to actually speak up. We tend to leave that to the people who we think have better knowledge on the matter or someone superior.
A good example that would best explain what I’m talking about would be the idea of questioning authority. What the boss says, happens. What your dad says, goes. You rarely question the orders given to you. As such, you’re left with no space to create and debate. Maybe there’s a point where it limits your courage to actually voice out what you think. Personally, I think that the authoritarian tone and environment that’s been built around us made some of us silent. Not having the guts to say or do what we want to.
Why?
Maybe because we weren’t given much opportunity to speak up? Maybe because we were afraid that we’d be punished for saying the wrong things. Why risk it? We can see this happening in many Asian countries. Malaysia included.
Now, everything has changed. Being given Twitter, Blogs and Facebook is like gold. We’ve been given a channel for our voice. Things like politics and religion were never casually discussed. Politicians are starting to realise that the voters are taking their issues and debates online. Now, many of us get the opportunity to speak up.
Apart from that, we are now able to share and aggregate knowledge amongst everyone in the community. Making everyone aware of what is and what isn’t provides the confidence in questioning authority. V in ‘V for Vendetta’ explains it by saying that “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”.
Whenever I come home, many think I’m too outspoken and that I should be careful on what I say. Even my dad thinks that I should refrain from saying certain things on Twitter to avoid myself being told off or caught by authorities. Being in a place where ‘anything’ goes, the SCA allowed me to think and speak up freely. It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong or right. It doesn’t matter. It really helps when coming up with ideas. Playing safe just won’t cut it. We tend to mentally block ourselves by saying “Is this right?” or “will someone get mad at me if I did it?”. I found this really difficult at first as it’s not my first nature to take risks. But now that I know what’s going on, I trust in the knowledge that I acquire from online resources to establish an argument.
What I’m trying to say here is that we never had so much opportunity to express our thoughts. We were not open to knowledge that allowed us to know the inside and outside of a certain issue. For me, Twitter has given me the channel in which I can express my views. Views that would make a difference.
I apologise as English is not my first language. Please excuse any errors that I may have made in this post.
