Selamat Hari Jadi, Tun

Raja Sara Petra

Selamat Hari Jadi, Tun. You are actually 95 according to the Chinese calendar or about 98 if we go by the Hijrah calendar. But then age is merely a number and you have shown that at your age you can do what even those who are half your age may find difficult.

When we are children we rarely care about politics or who are the Ministers or Prime Minister and so on. However, I learned as far back as when I was still in primary school who you are because you arrested my father for opposing you. At that time, I did not understand why you arrested my father or what democracy, freedom of choice, freedom of speech, civil liberties, etc., meant. I assumed only bad people get arrested and not good people.

FREE FROM ISA DETENTION AT LAST!

After that, my father was arrested a few more times even after you had retired and Pak Lah took over. My only wish then was for my father to stop all his “nonsense” so that the family need not suffer any more. I did not realise then that my father was sacrificing his freedom for the family and for the future of all Malaysians.

Most daughters would say they thank their father for what they have become. I would be serving you an injustice, Tun, if I do not also thank you. Because of what you (and Pak Lah as well, of course) did to my father and our family, I have grown up to understand what freedom means. It is something worth fighting and dying for and because of that I am now in Puteri Umno. Happy birthday, Tun, and may we all be free from tyranny and injustice.