This article was originally published on 11.09.2006 in the Malaysian Lawyers @yahoogroups.com
“Free at last, free at last! Thank god…we are free at last”Martin Luther King Jr.
What was then the spirit of civil rights revolt in Martin Luther King Jr. is in recent times a successful and satisfying story in the soul of General Collin Powell as Secretary Of State of United States of America. What was then the spirited struggle against racial discrimination in the great turbulent times by Rosa Parks is now the sprouted seed called Condoleezza Rice as a towering tree of black and non white achievement in the great American dream.
In astrology Mid-Heaven is considered as the single most important angle in the birth chart. It is an angle astrologers will look for in the life time of a person where one’s career, his overall reputation, his ultimate aspirations and goal in life is revealed and either revelled or reviled.
James Redfield’s phenomenal success of “The Celestine Prophesy” was followed by another international bestseller “The Tenth Inside”, that makes me wonder whether is there a connection between the titled book and the mid-heaven forming the cusp of the 10th house (almost always) in the Placidus House System. In fact Vedic Astrology also uses 12 houses as much as Western Astrology does.
A good mid-heaven will certainly assure great name and fame where-else an afflicted mid-heaven will spell doom and disaster for the reputation of a person. A nation as a whole is also included by an astrological study called Mundane Astrology.
For the believers of Free Will as opposed to Fate, the path to the door of a great mid-heaven is almost always reached after great struggles and sacrifices. Looking at the great American history, one can only conceptualize all the trials and tribulations a nation must go through before reaching that great mid-heaven.
The war with the British leading to 4th of July, the Civil War, the struggles of the people and their exodus in search of the elusive American dream, The Great Depression, the Second World War and the Civil Rights movement are but a few significant examples of the things a nation must go through before great reputation is achieved.
I have no idols but only their Ideology. At times I may be totally disgusted with what some leaders have to say, only to be awe inspired later by the same leaders. We come across many a times such awe inspiring leaders who at other times can be nothing but a great disappointment. It only goes to show that no one is perfect.
There is neither a zestless zero nor a perfect ten in leadership. Only history can judge whether it is a paltry one or near perfect ten. But contrary to the cynical minds, I am all too convicted that our country is endowed with leaders (and of civil society) whose calibre is of world standard who will gradually shape the nation not as many loosely knotted strings but as one solid unsnapping rope.
Look around the countries the world over with a microscopic view of its leaders involvement with its own citizens, we will begin to see that our country can be a model state on how to embrace and administer a multi cultural, multi ethnic and multi religious society which is still in its growing stage. 49 years is too short a period to judge a nation and its march to the famed mid-heaven.
Yes! I have agonized over the deep rooted prejudices that lie simmering in the hearts of various culturally, ethnically and religiously diverse people of this country but for the many who can see and feel nothing but prejudices it can be a sad tale of the same prejudices visiting them.
Look harder.
And the truth unravels right in our midst and the many gripping episodes and stories of unity in diversity come imposing on us as crystal clear images from the cloudy skies and thunders in one single voice:-
WE ARE MALAYSIANS IN HEART AND SOUL!
A Tunku of Malay descent makes an impassioned plea for national unity anchored on a morally correct education system for all races. He spoke for all and not for just one single race. So moving were his words that reading it alone will not be sufficient. It deserves a place in our well documented national record books that our children can one day flip the pages and proudly say that our forefathers fought for the rights of all and not just a single race.
Not long ago a politician of Chinese descent without looking at the colour but only the contents of the case fought and defended bravely the rights of a Malay girl and for all his gallantry he was swiftly 'rewarded' with many lonely nights in incarceration only to come free from his imprisonment and feeling more resolute in fighting for the rights of all.
Two exceedingly bright lawyers, brothers in ties never had it crossing their mind of being Indians/ Sri Lankans and anything remotely closer to it and became the darlings for all races in a northern city famed for its black shining ore and its tasty Hor Fun in bowls.
There are other stories, of defending the Constitution and of facing death threats, of Muslims coming in protection for Christians, Christians in defense of Muslims, of Hindus, of Buddhists, of Sikhs all praying for one another’s well being.
But at the same time there are these gloomy feelings of disenchantments, disappointments, frustrations and hopelessness. But unlike many years ago, these moods are pouring out in the streets, in the tea stalls, in the lecture halls and in the forum halls and our civil society leaders are risking their life and reputation for a better tomorrow for all Malaysians.
These are clear signs of the appointed time where all Malaysians are inching closer to the mid-heaven of our time.
Thankfully for the Americans, both whites and non whites, the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks did not abandon their brothers and sisters in waste lands during the great turbulent times in search of their own greener pasture elsewhere. And their sacrifices were never in vain for all Americans.
Freedom is not in our limbs but in our minds.
And the day must and will come to pass when all the people of this great nation stand at the door of that famed Mid-Heaven, in soul and spirit and thunder in one voice,
Free At Last! Free At Last! Thank God we are Free At Last!