Over the last few days, much has been said about the events of march 8, 2008. I won't be repeating them here. I'm sure there are plenty more talks and events lined up over the next few days and weeks.

Well, on that sunny day in March 2008, millions of people made their way to the polls. However, let us not forget that there are millions more who never felt the need to get up from bed to make that not-so-inconvenient trip to the polling station.

Moreover, there are those who never felt the need to register as a voter in the first place. All in all, I believe some analysts put that figure at something like five million people. That's a lot of people. Enough to change the result completely.

I'm very curious to know what these people have to say, knowing what they know now about the result as it turned out. We could say that any general election for that matter is a critical moment for a citizen to perform his/her duty to the nation and be there as an agent of change.

And especially for the 12yj general election in hindsight, it would have been a realistic outcome to make a radical change. Millions of citizens failed to perform that duty, a duty that could have radically changed the direction of the country and made the need for Sept 16 totally unnecessary.

It could have spared the country the pain it is facing now with the constant face-offs between the Pakatan Rakyat states and the federal government and the continuos pain of being subjected to the threat of the ISA and the MACC and all the instruments of tyranny the have been the hallmark of this country for the last five decades.

Well, so much for those who failed to drag themselves out of bed on that fateful day. Then there are those who did drag themselves to the polling station and made that little effort to tick the box, and even made the conscious decision to go for change.

However, much as they are proud of themselves (and rightly so) with some bragging about ‘teaching BN a lesson’ and ‘giving Pakatan a chance’, please allow me to say that when these people stepped into the polling booth on that day, they were just joining in the battle against tyranny, a battle that was started and had been waged for decades by all the opposition forces from PAS, DAP, PRM, PSM, PKR (the latter in the last decade), etc.

Battles have been won and lost on an uneven battleground. People who think that they have ‘exercised their right’ and done the nation a great service and who now constantly grumble about the economy ‘bickering politicians’ and ‘katak MPs’ should be reminded that their effort is about 0.1% of those who have fought against this tyranny for decades.

Having said all that, victory is in sight. Tyranny will be defeated eventually. People just need to stop grumbling about what Anwar Ibrahim could have done on Sept 16 and ask themselves why five million people didn't do what they are supposed to do.

People need to register to vote, get their friends and family to register and finally drag themselves out to vote when the time comes. People need to stop reading the mainstream media and start reading the alternative media.

People need to start taking the blame for failing to change the country and stop blaming the politicians. Change we can.