YOURSAY ‘Better let them have their way: play the ‘Janji Ditepati' song and the whole world can judge our Merdeka circus.'

Award-winning lyricist offers to compose new N-Day song

Changeagent: Welcome to Malaysia where there is a panel for everything. We already have time-wasting panels to probe whether TBH (Teoh Beng Hock) was thrown off the MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) building.

We have special panels set up by the federal government over the Selangor 'water crisis' when a visit to the dams would suffice. We also have super-special high performance panels for our national badminton team that does nothing other than to lament the lack of new talents to replace national shuttler Lee Chong Wei.

This in addition to the other redundant super-duper panels to investigate if we have high crime rates, inequitable royalty payments to the oil states, and police brutality during the Bersih rallies when the answers are already painfully obvious.

Given all these, I suppose what's another panel to determine whether 'Janji Ditepati' was copied from an Indonesian gospel song or not?

Anonymous #19098644: Information Minister Rais Yatim, your boss claimed that ‘kebudayaan bodek' (ingratiating) doesn't work with him anymore. So why are you embarrassing Prime Minister Najib Razak with this silly song?

Hang Babeuf: Please, give the full history. "Negaraku" (which is one of the world's most beautiful national anthems, so full of yearning, tenderness and nostalgia, not military bombast and vainglory) was based upon Syaiful Bachri's ‘Terang Bulan'.

But he in turn adapted a tune that the Indonesian nationalists exiled in the Seychelles got from a French political prisoner there, one Jean Beranger, who wrote a heart-strings-tearing song about his yearning for his lady-love back in faraway France, a lady named Rosalie. His song ‘Chere Rosalie' became the basis of ‘Terang Bulan'.

So now you know why the tune of Malaysia's beautiful national anthem is so warm and tender, suffused with rindu , and not in the least militaristic.

Incidentally, the nation owes it to Tunku Abdul Rahman, who hated the new song that was written to serve as the new independent nation's national anthem, and wrote some new words himself to the tune of ‘Terang Bulan'. Among those who then opposed him on the issue were Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Keturunan Malaysia: Some of these jerks just won't understand that it is all about the preference of the majority of Malaysians, and not that of just a few who shove their choice(s) down our throats.

Those were from the yesterdays, which just refused to go away and needed to be kicked in the butts, and pretty soon enough, kick we shall.

Anonymous_3faa: These stubborn and thick-skinned people with bad intentions thought they can get away with such clear-cut abuse of our Merdeka spirit.

Better let them have their way - play the song and the whole world can judge our Merdeka circus.

Odin: Songwriter Hasmi Hashim, your offer is a magnanimous, nationalistic act indeed. But Rais and the rest of the barbarians in Umno Baru will not be able to appreciate your creation.

It would be too advanced and too cultured for them. Nor will they accept it. What they know and appreciate is anything to do with sex. And, of course, how to make lots of kopi-O from mega projects.

2ctsworth: Hasmi, your offer is honourable and much welcome. Needless to say, the Umnoputras will probably take it as an offence.

They will find it an affront to their always right attitude. You may even be taken in for questioning for your traitorous act.

Podeh: Hasmi Hashim and Rais don't seem to see the irony of the whole thing.

The song and lyrics have been seen and sung to much criticism and claims of plagiarism. Now, by offering to re-write the whole thing smells more like a rotting week-old fish.

The song, the melody and the lyrics are already in Malaysians' head and you just can't erase that, just like you can't erase a fond picture of your grandfather. The workings of our brain are much, much more complicated than an eraser.

AkuBangsaMalaysia: Every night during the prime-time news on TV, I wait for this song, but it never seems to be aired yet. Why, why, why?

Merdeka Day is only 26 more days more to go, but the song is still not aired yet on TV.

Thinking Malaysian: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: ‘Negaraku' (English: My Country) is the national anthem of Malaysia.

The tune was originally used as the state anthem of Perak, which was adopted from a popular French melody titled ‘La Rosalie'. Its melody was adapted into the song ‘I Shall Return' by Anne Shelton in 1962.

Bender: "Never in the history of Malaysia has a panel had to be formed to investigate a song," said Hasmi.

Ouch! Spot on, Hasmi. It goes to show what kind of minister Rais Yatim really is...

Tekee: In any case, even ‘better lyrics' won't inspire in a surreal existence.

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