To know Malaysia is to love Malaysia. This familiar phrase was the key feature of a saccharine advertising campaign that successfully wooed Western tourists to our green lands not so many years ago.

This sentence rings true for us locals too, but we look beyond the sun-dappled hills and our characterful cuisine to find that our political and social problems leave us no choice but to love this foundling of a nation.

Otherwise we have only the dank refuge of disillusionment and apathy. Many would like to think we banished this black dog of depression on March 8. But it is only too easy to lapse into it again. After all, we have battled it for decades.