Give Your Opinion

Let me get this straight: This is a rant.

So if you don't like to read outbursts filled with teenage angst and pent-up anger, you need to leave. As in, now.

Still here? I warned you.

Should Rashid have done(insert action)? Please give your opinion...

My opinion?

It is so heartening that for once, people actually want to know my opinion. Whenever I feel an urge to speak up, more often than not I'm deprived of a right to do so. So it's great that finally people want to know, even for such a trivial matter.

Except they don't.

We've all been here before, haven't we? The question in your English/Malay/Chinese/Science exam innocently says "give your opinion on some matter in a text. Apparently they want to know, and they want to listen. Except if you give them any answer or any other opinion that doesn't match theirs, you're screwed.

So that's what their definition of "giving our opinion" is.

This is something I've been furious of for a long time now. Granted, everyone faces it, and there are better(or worse, depending on how you look at it) things to worry about, but this is small matter is the apex of a very large problem affecting everyone belonging to the normal rakyat.

Yes, it's that serious.

When young people: school-going children and teens are exposed to this kind of repressing of opinion and ideas, they learn to be One Kind of People-Must always give the same answers for questions, even subjective ones. Must never wander away from the crowd. Must always follow the wishes of the authorities.

In short: Must never, ever be different.

If you're going to ask me for my opinion, then I'm damn well going to do that. I don't care whether you feel that Rashid should indeed have paid the money, because I simply think he doesn't need to. I don't care if you think that Duke Michael is the only character I should write about in literature, because if it's my opinion, I'm damn well going to write about anyone I want.

And if you're going to ask me questions like, "If you were the king of(insert stupid country), what would you have done to save it?", I'm going to pick any of the four answers as I please, or even none of them if I feel they don't represent "my opinion".

Still want to cling on to your answer? Your opinion? Fine, but by all means DO NOT dip to such low standards and pretend to ask us our opinion, only to deny us of it when it comes to answer time. Cause if you dare to ask, I will sure as hell answer likewise.