The Known World

*After 2 years and 2 months I finally reformatted my laptop*

“Sweet Dessert”

I have a habit. When ever I go to any shopping complex I always look for bookshops. It is a must for me to at least enter for a few seconds and go out again. I just have this habit for quite sometime now.

I rarely buy anything even though I spend most of my time in the bookshop. I found peace looking at hundreds or thousands of books lying neatly on the shelves. I love reading the titles and find some funny titles.

Last week was a bit different. I actually bought a novel. Thinking back, I am jealous with my brother. He has a lots of novels and he read them all. I was looking for a title when I went to the bookshop but then after the keeper checked, the title was not in the record. Then I decided to pick any novel.

The Known World

I picked this book. Reasons…first because it is Pulitzer prize winner. I just wonder why it got the prize. I assume that this book had been read by lots of good judges and chose it as the winner. Second reason because in my wallet there was a 50 note and so… I can afford the novel. (I learned that the New York Times Best-selling usually means nothing to the quality of the story.)

Up to the moment I finished about 70 pages. I read very slow because I always refer to dictionary when I read. So basically what’s the story all about…

Slavery

Personally I never understand what a human slavery really means. The general setting of the story was during America still under slavery law. It was around the time Sarawak still under Brunei Empire to give some impression when was it. I’m not sure Tanah Melayu was under whom during that time. Is far as I’m concerned I never told that in our soil there was any kind of human slavery. So there is totally no imagination about what slavery is.

Human as property

This is the concept of slavery from my understanding. A slave is considered a thing a good a property. In other word a slave is not worthy of being a human. It is not considered as one. When I keep reading and reading the concept become clear and fairly simple. However I really can’t imagine how a human treat another human as if it is not.

Benevolent Master

I can’t tell anything about the whole story up to now but generally the beginning of the story was mostly about benevolent masters. I found that not much about the abuse. To my amusement, one of the main character was a Black (African American) slave master which was really weird and rare during those times.

My Known World

I only know slavery as a joke but I never actually think deep about it. I also listen to the radio (BBC World Service) about these kind of heavy topic. But I never quite understand. I have been born totally free and has all (some) the rights since. What does it feel to be born not free? To be born just merely to follow orders. Never have any rights even to think. Let alone to express feeling.

Here, There, and Now

Our country as far as I learn never has any slavery. The only problem and the only blame we always put was on the “Divide and Conquer” done by the Colonial. In a few days the country (US) that once has a slavery as their law will vote for their president. And the best thing about it is, one of the presidency candidate is an African American (A race that once a slave). What if or imagine here (Malaysia) a non-native become a vice prime minister and I don’t say a prime minister. It is absolutely an unimaginable thing.

After all we are just a clone country that born from the model of Great Britain. We follow almost everything that Great Britain does and did. After all  we are just merely less than 50 years old in comparison with US that has hundreds of years of history. After all we are still too young.

Imagine a race that once a slave become a king. Here none of us is ever a slave but all were and are always equally human. Maybe I reckon the US is basically following the law of the jungle which is survival of the fittest or the The strong shall live and the weak shall die

We are a proud beholder of the law of the human. The strong will protect the weak and the weak shall be protected but only and only if they are worthy human means, we will not protect those who are not considered human a.k.a slave….erm…the concept seems to go around again…Just imagine what idoes it feel to be born a lesser person than another…