hari hartal

oh well, since everybody (well almost… everybody of SoPo bloggers i mean) were blogging about this, i might as well jump in the bandwagon too… before midnight strikes, thus no more 20 oct. haha.

i guess not many of you heard of hari hartal, no? (hartal, ok, not natal… which is coming up in dec). well yes i haven’t heard of it until today (ok don’t ask which tempurung i had been hiding).

what is hartal?

hartal – a term used in many Indian languages, meaning "strike action". It is a total shutdown of workplaces, shops, and businesses, and is a form of civil disobedience used often during the Indian independence movement.

basically, hari hartal (hartal day) is, as seen in the graphic above, a day of the public’s democratic struggle. 60 years ago, hartal happened in our country. 60 years ago from 2007, which means in 1947. 1947 – that is 10 years before 1957… 10 years before merdeka.

based on this 10 years before merdeka, a young filmmaker, fahmi reza, had put together a documentary film. this film of his was one of the winner during the recent KOMAS freedom film fest (the other winner was my ‘beardy’ friend, ong!). to make sure that many people enjoy his film, he has now make his film available on the net for any ah sam, samad, samy, samuel to watch.
the movie tells of how 5 individuals retold their stories of malaya’s struggle for independence 10 years before merdeka.

if you want to watch the film on video on the net, you can go to the blogs of my fellow bloggers like bob, walski and elizabeth and of course fahmi’s own film blog. they (among others) had also blog on this issue – a good lengthy esp. from walski.

i would have put up the video too… IF i know how to do it. yeah, that’s right, can you believe it or not, after 4 years of blogging, i haven’t learn how to put up video on my blog. stupid eh? i know if using blogger, there is a button for posting video but in my wordpress i can’t find that button! although i try to download a video plugin, it did not work at all. so… any good samaritian, esp. those using wordpress.org care to enlighten me?

btw, fehmi’s ‘sepuluh tahun sebelum merdeka’ film will be screened at the malam bangsa malaysia in penang on 3 nov, so esp. to penangites, what are you waiting for – quick register to participate in the malam bangsa malaysia.