May the 4th be with You.
Covid-19 Lockdown D48
How big is the movie Star Wars?
How about owning a day on the calendar?
Yes May the Fourth is unofficially #StarWarsDay worldwide. But if you're a fan, you already know it.
1. Star Wars fans are at least more alive in the calendar year during the launch of a new movie instalment or during May 4th.
2. “May the 4th be with you” started as a pun shared by hard core fans who quickly connected with each other on the internet.
Soon it became grassroots tradition when fans all over the world proclaimed it ’Star Wars Day”
3. The idea, though not created by Lucasfilm, the company embraced and helped spread the spirit of #StarWarsDay and showcased fan activity. Numerous official or unofficial partners have offered sales, giveaways, exclusives and have hosted parties to honour the day.
Ultimately the fans created “Star Wars Day”. Sharing greetings on social media, hosting movie marathons, cooking Star Wars recipes or mixing Star Wars cocktails, each year fans think of more creative ways to mark the occasion.
Apart from a phrase- "May The Force Be With You Luke"- turning into a pun gaining popularity amongst fans worldwide, there are other more significant social and political events that happened on this day since 2011 and through the years;
May 4th, 1919 - China
While the west celebrates Star Wars day, 100 years ago today, Chinese university students from across Beijing launched a movement that changed the cultural and political trajectory of modern China.
This was popularly known as the May 4th movement, Chinese student leaders protested against the Chinese Govt’s kow-towing to the whims of the Western powers at the Treaty of Versailles.
Especially after China joined the allies in the first world war. The arrogance of the allied powers in their time of victory showed a total disregard for the Chinese and their simple request of returning Shandong from the Germans.
In the end, China walked away from the Paris Peace Conference with nothing in hand. Worse yet, Shandong had fallen into the hands of Japan.
The events in Paris have begun to shape China’s post imperial transformation. It led to the birth of a new intellectual class.
Two years later, the Communist Party of China was founded and Mao cited the May 4th movement as a “new stage in China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism.”
May 4th 1979 - Great Britain
“Margaret Thatcher has won the British elections on a Conservative ticket and became Britain’s first woman prime minister.
To celebrate their victory, her party took a half page ad in the London Evening News.
This message referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.’
This was actually the first ever recorded reference to the phrase back in 1979!
Further proof of the extent Star Wars has influenced us all.”
May 4th 2018- Malaysia
After 60 years of a one-party rule, the the kind and gentle folks of this great nation filled with diverse wonders are still left with nothing to show but declining truth and freedom.
Just on the cusp of their 14th General Elections, this wondrous people feels apprehensive that if the incumbent still continues to rule, very little will be left of our once great, rich, and powerful nation blessed with a multitude of multi-talented citizens born of diverse cultures.
So the majority of the people are praying for change but change it seems is difficult as the ruling party has been known to indulge in widespread cheating before and on polling day. And that is precisely why as our nation approaches the final weekend before polling day on May 9th,
May the 4th be with us.
So come join us and let us together make our May 9 as significant alongside May 4.
These were our cries and our hope days before polling back then.
Of course we all know what happened on May 9 of 2018, Malaysians rejoiced on the streets the morning after!
A great upset was staged at the polls when the people voted in a new government formed by a new coalition party, peacefully. It was a new dawn after over sixty years of a one-party rule. Or should I say, misrule?
May 4th 2020- Malaysia
The new coalition party that won the elections just barely two years ago, was still slow to steady the reigns that steered the nation.
While the new and inexperienced politicians were finding their hands and feet at their new administrative roles, our world's oldest Prime Minister squandered the leadership in a game of political musical chairs that ended up with the unlikeliest of winners as the game is likely to yield.
Thus leaving us in a political crisis. To quote a Malay proverb; As if falling down wasn't bad enough, our nation fell and hit the stairs coming down.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world soon after the new PM was sworn-in.
This new PM now leads the country with the slimmest or perhaps with no majority in the Parliament.
His handling of the global pandemic for the nation has been competent until today- when the relaxing of the MCO to CMCO is deemed by many, as premature and a mistake. With the CMCO we could risk a second wave of infections due to the millions of undocumented, and yet-to-be tested foreign labourers on the loose.
May the Fourth Be With Them and contain the coronavirus therein.
Happy Star Wars Day and May the Fourth be with you and stay with you at home until Covid-19 is destroyed like the Death Star.
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