RIFLE RANGE BOY

He had heard of it all. At every corner, the naysayers were there. They were free with unsolicited advice that he should not forget where he came from, that the pinky would only grow to the size of the thumb, and that a sparrow should not dream of flying majestically like an eagle.   As if the road ahead was not uncertain enough, these doomsday philosophers jumped on the bandwagon to sow the seeds of doubt.  Already in turmoil, trying to pull oneself by the bootstraps, the negative vibes are the last that anyone wants to hear. But they yak on... He was raised in an environment where he was told to respect others and not to tell somebody off on the face; he would just smile it off.   The element of doubt still lingered, however. The quandary was whether he was indeed doomed to fail. With perceived divine guidance, he persevered.  He had the grace of his family as well. The answer to his doubt must have been answered finally. Not only has he proved his critics wrong, b...

Under the guise of surveillance, imperial powers went to all four corners of the world. Their true intentions, as was eventually discovered by the locals, were reconnaissance work to ascertain terrains and landscapes for economic potentials and geopolitical purposes, not for the development of mankind. Neither was it to garner scientific facts to explore our civilisation. It was business. The icing on the cake was exploring how natives could eventually be 'civilised' via Western education and the introduction of The Book. From the 18th century onwards, the Western world was excited, discovering new exotic lands with wealth beyond belief. Pretty soon, no combative teams started scouting new lands in Africa, India, China and various other parts of Asia. Under the guise of doing land surveying, whites were seen around Afghanistan, Siberia, the Middle East and the Far East. When geopolitical turmoils embroiled in these regions, the armies of the imperial forces suddenly found their...

China's ten-dashed line map 2023. Learned a new word today - cartographic aggression. In simple terms, it is the act of shoving a map in front of someone's face and expecting the someone to respect its boundaries. This is the age-old form of exerting geopolitical dominance, failing which the aggressor will have justification to attack and usurp the non-conformer. Back at a time when the term Europeans and Flat-Earthers were interchangeable, early Portuguese voyagers managed to put their new discoveries on hand-drawn maps. These maps were State-guarded secrets. Everyone wanted to lay their hands on them to go another nautical mile. In 1538, Geradus Mercator, from a region around the Netherlands (a region known as low countries, which included Belgium and Luxembourg) with available information around him, put up the first world map. He mapped out Asia as separate from the Americas before the discovery of the Bering Straits. The East India Company, after establishing their first p...