Estranged Home

"Here in my home..." In the first place, i honestly thought that the whole idea is cliche. Don't get me wrong; the song is good. The lyrics are beautiful and the melody as well as the whole composition of the song were done nicely. Two thumbs up for Pete Teo and his fellow comrades. I seriously look up to their optimism and effort.

Pessimism however, got the best of me, as i find myself questioning the Malaysian Artiste For Unity Project. I asked, "Is this song really going to make any difference to the racial polarization in this country?"

I took Italian for my third-language course and the man teaching my Italian class was real Italian. I remember him asking me, "Why does it matter so much whether you're a Chinese, or Malay, or Indian, or Sabahan?" I guess I must have sounded a bit defensive when he mistook me as a West Malaysian.

In another incident, during my second year in uni, we were given this assignment to interview foreign ambassadors and i got myself the Ambassador of Cuba. He told me that in his country, "we don't have classifications like Malaysia does. When people ask what race are we, the only answer there is, is Cuban." Imagine how sick i felt of our country then.

Why is there racial polarization? Why do some people who were born and raised here, and had stayed here for the past donkey years still feel outcasted? Why does a Malay still generalize Indians and vice versa? Why do East Malaysians still refer to Peninsular Malaysia as 'tempat orang'? Is not this our place too?

When I first got here three years ago and looked around me, I noticed one major difference between this 'tempat orang' and the place where I come from (Sabah); segregation. The Malays will sit and eat with the Malays, the Chinese walk with the Chinese, the Indians hang out with the Indians. There was only one time when I saw that color didn't matter; in church. And that was it. Being an East Malaysian gives me the priviledge of being friends with all the main races, and the other will just talk bad about the other.

At that point on, all my beliefs about harmonious + united nation of Malaysia, shaped by all the unity ads i saw on TV and heard in radio, crushed. It was further damaged by this stupid talks and lectures delivered to us in campus. I was so loathed by how the speakers urging - in high-pitched voices, practically shouting - the Malays to fight and stand for their race and religion. Maybe they forgot that there were East Malaysians among the audience, or Malays whose parents might have been of Chinese or Indian heritage. Racist.

I immediately had my perception about racism completely turned upside-down. For a while in my life, I was tempted to buy all the notion of racism and chauvinistics; to hate the other races and fight for our rights. But in my life, i was blessed enough to meet nice people, and these people do not come from just one race; they vary. There are nice Chinese and bad Chinese. There are nice Indians and bad Indians. There are nice Malays and bad Malays. There are nice East Malaysians and bad ones. Translation; whether a person is good or bad, it is not up to his/her race/religion to determine it.

Apart from broadcasting harmonious, united multi-racial one nation ads, the government really is not doing anything more about this problem. When asked to, they denied that we have any of such problem in Malaysia. Hypocrites.

For a start, they can begin with the racial and religion classifications requirement when filling in official/unofficial forms for any applications. Just what is the need for that anyway? So that they (authorities) can give priority to the 'bangsa rasmi' of this country? Now how is that fair? I'm just sick of having have to be labeled as "Lain-lain", when the East Malaysians are the aboriginals of this country and makes up more than half the population (read more on http://amyswavelength.blogspot.com/2008/03/letter-to-whom-it-may-concern.html).

I was at the monorail station waiting for the next train and i overheard a Chinese kid, not more than five years old, asking his dad at the point of seeing another Chinese family, "Hey dad look, they're Chinese too." His nodded with a smile. The kid looked around and stopped at the point of seeing an Indian kid with his family as well, and asked his dad, "Are they Chinese too?" His dad of course answered, "No, they're Indians." The same question asked when the kid saw a Malay kid, and the dad answered, "No, they're Malays." The kid must have heard the homophonic of Malays and Malaysia and asked the dad, "They're Malaysians?" to which his dad asnwered yes. He continued asking, "Aren't we Malaysian too?" And the dad told him, "It's not the same," and the conversation ended there.

I cannot quite make out what his means by saying "It's not the same." But I could detect some bitterness in pointing that out.

The government and other ignorant, indifferent people should really stop pretending like everything's okay between us. They should stop emphasizing so much on what race a person is and stop giving special rights to different races and religion. Why don't we all just be a Malaysian?