Malaysia Day? Why Not?

For the past couple of years or so, I've read more about ethnic & religious harmony, and national unity in newspapers and seen or heard it on broadcast, than I ever did in my last 25 years of living as a Malaysian. I don't really know how I feel about it. How do you feel about it?

In a way, it's a good thing; every minister in the cabinet came out saying, "Malaysians are lucky to be able to live in a multiracial yet harmonious country..." or "Our achievements today would not have been possible without the unity and stability that we've kept all these years..." or "The government safeguards the needs of all races and religions in ensuring everyone's development..." And then our beloved and respected Prime Minister Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak would every now and then appear on TV to spread the 1Malaysia ideology... Romantic, isn't it?

Okay, sarcasm aside, I do honestly sometimes think that it's a great thing. But what pisses me off is the fact that, before this whole 1Malaysia thing started, before all the ministers and the Prime Minister himself emphasized and kept mentioning about national unity and ethnic harmony these days, we never admitted that we were a racist country for a very long time.

To prove that, we are still so used to classifying ourselves by race and religion, or which state we come from. I can safely say that I'm one of the most non-racist or non-religion-classification-judgmental person (if you have a better noun or adjective for that, please correct me) I know. But to this very day, even after all the studies and experiences that I went through to become the non-racist person that I am today, I'm still tempted to answer, "Sino-Kadazan," or "Sabahan" or "Catholic" when being asked of my race or religion. That is not the worst part. The worst part is, there is a little sense of pride when I say that. Like a chauvinistic somehow... And that's sad...

Whether we like or not, or more importantly, whether we admit it or not, we are proud to be the race that we are, more than we are about our nationality. In a way, that's great. But in a larger perspective, that's not a really nice picture. At least I think so. That is because we are not proud as Malaysians. Even more sadly, I don't think we even identify ourselves as Malaysians, but as our respective races, state of origin, and religions instead.. Prove? Quick test; Try to answer "Malaysian," whenever anyone asks you what race you are. It's not that easy (I've tried). You would find yourself pausing before you could answer "Malaysian." And even when you managed to, I bet that the person at the other end would say something like, "Ya lah, I know. But what race?" Get it?

It's not your fault or mine. I think a huge contributing factor to our mindset today, is the fact that we were subconsciously trained to (I can go into details about this years of 'subconscious training', but that would definitely defeat the purpose of this post). It got so bad that I was ever even asked, "Sudah brapa lama di Malaysia?" by someone from the Peninsular, upon learning that my friends and I are from Sabah & Sarawak. This is an experience that I believe so many others share.

But sadness, anger, and disappointment aside, regardless of how long it took the government to declare September 16th as a MALAYSIA DAY, regardless of how many requests and arguments presented and brought forward to the government to finally acknowledge the day Sabah & Sarawak joined Malaya to FORM MALAYSIA, I think we should just all rejoice that well, Sept 16th is NOW Malaysia Day.

And despite the fact that the 1Malaysia concept came about a little too late I would say (although I think Dato' Seri Najib should have came up with the idea before the March 2008 general election to make it look more real and believable), maybe we should just all put our doubts, differences, disagreements (and sarcasms) aside, and give it a shot. 1Malaysia, People First, Performance Now? Why not. *wink wink*

Happy Malaysia Day everyone.

Cheers!

On the Herald Issue

I love the Catholic Lawyers' Society of KL folks.

Here's what they have to say about the silly issue that shouldn't even be an issue. Read here.

There are things about Christianity that he (the Home Minister) obviously does not (neither wishes to) understand; that it is universal. Translation; it involves every aspect of life, even the littlest ones. And this is about our government, about the future of our leaders. Is it wrong to update other fellow Christians about what's happening and at the same time ask them to pray for a fair election? Which part of the constitution says that?

Yeap, another one of those religious casualties. Yawn.

Why Selfish?

It's common sense that any issue, problem, or crisis, can be best resolved by discussing it, talk about it, find out what's the root of it all, what can be done, etc. But apparently, a majority of dumbass Malaysians (excuse the language. I wanted to use the word 'stupid', but it's too nice) prefer to just sit on it with no questions asked.

No? Really? So tell me, why was it that a number of about 400 people gathered at the headquarters of the Bar Council while they were having a forum? Sadly, the police, our ministers, even our Prime Minister and his Deputy, as well as our Education Minister, openly displayed their stupidity and dumbness by asking the Bar Council to not proceed with the forum. And when the Bar Council went on with it anyway and got protested against, the so-called respected, all-for-unity and harmony, just and fair top leaders called them stubborn, and speaks as if saying, "I told you so." Actually, that's what they said, only, it was in Malay language.

I hate to use the word stupid or dumbass when describing our leaders and a majority of our rakyat, but here's the thing; The forum was about discussing - DISCUSSING - the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court/Law and Civil Court/Law, which obviously got a lot of people, especially the non-Muslims, confused. Many are dissatisfied about it and so, they found a way to resolve it peacefully, professionally, and dare I say fairly, coz there were representatives from all possible sides to offer opinons and answer questions. Three-hours before the scheduled closure, some major idiots came with banners and sepanduks saying, "Jangan mencabar Islam." Right...

Now, let me get this straight; discussing rights and jurisdiction, and mencabar... Hmm... Can someone show me the clear relevance to that?

Worse, our beloved Prime Minister came out with a statement that encourages us not to discuss 'sensitive' matters like religion and race. So in a way, he is saying that if we are being robbed off our rights, we should just shut up and live with it even if they rub it all on our face. Kudos, Datuk.
I have friends who are Malays and Muslims as well, and we have no problem hanging out together. We talk about religion and race openly, with no major arguments that could lead us to hate each other and what we're made of. And of course, obviously, these people I know personally are nothing like those idiots up there. I put the blame fully on them coz instead of trying to resolve racial tensions in the country, they are actually firing it up and encouraging us to sit on problems that could be easily solved if only people try to understand. Unbelievable. I'm utterly disgusted with the government, as well as the oppositions (PKR, PAS) who were actually leading the protest.

I know very well that Islam is a religion of peace and love and tolerance and justice, because i studied it for three years. But if this is how the people of Malaysia (you know who you are) depicts it, I don't think I would favor people of that belief or race anymore. Would it be too much to ask for you people to just try to understand other religions and race, like how we've understood your religion for decades?

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?

Not Politically Motivated?

Anyone with the right mind would know that the arrest of you-know-who yesterday afternoon was politically motivated. What the hell was the Home Minister talking about?? “Whatever action being taken is according to the due process of the law... not poolitically motivated.”

Blimey. When an ordinary citizen gets sued for an offence, the summon letters come a week after. Yesterday we see that they had preponed the arrest. My my. When you said 2pm, then 1.59pm would still be considered as breaching the deal. One must be precise about these kind of things especially when it's regarding anything that includes the law.

When asked, they simply answered, they were afraid that he would not showed up. Okay, so he did not turn up on Monday and the authotirities are scared that he'd do it the second time. But yesterday, they did know that he was at the ACA for questioning and then called him up to confirm whether or not he was showing up at the police headquarters, a question to which he replied yes. He even asked the ACA to cut it short as he's afraid that he was going to be late. Well, they had asked that the so-called sodomist (i still refuse to believe he has any reason to f*** that 23-year-old-probably-bribed-victim-of-a-political-ploy guy) go straight to the police HQ from ACA. Okay, so he had taken a different route to stop by hus house. Can't a man say goodbye to his family and maybe freshen up a bit? He'd been at the ACA being questioned the whole morning. Not politically motivated, u say? ( http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/).

I can imagine how these guys wake up yesterday morning and anticipated the time to come for them to arrest the de facto leader, dying to get their hands on him and have him arrested. It's probably not their fault. They are just being paid to do it, it's their job. It's the people that they're working for that i pity. The way the government handle this is soo terrible that now they're making a so-called sodomist look like a hero, and themselves like big-bad, foolish giants.

p/s: If Michael Moore is of this country, we would have a movie out of this. Our political scene is just so soap-opera, as one of my friends said. We have a so-called sodomist as an opposition party leader, and a possible murderer as the Deputy Prime Minister. How cool can a government be. *wink wink*

Cheers.

Yet Another Religious Casualty

It had been the talk of our classes on a daily basis, "Boycott Dutch products." Me, obviously, and my two other non-Muslim friends couldn't care less. And no, it's not because the film wasn't anything regarding my faith, or that we're agreeing with Geert Wilders' ideas and opinions. Well, okay, maybe it's a bit of the former. But here's the thing, Christianity, probably especially Catholicism had been "wrongly perceived" too, and badly presented (my vocab is worsening by the minute) for so long. Did we make a big fuss out of it? I'll get back to you later.

This whole "Fitna" issue suddenly brings me back to the things that had happened previously, issues regarding religion matters. When we were discussing it in the class this morning, i was suddenly reminded of the Da Vinci Code movie issue. Wait a minute, hold it; for the past couple of years studying in a university, i would know it's an issue if it's talked about in class as a discussion. Previously, there was the caricature issue; Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. was depicted as the head of Jihad. And now this, misinterpretation of the Holy Qu'ran (just what is wrong with the Dutch). Yes, these i consider as issues as we were asked to discuss them in class. Obviously, it is always when Islam is being humiliated, negatively presented and lowly put. Of course, it's only right because the said religion is the official religion of the country and its a majority. But as a democratic country cultivating freedom of religion, harmony and all, don't you think that when other religions are being mocked and contradicted, they should be openly discussed a well?

I remember when Gibson's Passion of the Christ was released, it wasn't shown in cinemas in Malaysia. And even the VCDs came out on the market only weeks after its release. And not long after that, Da Vinci Code came out; it was an immediate blockbuster film, up and going in cinemas across the nation. Note that these are two very contradicting on each other. The first one promoting (no, that's not the word, just what is wrong with my vocab these days), or more of in support of the Catholics, while the other one completely deject the Holy Trinity and depict Jesus Christ as a human being. And which one made it to the cinemas in Malaysia, and which one did not? Doesn't that get you thinking?I made it a point to bring it up for discussion someday and i just did today (well, since we were already talking about religion). Surprisingly, some of my fellow friends of the different creed do not even know about Mel Gibson's movie. I don't blame them. The one to blame is, (i hate to mention the big G word), no, not God, you silly. The Government. Or the enforcement, or whoever it is that is in authority. My lecturer then asked if the churches in Malaysia did anything about it (bising-bising as she would say it), and i replied, "Even if we did, i don't think the mainstream media won't pay enough attention to it" and don't ask me why coz i'm not about to make any assumptions. The point is, why is it when our religion is being mocked like that, it doesn't become an issue?

A Letter To Whom It May Concern

Dear Dato',

Look, I appreciate the government's efforts in maintaining the peace and constantly ensuring the development of this country. And i know you and your people up there are worried sick by now; worried that you'll lose the upcoming election, seeing that the opposition is doing pretty well in trying to convince electorates to "VOTE FOR CHANGE". But why should you worry? The EC is obviously on your side of the game. Can't you see that they're doing everything to ensure your victory, even changing the rules the way they like and whenever they like it (I'm referring to the EC's sudden decision to not use the indelible ink for voting, four days before the big day. Four days). So, why worry? You guys have been winning the election for the past 50 years what. Why worry now, why wouldn't the EC cover your ass now, right? So just sit back and relax. We the citizens know what the government has been doing for us and there's no need for you nor the oppositions to affect our decisions and our stands. You don't have to tell us to not believe what the opposition had said. Neither do they have to convince us. We KNOW very well in our being that IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE. You see, it's a knowledge, which used to be an unconfirmed opinion. Now it's a stand.

I think that we've tolerating the government's nonsense for years now. I'm not trying to be racist, or bring up religious matters up and trying to relate it to political issues. But the truth is, it is interrelated, and yes, it affects the way we think about the governance about this country.

I'm a Catholic Sabahan. Being a Sabahan is one, being a Catholic is another. The one issue that is never even made an issue is the "lain-lain" classification of my race, our race, the aboriginals of what makes up larger than 50% of the country. When filling in forms of applications of what sorts, there are only four classifications of races; Melayu, Cina, India, Lain-lain. Sometimes, they'd be nice and put Bumiputera instead of Lain-lain. But even if so, why are we differently Bumiputera classified than the Melayu? It's bitter to talk about this. 50 so called years of independence and we still reasons to argue with the ruling party. Sad.

That's one thing (and trust me, you don't want me to go on talking more about it, it's tiring). The second matter is even worse. I'm sorry to say, the way the leaders in Malaysia (not all of them) interpret Islam is very scary, biased, and radical.We, the ones considered as minority religions (and i'm not just talking about Christians) had tolerated, closed our eyes and let our constitutional rights being ripped from us, conscious or unconsciously. I'd say that these leaders say one thing in front of us and say another behind us, when they're with their "crew". It's not impossible for me to list down a few of things that i feel unnecessary, ridiculous, unfair, and even cruel committed by the authority towards people of its different beliefs, race and creed. But that may take forever, coz a lot had taken place.

So dear Dato' Sri, that is why i want to vote for change. That's why there's a lot of us who wants to vote for change. I'd said earlier that i appreciate the government's efforts in maintaining the peace of this country, and I mean it. But keep in mind that peace had only survived because we've been tolerating your nonsense, and tolerance has a limit. Don't take it for granted.

Crossword Puzzle Over Chauvinism

Fortunately i brought my crossword puzzle book along. At least i had something to do rather than listen to another prolonged, time-consuming (or time-wasting i would say), baseless, crappy speech about special rights of a certain race. Okay, Malay. There you go, i said it (and yes it makes me sick already alright, so sue me).
I did not expect to gain much from the talk/speech/or whatever you call it, that my lecturer asked all of me classmates to attend. But i honestly did not expect to be injected with chauvanistic/racist statements either. The moment he said out loud that "kita tidak harus pandang ringan hak kita sebagai M...", I rolled my eyes and sighed, "Here we go again..." Seriously, when will you people (not all the Malays, only those who is so into chauvinism) ever stop?
Trust me, i'm not racist, nor do i support people who talks about it. But you know what, it makes me sick to hear some of 'em "clever" so-called leaders who keep on talking about fighting for racial rights and shit. Melayu ka, India ka, sama ja semua. I thought we're supposed to be a harmonius multi-racial country and our fore-fathers had long instilled in us a pride in the fact that although we're all different, we're all one. To this very day we're still able to see and hear leaders of our nation saying "Kita harus berbangga kerana kita adalah bangsa terbilang..." Ah, bullshit. Hypocrites. We keep on putting this front to other nations that we're all united and able to work together as one nation. But what truly happens is that we keep making fuss about our special rights, demanding to be given extra attention than the other races. And just why the hell there are special rights implemented in the constitution if really, REALLY we're all about unity and harmony?
If there was anything anyone ever did wrong in the history of Malaysia, it would be putting down the Union Jack and replacing it with...you know what. I was once proud to be a Malaysian. Now i barely care about what happens. Coz the pride had already been broken by completely idiotic individuals who always forgot that we're a multi-racial nation acting as one and moving towards one goal; for the prosperity of the country, and just can't seem to stop 'bising-bising' pasal hak-hak mereka like drawing out a Keris when doing his speech. Racist.