Hardly a Malaysian

Some time not too long ago, Rizal said this to me in relation to a comment on Asiaworks:

“I wish more Malays would take these courses and open their eyes and see that this country is not just about them but that there are other people and other races and other religions that live in this country as well. The Malays think the world revolves around them.”

As the days go by, I find that living in this country become less tolerable for the fact that the majority of the population believe that Malaysia = Melayu.

True, I married a Malay but he can hardly be called pure (Javanese+Chinese+Indian) even though I am pure Chinese. And if we looked closer at many of Malaysia’s citizens, they have managed to shy away from inbreeding and gone the way of mixing up their blood and making their culture even more interesting.

Therefore, how can people (the government especially) believe that Malaysia = Melayu?

“What matters isn’t the country or what the government does but the company we keep: our friends and family,” says Rizal.

True, but how do you educate the rest of the people because it’s still an issue: there aren’t many of us who think the way we do.

And what difference is it then, to move to another country and make it our own, since it doesn’t matter which country we live in? I can honestly say that I have no feelings or patriotism for Malaysia whatsoever.

It’s hard to feel grateful to a country which closes a blind eye to the brain drain to our neighboring Singapore just so that they can fill their ridiculous education quota in the local universities here. It’s difficult to drum up patriotism when opportunities are not given to the deserving and they have to look elsewhere for help. How about supplying goods to the government? We sell through bumi dealers because the company is not bumi-owned. That works out fine but some of these bumi companies just sit on their butts waiting for orders to fall in while we are busting our butts doing the work.

The Chinese will always find a way to make things work, no matter what the situation. Even with the NEP, we’ve found ways around it. We know, more than anyone that you can’t sit around waiting for that silver spoon to be passed on to you: there is no such thing. You don’t get very far in life expecting the good things to fall in your lap just like that.

I’d like to think of myself as Malaysian but there really is no reason to other than the fact that I was born in this country. I love the nature there is in this country, but even that is slowly being eroded by development.

Since globalization is the order of the day, it is with feeling that I say I am a citizen of the world.