malaysian?

"Malaysia - Truly Asia"

Sounds idealic doesnt it? I love my country, its fantastic food, the amazing traffic jams, the myriad of shopping-breeding malls for consumerism, censorship crazy government and its kiasu people all clambering for the biggest/longest/thickest entries into the malaysia book of records.

As every nation, or person for that matter, has its advantages and otherwise, to truly love it, you have to accept it for exactly what it is.

But there are some things which are not tolerable.

Racism is not.

We are all citizens of Malaysia, no matter what color we are, where our ancestors came from, what language we speak, what God we pray to. This is what the government tells us, and wants us to believe. Through its open houses, the ad campaigns for tourism, the tear-jerking TV ads during festivals, through its countless newspaper articles espounding to the people and the world that we live in a harmonious, equal country.

It sounds like the government is trying to convince itself, desperately repeating an untruth in hopes that it might brainwash everyone into it becoming reality.
The bureaucray doth protest too much. And nobody is fooled.

We do NOT live in such a country. Superficially, we might look like we live in peace. But scratch just a little under the surface, pockets of inequality and seeds of discontent flourish like maggots on a carcass.

The bumiputeras might have been here first, maybe that sense of rape from the arrival of immigrants might have disorientated the original inhabitants and created fear, for people are always afraid of change, therefore they did not want other races to have the same rights that they had.

But face the facts, we have built this country together.
It means that each and everyone of us have contributed to what Malaysia has become today.
No one race is superior over the other. No one race can do without the other. No one race deserves more priveleges than the other.

It's an unspoken fact that everyone, and i mean everyone, feels strongly about this issue. Fears of violence and death and a repeat of history has kept our mouths sewn. Yet how long can and will we remain silent.

Two or three generations down the road, memories of May '69 would be nothing but a whisper, we would have forgotten the fear. Yet the seeds would have now grown to be buds of discontent, and soon it will flower and burst into full bloom. Beautiful and deadly.
How many people can fit into the cells of the ISA then? Or would the government be so adept at squashing rebels that not even a breath of protest would be allowed to exist?

The people ARE the country. They are the nation's children. And when a child is treated unfavourably compared to its siblings, it suffers under the knowlegde that he is not loved the same, and he will not grow up wholesome.

The children of Malaysia are victims of prejudice, and I am afraid that one fateful day, the nation will have to reap the harvest of the seeds it has sown.

Seeds of inequality. Seeds of discontent. Seeds of hate.

I am half afraid half hopeful that day would arrive soon. I do not want to witness the rivers of blood or the mountains of bodies. I wish things could change and solved rationally, peacefully through mutual consent yet history has taught us that revolutions cannot happen without bloodshed, it is the nature of man to conquer by force. I am afraid that we would never recover from the death and violence required by change, yet i am hopeful, for crops destroyed in a fire fertilize the soil and life flourishes after.

Maybe what we need is the fire, then we might be reborn like a phoenix from its ashes, more striking, more beautiful, more alive than it was.