Daily misery

As this coming Friday is the Independence Day of Malaysia, it is of course a customary practice for all Malaysian patriots like myself here to share some sort of congratulatory stories about the birth of our nation. Half a century of standing on our own legs, from being an under-developed country to a developing one, all without being tainted by any major, unfortunate dark history such as genocide, civil war or invading or being invaded by another country. Malaysia is a blessed child indeed.

While the nice things I mentioned above are true to some extend, and I have no doubt some of us have fought and are still fighting hard to make it remain so, we are at the same time losing many things that are fundamental to our forefathers’ dream 50 years ago.

At only 50, Malaysia is very ill - sort of like an internal bleeding, if you will. The Orang Utans are dying. Trees are going and gone. Malaysians are having less sex. Keris production is booming. The parliament is turning into a gung-ho chicken fight show. Everyone is depressed. No love at all.

It is best for me to not merry-go-around my readers into believing that I will write an entry with similar tones to the likes of Dr Chris Anthony’s ‘Merdeka – a non-Malay perspective‘ or Meng’s ‘This Merdeka, say ‘no’ to race-based parties‘ or Jac SM Kee’s ‘Nothing to celebrate if we ignore basic rights‘. All great articles I should say, pragmatic and matured tones in most regards but sadly, idling in the after-effects.

Initially, I was kind of hoping if I can throw in a few foul words or include an indecently exposed picture of my hairy ass facing a copy of Utusan Malaysia, maybe, just maybe it might create enough stir and shouts in the websphere to make these 1000 words at the very minimum, a memorable and controversial one. Something like ‘yeah, penyebar fikiran rakyat my ass!’ might work.

It’s just that I’m tired of shouting and being angry all the time. Being angst-y is so exhausting. At the same time, it’s not like the Gandhi cum pacifist approach of Jeff Ooi, SUHAKAM and the opposition party is making any leeway. Progress? maybe. Breakthrough? hardly. Of course, it’s stupid and naive of me to think anything might happen in an overnight. But self-reassuring measure to make myself feel better just because I care can only go so far. And to the next page, life goes on.

** the next paragraph is where the background music of What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong comes in as I will try my best to make it sounds as passionately touching as humanely possible **

I always believe common Muslims, Chinese, Indians and all other ethnicities in this country have every intentions and would give all possible efforts to live peacefully and harmony together. I still do. Naive and idealistic, I’m sure. But I grew up having Malay friends calling me a ‘cibai cina’ and me calling them back ‘babi melayu’ and then we later would play soccer together and ate burgers sitting side by side on the sidewalk whistling and making sexist hyena sound towards all the ‘ahmoi and awek’ passing by. We were young and color blind. But when clueless and ignorant high marky-marks like the DPM and UMNO youth kept making retarded remarks like how Malaysia is an Islamic state or how blunt tanah melayu keris is, it only makes things harder for everyone. Personal agenda or not, most of us can care less but when they use the constitution or social contract or what-the-fuck-ever as a basis of their pretentious attempt to defend our ethnic rights, they are putting Ah Beng and Abu in the boxing ring and that my friend, is how political officials get elected.

** music ends **

NEP is a racist issue, no matter how much olive oil you put on the gasing trying to spin it. Any discussion on topics regarding two different ethnic groups is a racial issue. This article you’re reading right now is racist, I shall not fight to claim otherwise. You can put as much GAY GAG orders to try to ‘control the discussion of sensitive issues’ but it is still gay. Everyone from my aunties in kopitiams to your abangs in mamak stalls talk about it, everyday. People talk about stuff whenever there is an inequality. But true, good equality can only be achieved by putting in place properly managed inequalities. In other words, there’s no such thing as purely equal. The reason why you and I are getting an equal slice is because someone else out there is getting a much smaller slice.

Having said that, it can be fairer. much fairer.

How? I don’t know. I don’t know how to do that without having a dialog with other Malaysians. When was the last time all of us sat down and had an honest discussion about NEP from ground up, detailed level? Uhm, 50 years ago? There are smarter people than you and I out there from all ethnic groups that are willing to talk about these so called sensitive issues in a civil and open way. These people are in many ways more tolerant and patriotic than Alvin the smart ass or the current administration will ever be.

Sadly, all the smart people are being gagged.

So let everyone talks. If talking about these ohmygod-this-is-so-sensitive-I-almost-have-a-premature-ejaculation issues will lead us to the path of May 13 Incident, 1969, then so be it (and we all know it won’t). We will kill each other soon enough anyway, judging by the growing rate of the number of my Chinese friends who hate Malays because of NEP and vice versa. The question is, if it eventually does lead to bloodshed, will it be because:

1. we can’t come to a satisfying solution for all parties after having dialogs and actually understand the underlying problems. We end up eating each other heart. or
2. we do nothing. Non Bumiputra keeps testing the water and bloggers keep writing about inequality and human rights problem. NEP remains the big white elephant in the room. We continue letting the government runs the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) engine.

But we are all free people.

There are no justifiable needs to hand out GAG orders like toilet papers. There is no need to use government to threaten others who have different standards, or to be threatened by them[1]. Looking to our Founders, our traditions, and the Constitution, the government should be ashamed. Our forefathers are spinning in their graves because the only few times you (as in the government) ever put us in the front page of the world is when something stupid or shameful happens.

Who is the current administration to say which one of you get to say what, when and how? Who are they to say we, the Indians, Malays, Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans and etc, can’t have a matured and intelligent discourse about our national crisis and our citizens’ rights without resorting to stabbing and poking each other with Keris or chopsticks? For one thing we are all civilized, for another we all are damn tired of this already and if not for anything else, I don’t want to hate or fear when I don’t know what in all our mothers name is really going on. We can all solve this, if we will just take a step back and listen to everyone.

I have faith in Malaysians. I believe we can talk this through. Every times the government starts arresting bloggers, issues GAG orders, censors the media and whatnots, that’s every inch closer we are getting to killing each other. Because we will start guessing. We will start fearing. Malay fears Chinese will take everything away, Chinese is angry because Malay is not playing fair and the Indian is angry because they are getting all the leftover. And the government is “protecting” us from killing each other by spreading and fanning the FUD. Then the ‘Youth’ fraction of main political parties get all ‘youthful’ and adrenaline pumped up every time this happens because they get to compare whose penis is longer and whose wrinkly balls are bigger. I choose to hear it directly from a radical Malay that he is calling me a ‘cibai cina’ than from a government warning that if they don’t prevent him from speaking to me, he is going to call me a ‘cibai cina’.

It’s heart aching that some of us have actually forgotten that exactly 50 years ago, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the Malay Rulers had asked that “in an independent Malaya all nationals should be accorded equal rights, privileges and opportunities and there must not be discrimination on grounds of race and creed.”[2].

I’m sorry if this post doesn’t come across much as a congratulatory story. The selection is pretty limited nowadays. There are only so many times you can replay the Mount Everest or Nicole David story.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

Love, AL