FEB 18 — “Observe, I don’t say to what do you turn, but to what do you return. Every life ought to contain both a turn and a return,” a missionary says to Adela Quested in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. He says this to Miss Quested who is on her way back to England after a short stint in India which was complicated by issues that made it difficult for her to continue staying there. 

I always wonder why my English teacher assigned us A Passage to India at 15 – the ideas of religion, human relationships, colonialism and postcolonialism often went above my head. Yet that line has stuck with me for the past four years as I moved from Singapore to England. I remember reading that line and thinking about home. It was something I always went back to, whenever thoughts about the future or thoughts about the past arose. 

Fifteen was the age when I felt very strongly for Malaysia. I had all these plans to do something about the disturbing socio-political conditions back home, particularly to do with education.  I remember my eldest uncle asking me, “Why go back, when you can live comfortably in Singapore?” to which I had no proper reply, apart from a muffled “… I’m Malaysian.” I remember him scoffing and shaking his head at me. I can still imagine him doing so. 

Looking back, I quite miss the naïve 15-year-old me who had all these unfettered dreams and infinite hope. At 19 and at Oxford, where everyone is absorbed in their own academic pursuits and aspiring for greater things and greener pastures, it’s all too easy to want the same and forget where you come from. 

And perhaps, going back home wouldn’t be the first thing on anyone’s mind. Last week when YB Tony Pua came over to give a talk, he asked how many of us would be interested in going back right after graduation. A paltry show of hands, but nothing brain drain statistics have not been telling us already. 

There are merits to working overseas, and I won’t even try to dispute that. But there is value in returning home too, after such a prolonged time away. 

It’s easy to dismiss the deplorable state of the nation in every sense of the word. Bureaucratic inefficiency, rampant corruption, weak industries and poor city planning – to name a few persistent issues in Malaysia. 

Well, why don’t we try to look at it in this way: imperfections and deficiencies only point towards potential for improvement. Why don’t we see the fractures in our existing system as opportunities for innovation and platforms for experimentation?

I am aware that I might be on the verge of sounding overly optimistic – but for a moment just imagine an entire generation of well-educated Malaysians working collectively towards a common interest, from high politics and the civil service to banking, education and the courts, rebuilding the nation, slowly but surely. Echoing Ernst Renan’s words, “that moral consciousness which we call a nation is created by a great assemblage of men with warm hearts and healthy minds.”

Perhaps a more direct, obvious question to ask would be: if we don’t return, who will? It’s easy to isolate brain drain as one of the nation’s most pressing problems, but convenient also for those who can afford studying and living overseas, to perpetuate it. 

It is indeed tempting to stay away from the mess that is Malaysia, what with languishing prospects and age-old inconveniences. Being defeatist or escapist about the future of the nation is understandably human. But this shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid trying altogether. We are liable in part for the chronic malnourished state of the nation, and there is no reason not to fix it. 

Finis origine pendet. The end depends upon the beginning. And with the many turns in life there will have to be a return of sorts. What I’ve tried to do above is to justify the call to return, yet perhaps there needn’t be a reason to return and returning to Malaysia can be an end in itself. 

It’s always helpful though, knowing to what we are returning. To quote Renan again: “A nation is a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future.” 

Malaysia was half-made by the grit of our forefathers who were prepared to fight for independence; and half-made by us. But before we can ask where our nation is heading, we should first ask ourselves: to what do we return? 

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.