JULY 15 — Why are some Malaysians so quick to declare “This is not my Malaysia” when incidents like The Great Low Yat Kerfuffle happen?
“This is not the Malaysia I know.”
“This is not my Malaysia.”
“This is not the Malaysia I planned to raise my children in.”
Hello. When I woke up yesterday, it was still Malaysia. When I wake up tomorrow (unless I get run over by a bad Malaysian driver), I'm sure this will still be Malaysia.
Unless invaders from outer space annexe Malaysia and declare it now Apapunbolehsia, Malaysia hasn't suddenly changed overnight.
Dear Malaysians stubbornly holding on to their sepia- and rose-coloured glasses: we are not living in a Petronas ad.
We have never, and probably will never reach that wonderful utopia where everyone celebrates every national holiday together in peace and harmony with never a “Cina penipu” (Chinese conman) or “Melayu malas (lazy Malay) or “keling bodoh” (stupid Indian) uttered. Where people would not forget East Malaysians and Orang Asli exist.
Stupid racial incidents happen everywhere. Look at how the USA still hasn't got its shit together after more than a century and the nightmare that is Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan where people of the same race are still happily murdering each other.
I love my country. Yet I admit, there are days that I'm not particularly proud of it; days when I'm pretty much mortified by its leaders and times when I go “We're in the international headlines for what now?”
It doesn't make me any less Malaysian.
Those thugs at Low Yat Plaza, we can stop with the whole Star-endorsed “they don't represent us” nonsense. Just see them as those embarrassing third cousins who always turn up smashed at the family Christmas reunion and throw up all over the upholstery.
Except maybe this time they hijacked granddad's Wira and ran it into the nearby police station barracks. Shameful, embarrassing, but still you can't pretend they're not family. Of course the cops aren't going to think your entire family are drunk idiots, right?
Like every family has problems, all nations have issues that need resolving. What's the shame in admitting that we do too?
The systemic problems we have, the disenfranchisement and disillusion among our youngsters is worrying. Our brain drain has gotten to the point where our skilled talents overseas merely respond with polite eff-yous to Talent Corp when they get invited back.
And yet still we have people who think the harder we believe nothing is wrong, the tighter they shut their eyes to our problems, the better things will be.
I have a collection of drained alcohol bottles that are witness to how much that's untrue.
Loving a country isn't all that much different from loving a person. Whoever spread that bull about the best kind of love being blind probably is blind. Love means to be able to love even when you see the problems, enduring the hardships and taking the bad along with the good.
To not see the problematic bits, to brush them aside to your own detriment, that's not love. That's delusion. Like believing Liverpool will win the premiership this season.
Relationships often fail because we cling to how they used to be and expect people and feelings to remain utterly unchanged with time. Nostalgia, my friends, can be dangerous.
This is still my Malaysia, whatever happens. It's your Malaysia too, so don't so easily disown it when things get rough. Love the country for what it is, flawed and a constant work in progress, not for what you think it used to be and not for what you think it should be.
Love means to be present, in the here and now. Let's just embrace Malaysia for what it is and never stop believing or reminding ourselves that, yes, it could be better. But it doesn't mean it's any less our country.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
