SEPTEMBER 14 — So the Red Shirts are going to jam up the streets this week. We don’t need to read their demands; we know what they’re going to be about.
This piece isn’t about Wednesday’s Maroon 5 Hundred rally. I couldn’t give a hoot.
My bigger concern is what’s always exploited at such occasions: racial fears. Many detest what these budak Burgundy are doing. However, their mere presence in the streets and on Facebook is enough to stir up ethnic tension and strife.
The late Barry Wain described Malaysia as the most complex nation in the world. With three major ethnicities co-existing over a “social contract” which most folks comply with out of fear, greed or helplessness, Wain wasn’t too far off the mark.
Malaysia is complex and confusing and messed up. As if “off-the-shelf” political corruption isn’t bad enough, we’re stuck in an ethnic vortex which, like a black hole, threatens to suck every piece of good sense into oblivion.
Our racialisation is like lard. Everyone knows we should leave it out of our food but 1) it simply wouldn’t taste that nice, and so 2) people will secretly put it back in anyway. Malaysians discussing ethnicity minus the racial slurs is like a newscaster reporting an event with a tornado in the background, and not talk about the tornado.
A traumatic way forward?
Maybe the solution is to stop talking about how “fascinating” our cultures are. Maybe the way forward for the Chinese isn’t to “listen to” Indians and Malays. Maybe Malays should stop trying to “explore” the Chinese and Indian mindset. And perhaps Indians should care less about “learning from” the Chinese and Malays.
Maybe it’s just time we all came out and admitted that we’re all messed up. Sharing our traumas can help.
It’s like at the office. How close can you get to someone when both of you talk mainly about your own achievements? Wouldn’t you be better friends if you talked about how much both of you screwed up in your previous jobs?
When people talk like neither have many faults, doesn’t it come across like a high-profile PR meeting between top directors, where the conversation is like 10 miles wide and one inch deep? And if you want your subordinates to respect you, does it help if you spend most of your time trying to convince them how great thou art? Wouldn’t it be more helpful if you shared your biggest concerns about your own abilities, then listen to their fears?
(Yes, certainly this means that both of you are going to be more vulnerable. Did we really think true progress can occur without risks?)
So, let’s try this for race relations in Malaysia? The Chinese should come out into the open and declare they’re among the greediest people on earth. The Indians should confess they’re addicted to alcohol and making loud noises in the evening at public places. The Malays should simply admit they’ve spent two generations relying on hand-outs and favours.
All three ethnicities have suffered at the hands of our colonial masters. The Brits manipulated everybody to keep trade going (no, they didn’t travel all this way to collect butterflies). Economic exploitation-wise, nobody had it worse than the Indians. And as a result of the Japs, the Malays and Chinese gave each other mutual bloodbaths.
We’re all messed up; we’ve messed each other up.
“I am a Malay/Chinese/Indian. I can’t manage on my own. I need help. What about you?”
When I affirm my weaknesses to you, and you confess yours to me, maybe this can constitute new common ground i.e. the affliction of shared trauma.
Maybe the Chinese should confess that no matter how wealthy they are, they’re forever hanging on to sanity by a thin thread: “Make money or die — nothing in life is more important!” Maybe the Indians should say that they’ve come to enjoy playing the victim card: “Pity me — please?!” Maybe the Malays should affirm they’re afraid that they can’t handle an even playing field: “We’re the dominant race in this country, okay?! Really, believe us! We are!”
“I am a Malay/Chinese/Indian. I’m weak and I’m hurting. What about you?”
If we keep hiding our shame from the world, we’ll eventually hide it from ourselves. Kinda reminds me of a Malaysia tourism video i.e. you get the impression our country consists of nothing but KLCC and KL Tower. Welcome to Malaysia — Truly Asia and Fully Superficial.
But if we open up and let the other vulnerable, afraid and different person in, then we can have at least one thing in common which is not superficial: our pain.
That’s what vulnerable uncertainty does — it shakes us up. And when we share our pain with each other? It has the power to make us more patient, kind, tolerant, aggressively compassionate (see Note 2). Sharing our traumas help — have I said that already? We’re all not okay. But that’s okay.
Happy Malaysia Day, everyone.
Note 1: So if a Malaysian marries an American and they live here forever, what is that American spouse supposed to say — “I’m a Malaysian first, American second”?
Note 2: For the academically inclined, check out my paper A Primordial Anxiety: Ontological Trauma and Ethnic Solidarity in Malaysia, published in the Asian Journal of Social Science last year.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
