OCTOBER 1 — I love Malaysia. Of course, as a proud Singaporean, I believe my Lion City is among the best cities in the world and I can’t wait for the day (and it will come) when it’s the best; not a follower but a leader of even New York, Paris, Tokyo and the rest.
However, no matter how you look at it, Singapore is a city, a great city maybe but a city and Malaysia is a nation.
It’s a matter of geography, history and physical size; they are different things but that means they aren’t actually in competition. You can love them both and I do.
I have to say too few Singaporeans really appreciate Malaysia to the extent they should. At its best — from the beaches at Langkawi or Pulau Rawa to the vast green expanse of Taman Negara and the heights of Mount Kinabalu — in terms of natural beauty, Malaysia is not second to any nation on earth and if you factor in cultural diversity it’s a star.
Malay, Chinese, Indian and so many others — so many religions and just so much fantastic food.
It’s also not just a chaotic mess; the whole exotic melange sits within a well-developed, accessible framework.
And it’s not just a pretty tourist stop. Malaysia is serious business. The country benefits from a large and diversified economy.
There’s oil, palm oil, manufacturing silicon chips, mining and finance and it’s all connected by infrastructure that puts even some developed countries to shame.
Not poor but not quite rich, affordable but with an infinity of shopping options, diversity and natural beauty its really an ideal country and yet my husband and I have this recurring argument.
He’s neither Singaporean nor Malaysian but, in the imaginary world in which we are investors, he’s very keen to buy an apartment in Malaysia.
Unstable, I say — unsafe, don’t know which way it’s going — echoing my very Singaporean mother. And he bellows but it has everything... look at the resources... as long as it has Sabah and Sarawak, its economy is unsinkable.
And after the 30th incarnation of this debate, I was about to give in and agree to this imaginary purchase when I saw this headline: Owner of Muslim-only laundrette apologises after rebuke from Johor Sultan.
Now Malaysia news watchers are used to this sort of thing. Over zealous individual/official goes too far and offends minorities (and common sense) and has authorities scrambling to rectify or rebalance the situation or worse supporting the offence.
But more than cancelled beer festivals and dog shows, this laundrette issue worried me.
That even in Johor, one of Malaysia’s most tolerant corners, we can see people attempting this level of intolerance makes me quite certain Malaysia is in fact on the wrong path.
One rogue laundrette? Is this a bigger deal than the resources of Sabah and Sarawak? Yes.
This isn’t a one off attempt to curtail the space open to religious minorities. The government’s attempts to control these acts are at best haphazard; this time the Sultan of Johor and not any formal branch of the federal government intervened to restore sanity.
The identification of the state with only one religion is becoming more acute and reducing tolerance and increasing sectarianism in a country where nearly 40 per cent of people are religious minorities is not a recipe for success.
It only takes one official, a couple of overzealous or simply evil-minded individuals or even a minority who goes too far with defiance to spark real trouble. Trouble of a sort that will put an end to the tolerant Malaysia we know and love.
That’s what’s worrying from a concerned outsider’s point of view. Malaysia is fantastic but it’s so fragile.
As was the case with the laundrette, the voices speaking for tolerance especially within the majority community are an older, wealthy Westernised generation from another time. Those supporting more extreme positions seem to be young and from the middle-class ie. the future.
The laundrette owner himself said his customers supported the idea of forbidding non-Muslims from using the laundry! And if that is Malaysia’s future, things aren’t looking up.
Of course this isn’t to say the elites are right and that their liberalism is to be celebrated where the new middle-class is to be feared. While the sultan’s intervention is truly welcome in this case, the reality is that it’s the elites who created an economy that is pushing the young and middle-class towards a narrower form of religion. It’s not really about religion, it’s about rebellion.
The only force that can stop the slide towards an explosion of intolerance is the people. Ordinary Malaysians from every community who are open to the idea and the potential of a united, diverse Malaysia.
The country’s citizens must see there is value in a Malaysia of all colours and religions in a place that is, even now, a model for the world in terms of religious diversity.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
