I have many Chinese friends. Indians too. Every fortnight, me and old schoolmates (La Salle Petaling Jaya Secondary school class of 74), would meet up for drinks and reminisce and wonder what our country has become.
We believe that we were the original 1Malaysians - we didn't need to be categorised as such as our school system were truly integrated and both BM and English make life easy for all of us to communicate especially when we wanted to curse.
We tell Bhai jokes freely and they laugh. They joke about us the lazy stupid Malays we laugh. Today, we can't. It would be insensitive. Even til today, I don't know why it is taboo to call Indians keling like we used to especially when they haven't changed the names of Tanjung Keling and Masjid Keling.
I also remember one time when we were not even allowed to say orang China, but instead call my friends orang Tionghua.
Now things seem tobe getting worse. Is it wrong now to call myself Melayu first, Malaysia second? Where does that put the Muslim aspect of my life? Do I become Muslim first, Melayu second Malaysian third? Me and my friends were even more blatant - declaring we are La Sallians first, Malaysians second.
What I am sure is that most Chinese who say they are Malaysian first and Chinese second, are hypocrites and in denial. They still send their kids to Chinese school, they are more comfortable speaking in Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese or English. They will fight tooth and nail to be allowed to put up their shop signage in Chinese calligraphy.
You go to their homes and 9 out of 10 Chinese homes would have Chinese motifs, paraphernilia, furniture, items and products. Nothing Malaysia about it.
And most of them keep to themselves - they date their own kind, they have their own circle of friends that are most Chinese and if they are corporate leaders, most of their accountants and other senior staff members would be Chinese - heck they would even bring in Singaporean Chinese to work for them instead of qualified Malays. How do they get away with this? In application forms those interested need to be well versed in English and Mandarin because they have dealings with Mandarin speaking clients from Singapore and China. So out goes the Malays.
And they would really, really ignore the need to respect our national language Bahasa Malaysia in their corporation dealings and daily life.
Yet they attack us Malays, for raising the keris, for saying I am Malay first, for the term ketuanan Melayu and many other things. It seems we Malays cannot now do anything right. We are the bane of the nation. If the Malays were to continue to be allowed to run the country, Malaysia will go to the dogs.
A simple glance at Malaysiakini and TheMalaysianInsider, one can see the vitriolic attack on Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin for saying "I am a Malay first" for the past three weeks.
Previously, Hishamuddin too was attacked for raising the keris. And most recently PERKASA in its official launch also raised the kris, much to the chagrin of most non-Malay owned media. These media look at the kris with much disdain.
Nothing the Malays do now, seem right. All that we hope to do for the nation, seem to fall flat on the others. Our future as a nation now should be in the hands of Malaysians. Preferably not a Malay, for we are corrupted, we are prone to cronyism and we are racists.
I have a friend who named his children with 'Malay' names to show his 'Malaysianess'. I applaud him, but on the other hand, naming someone with Malay names do not make him Malay or a Malaysian. Firstly, most of the Malays do not have Malay names - they have Arabic names. Having Arabic names to not make us Arabic, albeit having similar names do not make one Malaysian or Malay.
No matter how hard you try, you cannot change your race...like I once said, even the Chinese tried to become Malays by talking, living and dressing like the Malays, but inevitably they are label themselves Peranakan or Babas and Nyonyas. They are called Straits Chinese. See? They themselves avoid being labeled Malays....they still have their original racial roots firmly stuck in their lives. And I don't see anything wrong with this.
So why blame the Malays for being Malays? Aren't you proud to be a Chinese Malaysian? Hey the movies that you produced recently - Woo Hoo and Ais Kacang Puppy Love - is a Chinese Malaysian movie. Is it a Malaysian movie? How many Bahasa Malaysia words are found in these two movies? How many Malays acted in it?
Why am I ranting?
Let me tell you why.
I was in Camerons recently.
Me and my family visited the Boh Plantation and were sitting in the cafe having tea and scones. There then came this Chinese family who sat at a table beside us. They look like a harmless, typical middle class Chinese Malaysian family.
My wife, who is part Chinese, is suddenly perturbed by their conversation and told me what they were talking about. She speaks Cantonese and overheard what the man told the family in Cantonese.
He said: " For all you know, the company (Boh) has been taken over by the Malays like everything else."
My wife found it amusing. I found it sickening.
This is a Chinese man in denial. If there is a race that would have taken over a corporate giant like Boh, it would be the Chinese not the Malays. But the remark when he said "like everything else" really irks me.
If he had actually opened his eyes, especially in Cameron Highlands, he would have noticed that the economy even in that little highland town is owned by the Chinese. The Malays are a minority business community in Camerons.
Even in major Malaysian cities, it is not the Malays who control the economy. Somewhere along the line, we lost our economy to the non-Malays. We are basically just holding on to our 'political' power, and nothing much else.
So where the heck did this guy find his information telling the rest of his family that the Malays are taking over 'everything else'? I really hate these bigots.
Why? Because such bigots make me turn into one too.
And I hate this. I tend to argue with my friends about this. Everyone seem to be taking sides now - so much for 1Malaysia or Malaysian Malaysia.
Why don't we just continue the legacy of our forefathers when we achieved Merdeka and move on. Drop the hypocricy. Drop the holier than thou act. Drop the I am Malaysian first, Chinese second stand. We don't mind you calling yourself Chinese first Malaysian second. It is your birth right to be Chinese in spirit and in culture. We are all Malaysian citizens. Being Malaysian is not a race. It is citizenship. Nothing else. If there is a war, we fight as brothers. We defend our country as Malaysians. But I am Malay, you are Chinese, he is Indian, the other guy Eurasian. Nothing changes.
Lets unite as one nation multiple peoples and move on.
7 comments:
Yes lets move on...
A bloody good article, my friend.
Agree with you let's move on. But where to? What do we do? Do we leave them as they are?
Why not visit the Kempen SSS (Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua) blog and see what you think - you may even say what you think about their attempts at doing something there -
http://satusekolahuntuksemua.wordpress.com/
Best wishes.
You're missing the bigger picture here. What Muhyiddin said isn't the cause, it's a symptom - a symptom of a much larger problem.
I often laugh bitterly whenever I hear of Malays complaining that their rights are being eroded, that Islam is being attacked, that they are under siege. You think you are under siege?
Are your mosques being demolished? Are your corpses being snatched? Are your widows left destitute because someone suddenly says that their late husbands converted, and their fortunes now belong to some religious fund? Do converts to your religion suffer death threats? Are you denied jobs in the civil service for dubious reasons? Are you constantly warned not to fight for your own rights, lest "the streets run red with blood"?
Sure, there is racism from the non-Malays as well - your experience in Cameron Highlands proves it. But there is casual racism, and there is systemic and institutionalized racism. Which is clearly more harmful than the other. Which exists right here in our country. Which is clearly, blatantly in favour of one race.
In the face of all these injustices, do you think it makes sense for you to complain about one throwaway offensive remark?
TMBF.
Of course it makes sense for me to get ticked off for what you called a throwaway remark. For the remark to have been made, it must have been formenting in the guy's mind for ages.
In fact, your rhetoric got what I have to say about the subject all wrong.
I hardly touched upon religious matters apart from the name thing.
Religion and race are two separate things.
If you talk about religion, you cannot talk about race especially when it comes to Islam, because Islam is not a Malay invention nor do they have sole claim to it.
I do not want to touch on religion because religion does not use LOGIC. This is true to all religions.
So let's not go there.
All the questions you posed me are mainly religious based not racial.
So there's no point in me answering it, because your tone is bordering on racist and bigotry. Who ever converts to Islam, that's his own bloody prerogative. If he dies, and he hasn't done all that he can for his family who am I to argue. That's his problem. Furthermore, your qestions to me are unsubstantiated and pure rumor mongering. It is not the Malays that destroy temples or mosques, it is not the Muslims, it is the authorities. If it is politically motivated, who the fuck can do anything about it? Penang is being governed by the PKR people, they too are facing the same problems with various communities. Why choose one over the other?
If you think us Malays are so bad as a people, tell us what is wrong with us, and we will tell you what is wrong with your peoples. No one is perfect. Those who do are politicians...Malay, Chinese and Indian. We the public try to make ends meet.
You think all Malays are so rich that they lord over everything else? You got to be kidding. The Malays economically earn less than most races. How many tycoons are there in commerce that are Malay compared to the Chinese?
How many listed companies are control by the Malays?
Let's not get sidetracked with religion and the manipulation of religion by various parties.
Let's talk about common sense.
You guys want to be called Malaysians, but how many non-Malays support the daily usage of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language? That's not a racist question, that is a national identity question.
English is not our national language, nor is Mandarin nor Tamil. It is enshrined in our constitution that it is Bahasa Malaysia.
I am all for 1Malaysia or Malaysia for Malaysians but let's be truthful and realistic about it because unless you truly become Malaysian by using Bahasa Malaysia daily and freely, there's no point in claiming yourself to be a true Malaysian.
You had every right to be offended by that remark, and if I implied that you didn't, I apologize. That was not my intent.
My intent was to lend you some sense of perspective.
I will not defend, excuse or justify that remark. Nor will I do the same for those who do not speak BM or who disdain its use. I certainly won't defend, excuse or justify the fact that my own command of it is pretty poor.
But do you honestly think that religious prejudice, in this country, is separate and distinct from racial prejudice? Do you honestly think that being Malay and being Muslim are two different things? And when you say that temples are demolished out of political motivations, do you honestly, seriously, think that they are not also racially motivated?
And do you honestly think that there isn't systemic, institutionalized racism, from Malays against non-Malays?
You accuse me of being racist. I don't know what good it will do for me to deny it, but I deny it. I won't call you an ultra-Melayu or Umnoputra. I won't lump you in with the corpse-snatchers and the keris-wavers. I have no reason to assume your sympathies lie with those maniacs in Perkasa, simply because you are Malay. You seem like a perfectly level-headed guy, regardless of your race. And I like to think that any Malay I meet is a perfectly level-headed person who has never done anything to oppress anyone.
But you accuse me of being racist. Are you also going to accuse me of being unpatriotic? Of being ungrateful for the fact that your ancestors granted my ancestors citizenship? Do you want to tell me to go back to my home country? Do you want to tell me "DON TOK SHEET!!!"?
That's what we hear all the time. That's what the whole country hears all the time. So you're tired of being despised for your race? Here's a little perspective for you: brother, you have NO IDEA.
Jeez dude,
You're one fucked up guy. Since when did my ancestors give your ancestors citizenship? Why would I want you to go back to your own country? I thought you said you're Malaysian, so your country's Malaysia right not China? Unless you still habor homeland feelings for that country whose Chinese are so different from Malaysian Chinese in general. Yes I believe religion and race can remain separate by the simple fact that religion is color blind. Like I said Islam is not exclusive to Malays. I know of many Malay Christians and agnostics and non-believers. So, to them religion does not come into play when you talk about race.
Temples demolished are done by authorities and not rampaging Malays you numbskull. The firebombing is a criminal act by idiots - and if they are Malays, they don't represent the Malay community as a whole.
Do you represent the Chinese community as a whole with whatever you do? I don't claim to represent the Malays as a whole. If you read my earlier postings, I attack my race for being feeble minded people who allow themselves to be manipulated by others.
We Malays unfortunately plan for one generation. The Chinese plan for generations ahead so as to maintain your cultural identity and economic mastery.
Trust me guy, I am the least racist Malay I know. My best buddies are Chinese. I get criticised for employing Chinese to direct my projects. My wife's family are mainly Chinese. I love Chinese food. I dont know what Malaysian food is, but I love Indian food, Portugese food, Thai food, Malay food in its varied forms.
I can curse in Cantonese and Hokkien like any other Chinese guy.
My favourite curse word is Tiuuu.
So, don't get uptight because you got me all wrong. I am trying to weed out the hypocrites out there who wants to create a new race called Malaysian. I am also trying to stop those (you included) in generalising the Malays as bad guys. There are a lot of mad Malay idiots out there - some are powerful and some are normal people who don't know shit from cream. That does not make the Malay race despicable.
Take care guy. Hope you have a great life as a Malaysian. Not sure if you and your kind will ever see the demise of the Malays as a race in your lifetime, so I apologise for that lah. But I think and I know I am right, when I say that there are numerous Chinese (who are Malaysians, who couldn't be bothered with the Malays, who don't talk Malay, who have no Malay friends) who are so well off and have high salaried jobs and millions in their accounts, who don't give a shit what you or I say. These people are proof that you don't need the Malays to get ahead in the world and yet be Malaysians. Patriotic or otherwise.
TMBF, ko dah jadi "personal" dan itu "membosankan"..! Afasal tetiba emosional? God, sedihnya..
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