NOV 29 — The most surprising thing about the ongoing BTN (Biro Tata Negara, although it might be more apt to call it the Brain Tuning Network) furore is not so much what actually goes on behind closed doors but that it took so long to be exposed publicly.
All but an open secret for years gone by, its shroud is slowly but surely being stripped away to allow those not fortunate enough to have been invited to join to now take a peek at the festivities that go on under the guise of unity-building and fostering goodwill.
The things they teach, in the course of turning participants into productive and loving Malaysians, are issues some attendees have faithfully tried to carry to the masses. So even if you didn’t manage to get in, fret not. Think of it as a pyramid scheme, you’ll hear about it even if you have no desire to.
One thing on the agenda is that DAP is a communist party, though in recent times it has become more difficult to decipher whether this is meant to paint them in a bad light or otherwise. Especially when we’ve been so eager to curry favour with the communists that our prime minister has seen fit to retrace his father’s footsteps and go knocking on Beijing’s doors.
“Come, please come. Build us our bridges. Lend us your money. Buy up our companies. What? Communism? No, we have no problems with communists. We love communists, we even used to have some of our own! Not anymore so nowadays we have import them by the planeloads to pretty up our lounges. Yes, please come, we welcome you. Oh, er, how did that go again? Erm, yes, hu?n yíng, hu?n yíng.”
This is also difficult to reconcile with the idea that the Chinese in Malaysia are “pendatang” and should therefore be sent packing to China. But if they’re so eager to be rid of the Chinese, why do they spread their legs so far apart for the Mainland Chinese? It can’t be that we’re “too Chinese”, so are we not Chinese enough? Not communist enough? Will it help if we start paying for things in yuan?
It wouldn’t be so bad if the gist of the xenophobia was directed at foreign nations, maybe in the vein of Iranian “We must fight the Western devils” or Castro’s “Man your guns! The Yankees are coming to bomb us!” (Understandable, in all fairness, as the Yankees did bomb them before.)
But to turn citizen against fellow citizen? What earthly good can ever come of this? What true benefit can they hope to achieve by gumming up their own works, crippling their own economy? What damned fool truly believes this a good idea?
We are being aimed at each other’s throats so that we become blind to see our pockets picked.
More importantly, the BTN programme is but one grotesque manifestation of the ethnocentric government. It is there because there is an unspoken policy behind it, and all other forms of gradually cementing institutionalised racism.
To have bred a culture of intolerance and an environment of hate that drives the country’s talent into the eagerly-awaiting bosom of foreign nations, what right do they have to cry foul that the “disloyal and unpatriotic” do not return to aid the country’s progress? And what hypocrisy and pointlessness to later institute programmes to “lure” them back when they suddenly need them.
If they subscribe to the idea that the state is the father and the people, his children, then we have had decades of living with a drunken, abusive parent. One who disguises his iniquities and weaknesses as a blanket of love. He is cruel only to be kind, he tells his little ones. But the truth is, he is just cruel.
All this to what end? To reinforce their political base? To win and keep their positions of power? How politically and morally bankrupt must one be to willingly gamble the fate of the nation for a few more years in power? When unable to stay in office on the back of good governance, does none feel the shame of having to resort to such lows to claw on to a post they no longer — and perhaps never did — deserve? Have some pride, at least.
It is time politicians accepted that all Malaysians are Malaysians, be they brown, black, yellow, purple or green. All have and must play a role in salvaging a country that has been busy standing still while the world races on. We cannot choose the nation of our birth, but we have the choice of what we do for it still.
So they can make everyone start pulling in the same direction or they can continue to stoke the flames in the centre and have the country pull itself asunder.
Prosper together. Or beggar thy neighbour; and thyself along. Even then, it may already be too late.
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