The Malaysian Insider

OCT 1 — I always have warm conversations with Malaysians whom I meet away from home. Isolation factors — the further they are from Malaysia, the longer the duration away and the fewer Malaysians in their locality — proportionately increase familiarity and ease.

I’ve experienced unexpected kindness; meals, transportation and places to sleep in, even if it is the couch of a student apartment. This to a stranger they’ve only met in a mall, street or beachside bench, whose only attribute is his passport.

The barriers most associated with our splintered society at home — race, religion, language, gender, home-state, etc — disappear if only because the Tower of London is a Tube ride away.

I’m tempted, quite casually, to surmise that when we are not in Malaysia, being Malaysian becomes a primary consideration, and conversely when we meet each other at home, being Malaysian means almost nothing?

I can understand why many would feel there is truth in that rumination.

It seems to me there are artificial forces constantly at play at home reinforcing a sense of separation, that there are more than valid reasons to fear those different from you — different in physical appearances.

For it benefits greatly some, when enough of the rest of us are convinced the differences are irreproachable.

However when we leave the country, be among those who only know of our home as a tourist destination, we express unconsciously a need for Malaysia.

The absence our state apparatus’ doublespeak at all junctures — puncturing our faith in natural assimilation — helps plenty.

Subtly we become cognisant that we share far more with our countrymen than our system allows us to.

That having a laksa in a Malaysian Chinese restaurant down in Little Swanston St, Melbourne is far more gratifying than any kebab in July. That the teh tarik’s immeasurable value is in how it is "pulled", or that being in Genting Highlands does not qualify you to survive winter in Toronto.

Yet those commonalities have struggled to be the dominant ethos for us as a people.

So we hear that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak wants to build a mixed hostel complex in an undisclosed site somewhere in the Klang Valley to unify our people — our kids.

That is cute Najib but why the ostentation over a single or multiple friendship colonies, when with the stroke of a pen through policy change, you can make the change national and comprehensive, and not cost taxpayers.

If it is about hostels, then ask the education ministers — both of them — to order all hostels in all schools, polytechnics and universities to be strictly integrated beginning next semester?

That would create so many opportunities for integration, despite expected initial drawbacks in the guise of cultural objections. But surely any attempt to reverse the systemic segregation in the country — through policies of your party — will result in unsavoury moments. The bullet has to be bit, and not circumvented by tokenistic measures in the form of a single hostel complex.

One friendship colony will not carry any traction, but that is not your concern is it? Your concern is as ever, not to have any political fallout within your party.

If you need further advice, not that you would take it, you can even impose a multicultural policy in Umno.

I’ll remove my scepticism and see it from your worldview. I’ll spin for you.

“Umno is a party seeking the advancement of Bumiputera Muslims to become equal partners in a harmonious and unified Malaysia. The opportunity pie is big enough that Bumiputera Muslim benefits need not come at the cost of other Malaysians. Umno is progressive, Umno is progress.”

OK, fine. Then walk the walk. Place a blanket ban on bigotry in the party. Party members are encouraged to exhort the virtues of the Bumiputera Muslim, but he shall not do it by riding roughshod over other Malaysians.

No more snake gags about Indians, even if the Umno member is genetically more Tamil than anything else.

And when people cross the line — as they will — come out and denounce their ideas.

A prime minister is not multicultural because he has a close circle of multicultural friends. A prime minister is a leader of the many, when the few are not abandoned in their hour of need, because it is politically expedient.

It is a coup for the prime minister to visit Batu Caves, Thean Hou Buddhist Temple or the Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu to source votes. It is the stuff of legends if he goes there when he is likely to lose votes.

I mean, I’ll take everything back if any Umno prime minister goes down to the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall the next time Umno Youth threatens to burn it down, and denounces the behaviour of the Umno Youth leadership.

And yes for every Utusan article there is exponential number of editorials elsewhere being quite critical and even unfair of Umno and Bumiputera Muslims. And I am not a stranger to race expletives being thrown about by relatives at family functions.

So yes, within this country, there is much mistrust.

But that is what leadership is all about. Not asking others to believe first, to act first. Leaders lay their own political futures for principle.

For now Umno leads the country. So if it wants to remain in power, then like every other respected party in power elsewhere in the civilised world it has to take the high road.

Umno must lead the race discourse, not manage it as a political asset.

And you obviously don’t go building a hostel to mix the kids up when every other hostel — thousands of them — already under you actively don’t.

Comments (3)

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form