Why can't Najib realise the folly of his ways?

Berita Daily

22/05/2015 12:45 PM

 

 

Even if he is unable to comprehend everything before him, he still has enough advisers who should be able to guide him and make him understand 

 

Hussein Hamid

Sometimes a voice in my head tells me that we Malays already have enough on our plates. We do not need one of our own to wash our dirty linen in public. I, me and myself sometimes discuss, argue and debate  into the early hours of the morning on what I should and should not write about the Malays and more often than not we agree to disagree.

We disagree on whether Malay leaders have the interest of the Malays at heart. We disagree on matters of Royalty and their place in the Malay psyche. We disagree on the good or bad that Ketuanan Melayu does.

We disagree on whether Bahasa has united the various races at the cost of curtailing our ability to go forth into the world where English is a prerequisite for anyone to do well in any chosen field of endeavour.

We disagree on the increasingly invasive role of Islam not only in the lives of the Malays and other Muslims but also in the use of Islam to advance the agendas of political parties - but we are in agreement on one irrefutable truth. Malays against the Indians and the Chinese are a people still in its infancy for history to judge.

Our trials and tribulations consists not of enduring great wars and conflicts, we are more the descendants of travellers who braved stormy seas and harrowing journeys over land to live and trade where we can.

My ancestors are Bugis. It seems that they landed in this part of the world on their way to the holy land to take shelter from stormy seas and decided to settle here.

Whether that was after the trip to the Holy Land or whether that trip to the Holy Land was forgotten is unclear - what is certain is that they settled in these parts of the archipelago.

My grandfather was born in 1889 in Pekan and his father was born in 1869 in Singapore... and so it goes back... back to the time when my Bugis ancestors first landed in this part of the world.

In truth I do not feel myself a Bugis. A Malay maybe. A Malaysian certainly. All things considered I am now me - a husband, a father and an avid blogger who lives in Melbourne.

True, I am a product of all that have come before me but today I have become the person I want to be without any concessions to my Bugis ancestors, to my Malay race or to my country of birth or my country of residence. And so what I write reflects that "me" that I have now become.

Good or bad I have done "growing up".

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