Are there Malays who
still think that we Malays have inherent rights? Inherent rights to be given
scholarships? Inherent rights to be given preferences in government tenders?
Inherent rights to be given discounts when buying houses?
Are there Chinese out there
who still think with affection of their Motherland and dream of going back?
Chinese who even now keep their homes and family as bastion against any
attempts to make them any more Malaysian then they are now?
What about the Indians?
How many of them are still mired up in the caste system despite being born and
bred in Malaysia? Do they not understand that we are all one people?
And Sabah and Sarawak?
Do they still think that they have had a raw deal when they joined Malaysia?
Sometimes I despair at
the diversity of our people and yet this diversity is also our strength! It is
our strength because despite our differences and the attempts by UMNO to divide
and rule us, we are still together!
Somehow we have managed to get along with one another and lived our life
not quiet in harmony and yet not quiet in discord.
I have looked upon the
other races most time with affections and yet at times with worry. Are they
looking at me with the same affection that I have for them or are the feeling
within them one of tolerance and a resignation that as a Malay I am ‘on the
other side?’ Whenever I am in KL I have gone about my business without worrying
too much about these things but always, under the surface, I am sure we all
marvel at how things are able to kept just so!
Take Bangsar at noon on
a Friday. Cars are parked all over the place as the Malays go for their Friday
prayers. It clogs up the traffic and the other races have to put up with the
inconveniences. And they do! But do they do it in good humor or is the traffic
jam just one more mark against the Malays for making another part of their life
just that bit more difficult?
I know I can walk into
Chinatown without a worry in the world but even as I walk through Chinatown I
remember May 13th. I know that I am vulnerable if somehow there are racial disturbances elsewhere
– then I better get out of Chinatown fast for my own safety.
I understand that today
the most violent gangsters are not the Chinese but the Indians for they are the
most desperate because of the poverty that engulfs the Indian people.
I still am aware that
people from Sabah and Sarawak are different from us. …in the way they talk and
in the way they think. Again this might just be me and the way I perceived them
to be but it stays with me and it keeps that distance between me and them. Over
time I hope it will disappear.
So in essence we live
on a powder keg of a potentially explosive situations. What holds everything
together is the goodwill and tolerance that we have for each other. We have
genuine affection for each other and we continue to give and take in all facets
of our lives – and all this holds the fabric of Malaysia together.
