yes I am. Now how many of you can say that? and really how many of you do say that? It rolls easily off our tongues when we're abroad doesn't it - but somehow when we come home, we revert to being Malays, Chinese, Indian. I understand sub-categories exist and some people are Ceylonese and Punjabi. Go to Thailand however, or India or America, and ask the youngest child, and he will tell you that he is Thai, or Indian or American. No doubts. No worries. Why do we not have this assurance in Malaysia? Ask 5 Malaysian who they are and be glad if you can find one who tells you he is a Malaysian.
And really what does it mean these days to be a Malaysian? The Rukun Negara, which exhorts us, among other things to be polite and believe in God?
The twin towers, orangutans, Mount Kinabalu, the rafflesia flower, nasi lemak and char koay teow? It's sad that 3 of the things in that list are from Sabah, but we don't particularly make Sabah or Sabahans feel that Sabah is a part of Malaysia.
If we believe our own pr, it seems that we're all these things and beautiful rainforests (mainly in Sabah and Sarawak), beaches and people who go about smiling inanely with our hand over our hearts.
Is it seditious to say that Malaysians are more likely to be traffic offenders with bad dietary habits (apparently, nasi lemak for breakfast, banana leaf for lunch, currypuffs and goreng pisang for tea, followed by a 10 course dinner or hokkien mee is not so good for us la), with a pinch of bribery and corruption, and a megalomaniac tendency to have the biggest thing possible. We like the EPL though it's got nothing to do with us except for savvy marketing, and we consume an endless diet of tv serials from Korea, Hongkong, India and the USA. We're generally grumpy at the supermarket counter, and above all, we are told incessantly, again and again, that we are racially tolerant. And also told that we must be racially tolerant.
And I wonder, are we really. When you help that blind man cross the street, do you stop and check first his race? When you stop at the roadside and help someone push his stalled car to the side of the road, do you drive past him first and check his skin colour? when you find a lost child and take him home, do you ask him his religion first? when someone helps you pick up your spilled groceries, do they check first your race? when you see someone bleeding and stop to help, do you check if he's and Indian, malay or chinese first?
I have been rescued countless times in countless ways. By numerous faceless Malaysians. Being a true Malaysian (and trusting the Rukun Negara), I believe that God sent these Malaysians to rescue me, and have never been left stranded somewhere despite my skin colour. Similarly I have done my share of rescuing, and its never been motivated by anything other than a desire to help a fellow human being in need.
I think our politicians do us Malaysians a huge disfavour every single time they tell us to be racially tolerant. I think the people who bring up the racial card in the first place are politicians or people with political agendas, or saddest of all people who have started to believe that the politicians racial card is true... I think as Malaysians, we should not be asked to fill in every form with details of our race - if that race cannot be Malaysian.
Sadly, we are further away from a Malaysian race today than we were in 1963, when this country was first formed. 49 years on, our politicians have bullied, hoodwinked and dragged us backwards and split us more effectively than the British ever did with their Empire. Sigh.
I think that the only way we can save ourselves is to be Malaysians first and foremost, and copy (which is another thing we do particularly well), the Thais and the Indians and the Americans, and be sure of who we are.
I'm starting by saying I'm a Malaysian. Are you?
