Merdeka! I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated
off the grass of Royal Selangor Club padang in
the heart of Kuala Lumpur
at 12 midnight on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I
always erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan people”.
I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed the formation
of Malaysia by welcoming
Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year old kid,
I was a total ignoramus about Singapore
pulling out to go her own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th
1969, I was just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the
fighting, bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day.
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
Published MM 11/5/2014
erdeka!
I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated off the grass of
Royal Selangor Club padang in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at 12 midnight
on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I always
erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan
people”. I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed
the formation of Malaysia by welcoming Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year
old kid, I was a total ignoramus about Singapore pulling out to go her
own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th 1969, I was
just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the fighting,
bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day. - See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
Merdeka!
I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated off the grass of
Royal Selangor Club padang in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at 12 midnight
on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I always
erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan
people”. I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed
the formation of Malaysia by welcoming Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year
old kid, I was a total ignoramus about Singapore pulling out to go her
own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th 1969, I was
just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the fighting,
bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day. - See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
Merdeka! I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated
off the grass of Royal Selangor Club padang in
the heart of Kuala Lumpur
at 12 midnight on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I
always erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan people”.
I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed the formation
of Malaysia by welcoming
Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year old kid,
I was a total ignoramus about Singapore
pulling out to go her own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th
1969, I was just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the
fighting, bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day. - See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
I drifted through school, did the things every child did back then, got into
scrapes, got ‘rotan-ed’ and grew up eventually. On official forms requiring me
to state my race, I would put Malaysian Chinese. That’s the only way I had ever
seen myself. I was never much into ‘religion’, being the ever capable perfectly
independent young adult I matured into, until very much later when God decided
to show up in my life. Today past the half-century mark, I call myself a
Christian, a Malaysian and a Chinese, in that order. I don’t think I need
be ashamed of or have to defend that order as my personal identity.I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
- See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
Merdeka!
I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated off the grass of
Royal Selangor Club padang in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at 12 midnight
on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I always
erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan
people”. I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed
the formation of Malaysia by welcoming Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year
old kid, I was a total ignoramus about Singapore pulling out to go her
own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th 1969, I was
just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the fighting,
bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day.
I drifted through school, did the things every child did back then, got
into scrapes, got ‘rotan-ed’ and grew up eventually. On official forms
requiring me to state my race, I would put Malaysian Chinese. That’s the
only way I had ever seen myself. I was never much into ‘religion’,
being the ever capable perfectly independent young adult I matured into,
until very much later when God decided to show up in my life. Today
past the half-century mark, I call myself a Christian, a Malaysian and a
Chinese, in that order. I don’t think I need be ashamed of or have to
defend that order as my personal identity.
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation
lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn
from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn
America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he
started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply
with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
Merdeka!
I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated off the grass of
Royal Selangor Club padang in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at 12 midnight
on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I always
erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan
people”. I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed
the formation of Malaysia by welcoming Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year
old kid, I was a total ignoramus about Singapore pulling out to go her
own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th 1969, I was
just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the fighting,
bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day.
I drifted through school, did the things every child did back then, got
into scrapes, got ‘rotan-ed’ and grew up eventually. On official forms
requiring me to state my race, I would put Malaysian Chinese. That’s the
only way I had ever seen myself. I was never much into ‘religion’,
being the ever capable perfectly independent young adult I matured into,
until very much later when God decided to show up in my life. Today
past the half-century mark, I call myself a Christian, a Malaysian and a
Chinese, in that order. I don’t think I need be ashamed of or have to
defend that order as my personal identity.
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation
lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn
from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn
America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he
started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply
with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
Merdeka!
I wasn’t even born yet when that shout reverberated off the grass of
Royal Selangor Club padang in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at 12 midnight
on August 30, 1957. Apparently there were 7 shouts (not 3 as I always
erroneously assumed), even as our nation’s first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman
hailed the ceremony as the “greatest moment in the life of the Malayan
people”. I was only a 3 year old toddler when he subsequently proclaimed
the formation of Malaysia by welcoming Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore
into a common federation on 16th September 1963. Of course as a 5 year
old kid, I was a total ignoramus about Singapore pulling out to go her
own way later in 1965. Fast forward 4 years, on May 13th 1969, I was
just another 9 year old kid, running around oblivious of the fighting,
bloodshed and emergency curfews on that day.
I drifted through school, did the things every child did back then, got
into scrapes, got ‘rotan-ed’ and grew up eventually. On official forms
requiring me to state my race, I would put Malaysian Chinese. That’s the
only way I had ever seen myself. I was never much into ‘religion’,
being the ever capable perfectly independent young adult I matured into,
until very much later when God decided to show up in my life. Today
past the half-century mark, I call myself a Christian, a Malaysian and a
Chinese, in that order. I don’t think I need be ashamed of or have to
defend that order as my personal identity.
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
After all the shouts of Merdeka, what have we become? Has this nation
lost her soul? I see Malaysia hurting, and I hurt. Perhaps we can learn
from the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he addressed a racially-torn
America in his days, “With malice towards none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
Nelson Mandela dreamt of an Africa ‘which is in peace with itself’; he
started the process of dismantling century-old walls of apartheid simply
with truth and reconciliation.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
I am not much into politics; I march or decline to march in an occasional public rally or two, according to my God-given conscience. I am not an activist, a revolutionary or a freedom fighter. I don’t hate or blame “the government” for everything that happened, is happening or will happen. I am just an ordinary widow, earning my keep in this land that I call my country. I don’t know anything about my Chinese ancestors except that they must have come from China, and nope, I don’t even speak my own mother-tongue. Instead I pride myself that I am very fluent in Bahasa Malaysia (or at least that’s what I am told). Given the choice, I would rather ‘mind my own business’, as has been repeatedly advised by certain quarters these days.
But there comes a time when ‘my business’ goes beyond the 4 corners of my own secure and actually quite comfortable existence in my little corner of my world. Because in between being Christian and Chinese, I have defined myself as Malaysian. I have tied myself (for better or for worse) to some 28 million other humans who apparently call themselves Malaysians too, although all may legitimately have ‘multiple’ separate identities of their own.
Perhaps I am a simpleton. But is it that difficult for us to appreciate that we are all in the same “Malaysian” boat, irrespective of the garb we wear, the food we eat, the language we talk, and that really is our fundamental unchangeable position? (unless of course you consider yourself anything but Malaysian) As it is, if history is correct, the original indigenous inhabitants of this land weren’t the Malays, Chinese, Indians, whites or whoever - that honor is reserved for the Orang Asli tribes. So I beg everyone’s pardon, but let’s face it, aren’t we all (ie everyone who isn’t an Orang Asli) actually the ‘others’ who have ‘invaded’, exploited and milked this land for all its worth, settling hereupon to multiply, live and prosper ourselves and our progeny, by whatever means? Isn’t that how basically we came to consider ourselves “Malaysian”? Is that offensive? Well, truth is still true, even if it be offensive.
So if we can face the truth that we are all not as ‘great’ or as ‘good’ as we each claim to be, perhaps we can choose to be mindful not to say things without thinking through, to refrain from asserting our own cleverness or superiority, to assume everyone else is wrong, misguided or idiotic. We talk so much about freedom of expression, and that’s all fine and good. But perhaps we can also choose the greatest freedom of all, which is not to exercise our ‘rights’. Could it be that in the pursuit of nationhood, we have forgotten how to be just a ‘decent’ human being one to another? Why do we have to fight, push and shove each other off the boat? Can’t or won’t everyone who claims to be Malaysian see the ‘big vision’ of what Malaysia should really be all about? This is surely a blessed land, and surely Malaysia has more than enough to accommodate and prosper all who shelter under her sun.
I am just one, and as a Malaysian Chinese, I can’t do much to ease what I see as the ‘growing-up’ pains of this nation. But as first and foremost a Christian, this 1 thing I can and determine to do – I can shout less and pray more for my Malaysia.
* Christine Lai reads The Malay Mail Online
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-nation-in-search-of-her-soul-christine-sk-lai#sthash.nHmhSD8z.dpuf
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