This is something I wrote for The Star last week. I don’t know if it ever saw print, but in any case, here it is in it’s entirety. As always, comments are more than welcome.

TWO CENTS’ FROM AN ORDINARY MALAYSIAN
by: Ganaesh Devaraj

This is just a humble comment from an ordinary Malaysian. I am not a politician, nor do I aspire to be one. I am not a political enthusiast, and intellectual discussions about the intricacies of politics in this country will only serve to confuse me further. But I felt that I had to write this piece, even though it might appear simplistic in the end. It’s something that I feel I have to do, as a Malaysian and as someone who loves and values peace.

I am scared, and I don’t think I have ever been this scared my entire life. I have done some bad things in the past, but thankfully, they remain within the realms of mistakes that people are bound to make in their lifetimes. But this fear, the fear that I have within me now, is of something that I have no control of. I can only stand and watch while events unfold, and see the consequences of what a few of my fellow countrymen are doing, not out of rational thought, but out of ignorance and stupidity.

You can call me paranoid; it doesn’t bother me. Better to be paranoid about these kinds of things than be complacent about it. The things I read in the paper and see in the news, they make me wonder: were we all living under a façade all this time? Surely this can’t be what people are really thinking about, right? Is the concept of race and religion really that big of a deal?

I was born here. I grew up, and am still growing up here. I had a good friend who I always spent time with everyday when I was in primary school. He was a neighbour of my babysitter, and I would always play with him and his sister until his parents called him in for Solat Maghrib. Back then, I didn’t know much about his religion, but it wasn’t necessary. That wasn’t a necessity for us to enjoy ourselves. I had a best friend who was also my classmate. I liked playing in his house; the smell of burning joss sticks made any feelings of awkwardness I had from being at his place disappear. His family was used to having me around, and when I stayed over for lunch, they would make sure not to serve me anything that had beef in it. We would make jokes about our skin colour (I used too many black colour pencils and he used too many yellow colour pencils), but we would always laugh it off and go watch Ultraman together.

When I came to Standard 4 however, everything changed. The atmosphere seemed dark and gloomy, and everyone started keeping to themselves. It became an unwritten rule that you had to find friends from your own race, but it was something that was very hard for me to accept. Naturally, I had a hard time fitting in, because the concept of interacting and communicating with people who are only from your own race was something that was totally alien to me.

I remember those times well. My classmates would remind me ever so subtly of my place, and if I had the misfortune of forgetting it, the teachers would make sure that I got the message loud and clear. Snide remarks and sarcastic jabs were common during those times, regardless of whether they’re from classmates or teachers. That affected my studies greatly, and I couldn’t wait to get away from there. That was my first brush with racism, and it shook me up pretty bad. Even today, I start to get fidgety whenever I’m in a big group consisting of people of a single race. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong about it, and it’s out-of-place in the context of a multinational, multicultural society.

The way I look at it, the concept of race and religion is only as big as what we make of it. Yes, there are differences from one religion to the other, and that is an irrefutable fact. But allow me to take a simplistic approach for this matter, and ask: so what? If there are differences, we find out what those differences are and we act accordingly. We respect those differences and celebrate the diversity that comes out of those differences. It is a fundamental right that is accorded to each and every human being on this planet, and no-one has any right to say or do otherwise.

Excuse me for coming up with a seemingly naïve statement, but I always thought that those sentiments were shared by most, if not all Malaysians. Well, it seems that time has a way of ripping apart that cocoon of idealism and showing us the true, cynical face of a living, breathing society. I tried to deny it for a long time, but it is not something that you can beat off with a stick. Sooner or later, that little fact of life will invade your life. It will hit you, and it will hit you hard.

But I will hold on to this piece of idealism, politics be damned. I still have hope that it will become a reality in due time. I’m not giving up yet, and I don’t think anyone should. I will never let people tell me to mix with people from my own race for my own good. It shouldn’t happen. It must stop, and it must stop now. If we still require reason and logic for it, even after almost half a century of independence, then we are in a much bigger problem than we realize.