Who is the true Malaysian?

Among the concerns that I have of late is this need for development all over the City of Georgetown and it seems like developers are having a field day trying to get more and more projects going in order to reshape the island and its landscape to look more like a Singapore or a Hong Kong. Land reclamation along the shoreline has redrawn the outline of the Island from its original shape and new condos and apartment buildings have sprouted almost everywhere you look, the skyline is no more the same. Who is going to live in those apartments you wonder, how many Penangites are there that an afford these expensive homes? What happens to the environment with so many unites of housing being built and very little done about sewage management. I get tired just thinking about it much less writing as I am quickly finding out making this post entry. But it is happening and it is happening everywhere, we are building and building more and more like there is no tomorrow, "they keep on building higher till there's no more room up there, but tell me, where do the children play...?" (Cat Stevens).

Then there is the racial bigotry and who has the right to be the citizen of the country tripping. You cannot fart the wrong direction without having someone accuse you of being a racist in this country and when all fails politically, the racial card is played to the max to win. For the past past 60 odd years we have lived alongside each other, the Malays Chinese, Indians an the rest of the ethnic groups too many to name and what have we learned? Zip! Nada! Not a bloody thing. We are still short fused when it comes to racial issues, someone is always stepping on our toes where our race is concern. No time in the history of this country are the Malays more Malays, the Chinese more Chinese and the Indians...etc. Ethnic identity has become pandemic among all the races in the country, each claiming to be better and more relevant than the other, sad, but true and getting worse. This racial bigotry is being played by the politicians from both side of the divide all along to set ablaze hatred in the effort to divide and rule or gain support. For so long as Malaysians allows for this to go on, we will know no peace as a nation.

Then there is the religious idiosyncrasies that is inherent in all the various religious denomination that makes up for this nation. Each is crying out louder than the rest from the rooftops and mountains that their faith is the true faith, that their religion is the true religion and so forth and this has been going on for ages like it will never see the end of it at least not in my lifetime and perhaps not even my children's or theirs; it is like we will never ever learn.. The rights to worship, to have temples and churches, mosques and what have you has become an on going issue since the day, God said, build me a home, now we have hundreds and thousands of God's home all over the country and ironically with a growing number of homelessness among the population, while God is seldom home. Religion has become a commodity and like racial bigotry, it has also become a potent tool for politicians  who has ran out of juices to pander their ideas. If and when all else fails, lets throw down the religious card, it never fails.

Then there is education and this is an even more confusing issue that plagues the government of the day as just everyone if not every ethnic group has an axe to grind about it. I feel very fortunate to have been among the last of the educational system that was pretty much the British standard of educational system.    

  After I left the secondary school the educational system went through some major revamping starting with the National Language as the medium of delivery.Then came the rest of the systems of education catering to the different races with the demand made such that the mother tongue is not lost and so forth, Chinese, Indian and Malay schools became the norm. While on the one hand we are screaming nationalism and devotion to one flag and one country, on the other hand we are demanding that our each and every racial identities be preserved at all cost and are willing to kill or die for it. As the saying goes, we want the pie and eat it too. No individual race in this country is willing to make the sacrifice of giving up their racial heritage and fully embrace the New Malaysian identity; it would be a lie if anyone admits to it except for those who are by birthare of mixed nationality; perhaps these are the true Malaysians.