Looking Out from Within
– A 2025 Reflection on “Terengganu: Looking In, Looking Out” (2005)
Two decades have passed since I first wrote “Terengganu: Looking In, Looking Out.” I remember how sharp the feelings were then—disappointment, urgency, a fire lit from watching tradition die in plain sight. I was still holding hope that the erosion could be stopped, or at least slowed down, by naming it.
Now, in 2025, I look again—and what I see is not erosion, but replacement.
Not decay, but a complete rewrite of the cultural script.
The Main Pantai is still gone.
Wayang Kulit exists in museums and tourist booths, not spirit houses or kampung fields.
The local has been pushed to the margins, made ornamental, or erased.
Today I watched a list of Malaysia’s top ten billionaires—all but one Chinese, the lone outlier Indian. Not a single Malay. And while that may not be the only marker of success or value, it’s a telling symbol: We’ve become spectators in someone else’s economic theatre.
Investment scams disguised as opportunities now flood the media—RM1,500 to earn RM20,000 a month, they claim. The PM appears in videos offering financial “hope” to the masses, like a game show host with a national budget.
Meanwhile, I look around my new apartment, and I see more foreign workers than Malaysians living here.
This is not a judgment. It is simply reality.
And reality no longer surprises me—it just confirms what I’ve long felt:
The cultural gap has not only widened—it has changed shape.
What we called “Malay identity” in 2005 is now a fragmented echo. On one end: elite Malays with wealth, influence, and curated image. On the other hand, everyday folks are surviving on subsidies, TikTok inspiration, and the slow surrender of dreams. The middle is thinner than ever. And yes, the divide between “Malay” and “Chinese” still simmers, but the more dangerous divide is within the Malay self—between those who remember what was, and those who no longer care.
Am I still angry?
No.
Not angry.
Just... hollowed out by the truth.
But even in this truth, I hold on—not to hope in the usual sense, but to conscious witnessing.
I still walk the land. I still greet the sea.
I still write what I see—not because it will change anything, but because some things deserve to be remembered.
Even if only to say: We were here. We saw. We cared.
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