Any object, situation, person or place would normally progress and move forward after being in existence for 52 years. Look at corporations, towns, cities, people and more prevalent, technology. Technology decided to take a huge exponential leap into the future. We flew our first plan at the turn of the 20th century in 1903 but less than 70 years later, we managed to put a man on the moon! The first computers was the size of a boardroom and today PC can outperform that computer by 1000 times. IBM has already invented a chip that can perform pentaflop calculations, which is 1,000,000 trillion calculations a second. That is so mind boggling that I can't even fathom that there is such a huge number. All in about 50 years!
Where is Malaysia in that 50 years? Caning a woman for drinking beer in public. Calling your neighbours immigrants despite them being longer in the country than you and when your ancestors are immigrants themselves. Judging others by differences from your own religion despite the teaching of that said religion. Murder, corruption, accusing others of corruption, putting the needs of the self before the country are just a few incidences that we have "progressed" to.
So have we moved forward?
Sure, we have one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. Our economy has grown leaps and we have been able to adapt from agriculture to manufacturing and hi-tech. Our airport has won many awards and we have one of the best low-cost carriers in the world. Our people are generally friendly, more accommodating, more co-operative and relatively smart. Most of our smartest brains are being pinched elsewhere.
However, we still have medieval mentality. PAS and many people in today's Govt still want to run this country like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan where medieval punishment is practiced and everyone follows the word of the Holy book to the hilt. Because we still have hardcore poor, illiterates and places that are non-accessible to TV and mass media (even then, censored and controlled media), we have very ignorant people in the rural areas who believe in the lies and medieval thinking.
People who for some stupid bigoted reasons believe we are in some kind of religious war. People who believe that all the non-muslims are infidels and deserve to die. People who still abuse, rape and condone these abuses done to their own children and then have the audacity to call others barbarians and infidels. People who totally distort the Islamic principles and create fear into the populace in the name of Islam.
I am not a Muslim but I have yet to encounter a Muslim colleague, friend or the guy that stands in front of me in a queue at McDonald's, wanting to kill me just because I pray differently or have different views. Now don't get me wrong. In these rural areas, we do have ignorant Indian and Chinese people who are just as racist and feel that they need to stick it to the Malays, Chinese and Indians and vice versa. How many times have we heard a parent and maybe even your own parents say to the kids or you when you were little that if you don't behave yourself, the Indian man will come and catch you.
I have relatives who are highly educated and hold positions of great responsibility but who are one of the most racist folks ever. My Indian relatives think that all Malay people are lazy and incompetent and when they are reprimanded for their own incompetence, they blame the Malay conspiracy. My Chinese relatives told their children that they shouldn't marry Indians because you will be unhappy and that these Indians will get drunk and come home and hit their wives. That is so untrue. Sometimes we pour gasoline on them and set them on fire. That's beside the point.
Why only Indians? Chinese folks don't gamble, lose everything and then come and hit their wives and children? How many times have you read in the papers a Chinese man gambles or loses all the money borrowed from Ah Long (money lenders) and then kill the whole family including their own small children?
How many times have we read about a Malay man going out looking for another wife and to stop him from doing so, the wife just ignores the fact when he rapes his own daughter...just to keep him in the house?
We are all guilty. Being from a dual culture I am blessed to see both sides but I am so afraid for my children. I don't want to bring them up in a world where we place so much emphasis on race and then generalizing race to certain characteristics. I don't want our country to be like that but I can't do it alone. We all just need to focus on the right things to do and believe in the 1 culture and 1 race, which is Malaysian.
Gaining independence in 1957 gives us the opportunity to see how other countries have progressed so that we can learn and take the shortcut. That's our advantage but we are not using it, instead we are falling into the same traps and mind sets.
It's not impossible, Malaysian. Despite all our differences, we have been living together for 52 years and some even more. Let's bring up our children differently and make that change.
I'm looking at man in the mirror
I'm hoping that he'll change his ways.....
If you wanna make a world a better place
take a look at yourself and then make that change
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