Negaraku
Today, another random person asked me why I decided to come back for good. Again. She was a pharmacist behind the counter that I fatedly met this afternoon while shopping for some over-the-counter drugs (but prescriptive in Canada, lol!) for my friend.
My reply to her, as usual, was the same – because of my parents. She looked skeptical. And I went on, saying that things could change. Her skepticism continued to stare at me from her unblinking eyes, her only comment was: “Bleak-lah.”
Our conversation went on after I asked if she voted. She said yes, although she didn’t believe that her vote would make any difference.
She shared her insight with me – which was that the Chinese population in the country was reducing at an alarming rate due to the double standards where the Chinese population in Malaysia would need to work thrice as hard to make a decent living. She firmly believes that the government had planned this from the start. (Frankly speaking, I doubt that they were smart enough to come up with such a brilliant scheme that actually works, I think it was more of sheer luck and just the pure stupidity inefficiency of their governance that resulted in this.)
I told her that if that were the case, then we would need to depend on the educated, modern Malays who could see through the government’s conspiracies and unethical ways to help save this country.
Her reply: “Bleak. Bleak. I still think you should go back to Canada.” And then she added: “But don’t tell your parents I told you to do that.”
Lol.
But you know what? I think she may be wrong on this one. I hope she is wrong anyway.
I have faith in the modern Malays – who choose not to be blinded by the perks of the unwritten social contracts in Malaysia, who probably feel screwed over by the government for making it mandatory for all Malays to be Muslim – thus robbing them of a freedom of religion and putting them through a million obstacles if engaging in an interracial relationship.
I have faith.
And honestly, the government’s power lay in the hands of the Malays and some ignorant Chinese and Indian people who think that if the opposition party wins, there would be another May 13 incident. But really, once the Malay support is broken, the government would need to step up about 500 notches, and really do some good for a change. I see that it is already working – they recognize now that people today are less gullible than their forefathers and more informed with the help of technology, and are trying to butter up to the Chinese people by asking them to give them a chance.
Well, we’ll see how things go before the next election comes up.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the next GE.
