JEWELLE TAN

For the last few days, most of us who follow the political development in Malaysia would be eagerly waiting for news of THE change.

Today is nearly gone and judging from the formal and informal news, everything is in place and THE change will transpire soon.

Not that I am passionately pro towards any one side of the story but who can help but be aware of the many happenings – good, bad, strange and infuriating – that are taking place? I may not have direct access to all the news or political coffee shop talks that must have be raging around the country these days but I do make a lot of effort to keep abreast. Just because I no longer live in Malaysia, it does not mean that I can forget about it’s issues and perhaps, this is my way of showing my loyalty to my country.

For some weird reasons, today after reading the interesting-but-I-cannot-help-but-disagree-on-some-points on Malaysian Unity by the former Malaysian Prime Ministers, I happened to drop by my local library and picked up a fiction entitled “Joss & Gold” by Shirley Geok-in Lim.

What prompted me to borrow this book was obviously the cultural theme of life in Malaysia.

But what surprised me was realizing that the part of this book that I’ve read so far is about on what it meant to be Malaysian. Quite eerie to stumble on a book that dealt on this matter on today – of all days.

Bearing in mind that the setting of this scenario is in the 1968-1969, I want to quote a statement made by one of the character (Chinese lady) in response to an American character who argued that “Chinese aren’t really Malaysian”.

“You sound just like the ultra-Malay politicians who want to kick out the Chinese out of the country. My mother’s family has been in this country for five or six generations and some of the Malays are really immigrants who have just arrived from Indonesia in the last few years. You can’t make any judgments based on who or what is ‘original’. Sure, the Chinese traditions came from China, but Islam came from Saudi Arabia, didn’t it? And no one says it’s not original. Everything in Malaysia is champor-champor, mixed, rojak.”

Excerpt : “Joss & Gold” by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

And the best part.

“Chinese and Indians are also Malaysians here…Give us a few more years and we’ll be a totally new nation. No more Malay, Chinese, Indian but all one people”.

Excerpt : “Joss & Gold” by Shirley Geok-lin-Lim

At this point, that was basically the last word that I read from this book.

This brought to mind a statement I heard from Oprah Winfrey in one of her show a long time ago.

She questioned on why must we tolerate differences like they’re something distasteful when we should be respecting each other individuality. Why forced everyone to blend until we become an unidentifiable mush of melting pot. Why not have a beautiful bowl of salad mix, vegetables of all shapes and colours mixed together, retaining their individual taste and texture?

I thought that one of our country’s greatest asset is that we have all these different cultures and customs living together. It makes us interesting – our food selection more varied, our mixed languages more endearing, our festivals aplenty.

So what is the rationale of asking everyone else to forgo their culture and custom – speak only one language, go to only one kind of school etc?

Today should be the day when we must realize that in order to move forward, all talks on racial superiority or inferiority should be stopped. Stop looking backwards and wishing for the past to come back. Time has moved on, things have changed.

On this Malaysia Day, let’s celebrate our differences and live in harmony.