50 Posts To Independence #32: Our Malaysia.

Many thanks to the ingenious Walski of myAsylum for tagging me to do #32 of 50 posts to independence (counting backwards) the brainchild of Nizam Bashir. My gratitude to the redoubtable menj for readily agreeing to be tagged for post #31.

Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku; words that at one time meant a great deal to me. Somehow over the years it has lost its resonance as far as I am concerned. That doesn't mean I am less patriotic now or love my country less. It is just that the disappointment I have experienced as I grew older have become more.

Having said that, I must hasten to add that Malaysia is still a far better, more blessed and livable country than most. I learnt that quickly enough when I first embarked on my 'global trek.' Armed with a federal government scholarship to pursue my tertiary education abroad at what I would like to think was and is one of the finest institutes in the world for the discipline which I studied in, my stay overseas made me realize what it meant to be a Malaysian especially when you're out of the country and in a very different environment.

Every Malaysian I met, irrespective of race, colour, religion or political belief was a brother. (I didn't have the 'good fortune' of meeting any of the fairer sex. There weren't many Malaysian girls studying abroad then.) There was this 'something' which we the Malaysians had in common, to the exclusion of all the other nationalities even if they (the other nationals) were ethnically similar to some of us. That something, which we could perhaps term as 'Malaysianness,' despite the disparate nature of our origins and the way we live in the country, was the bond that kept us together then, as it does in my case even to this day.

In terms of stability and good governance, we as a nation are far better placed even at this point in time than many of the less fortunate throughout the world. It's said that it is human nature to truly appreciate something or to really miss it only when it is no more. There is much truth to that statement. Only when a member of the family passes on or a friend departs do we reflect upon his or her good qualities and how much that had meant at one time and we slowly start to cherish what we don't have anymore. We might regret that we had taken them for granted and may even secretly wish that if the clock could be turned back, we would do things differently.

Our relationship with the country is similar to that as above. We sometimes focus on all the bad and sad news that we tend to forget the whole load of goodness right there in front of our eyes. The goodness which we take for granted and consider our birthright. But even the relationship between citizen and his/her Mother, (our country) must be nourished and allowed to grow healthily. That is the least a child can do for the Mother.

In a multiracial nation like ours there are bound to be many issues and occurences that will from time to time cause unhappiness and dissatisfaction. But through it all we have to focus on the common ties that bind us, our 'Malaysianness' which distinguishes us from the rest of the world and, to paraphrase a masonic writer, "ever remembering that nature has implanted in the breast of men a sacred, and it should be, an indissoluble attachment to the country from which they derive their birth and infant nurture."

So as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of our independence let us all vow to face the future positively, accepting the good which there is plenty of and rejecting everything negative and detrimental to this blessed land of ours called Malaysia.
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