Truly 1Malaysia

Disclaimer: I am not a racist and I do not intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments. This post is purely of my humble opinion.


Ever since the new Prime Minister stepped in, 1Malaysia has become a daily term in our lives. However, how far do we understand and cherish the diversity? Is there unity in diversity as everyone claims? One of my lecturers who was giving a talk for the Kursus Induksi, stepped in said Salam 1Malaysia and said “don’t know what it means. Since everyone is using, lets use”. I think that exactly reflects most Malaysians mentality.

How far do we respect each other’s beliefs and sentiments? Few months ago, I was in my hostel room with my Malay roommate, when the Malay warden walked in. As she entered the room, the first thing that came out of her mouth was “Eh, I ada Keling kat bilik sini Kak,” (there is a Keling inside here) to the other lecturer. And quickly she realised her stinging words and apologised to me and even HUGGED me! Just to make up for what she had said. Just to shut my mouth! And she was clearly perturbed that the Malay girl is staying with 2 Indian girls. In fact, she was keeping on bugging the poor girl if she is Malay. Well, reality check..We are in Malaysia ..a country that talks about 1 Malaysia and unity in diversity.
Past few days we have been having Kursus Induksi, which boasts compulsory attendance of all civil servants. The topics were on Dasar-dasar and Malaysian policies and as clichéd everyone talked about unity, diversity, single stream schools. But what annoyed me and few friends was that the talks were used as a medium of preaching religion lessons and beliefs. I have no qualm about mentioning religious quotes but one has to be very fair when you quote examples from religious verses. Some wise lecturers asked the nons about the view expressed in their respective religions without sounding judgemental. During a session conducted by an Ustad, he was oblivious to the fact that there are Non-Muslim students in the class and started using Arabic words and quotes from Quran verses. Had he translated them, everyone would have benefited. However, to my dismay, he was not bothered about us and kept talking about particular religion. I have no idea about these types of people who cannot act fair to all. You can always take a neutral stand and address God as God instead of giving Him culturally specific names.
Not enough with this marginalisation, recently I heard from a Bumiputra girl that her brother was given a scholarship to study Mandarin in China by MARA. This particular boy has no prior knowledge in Mandarin and was given several choices by the scholarship division to pick one that appeals to him. I suppose all the Chinese in Malaysia has stopped learning Mandarin that the scholarships are given to others who have no knowledge in the field. Imagine a scholarship division calls you at home and asks you to choose an overseas course. Wow..tat’s cool. Long live Malaysia.