opinion

No need for race when sharing Malaysian stories

Cheryl Ann Fernando

A lot of stories go viral in Malaysia and a large number of it involves racial issues. It seems as if we Malaysians love a good story of an Indian man being rude to a Malay girl or vice versa.

The grimmer the story, the more likely we are to share it. Better yet if it contains derogatory words like "keling" and so on. These stories seem to capture the attention of many and they speak angrily of how we are supposed to be a united and harmonious nation.

While I believe that stories are supposed to be shared to spread awareness and such, I have a problem with the mention of race in these stories. It seems as if we want to purposely point out that the old Chinese aunty was rude to the Malay girl even though the girl was trying to help her.

It seems as if we can't tell stories without mentioning or highlighting the races involved, as if indicating that one race is better or less rude than the other.

The truth is, we Malaysians are a rude bunch. We don't necessarily have a racial issue, instead we have a problem with us being rude.

A few years ago, my cousin and I were stopped by a policeman and when my cousin could not produce any identification (she left her IC at home), without missing a beat, the policeman told us to "balik India".

Did I feel offended? Sure, I did. Did I think he did it because he was a Malay and I was an Indian? No. He said that because he was rude. Chances are, he'll be rude to a Chinese or another Malay person because that's just the way rude people are.

Now, let us fast forward to a few days ago, when my mother was in hospital. A Chinese visitor next to us offered us breakfast because he bought extra. Did he do it because he was Chinese and I was Indian? Certainly not. He did it because he was a kind person and he would have offered food to anyone else at the bed next to his.

Last Sunday in church, I was looking for a place to sit and didn't realise that I was blocking the entrance. As a result, a young girl pushed me rudely as she made her way to the front of the church.

Technically, we are both Christians and following the logic of the masses, we are supposed to be nice to each other. But she wasn't and it didn't matter because it wasn't about belonging to the same race or religion, but it was the fact that she was uncouth and she'll act the same to everyone around her.

Whenever we share stories, indicating that a person of a different race was rude to us, we forget about the times that the people of our own race were rude to us. In fact, let's not go too far as we even have family members who are rude. When we view everything through a racial lens, we tend to have a very narrow view of the very people who have been living in the same country with us since we were born.

Whenever we are surprised and touched by an Indian aunty helping a Malay aunty, we forget that this is supposed to be the norm. Since our independence, we have fought countless battles when it comes to achieving unity and living in harmony with the different races.

But today, I'd like to believe that as Malaysians we have come a long way for us to still be surprised at events of different races coming together (or not for that matter).

It shouldn't be a novelty. We shouldn't be touched at the efforts of different races coming together because that's what we are meant to do.

We claim to be proud to be Malaysians, yet the very next day we are writing stories and naming races in our Facebook posts. Can we tell a story of unity without mentioning our races? Can we do away with cliché advertisements of Malays, Indians and Chinese smiling and eating together and still feel united?

What would it take for us to stop identifying each other by our race and just solely working towards becoming kinder and better people?

I know, we have a long way before we can live in harmony with each other, without any racial sentiments. But, I believe that the first step will be to leave out the race and religion of people in our stories and hopefully, make unity a norm in Malaysia. – February 11, 2016.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.