So where are the UFOs?

FEB 24 — When I visit my parents, my father and I will watch UFO documentaries together on the History Channel. My family has a love for the esoteric and history, and when it comes to UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle et al, the Zaman family is an avid and attentive audience.

One Thursday before the New Year, my nephew asked Abah, “Papa Ki, why aliens never come to Malaysia one?”

To which my father, Abah, bolted upright in his chair to pontificate, “Bak gape alien UFO nok maghi this basket country?!  (These days, everything is basket to my dad). What do we have to offer the aliens? Corruption! Murder! Malays fighting with each other! Racism! Alien tembor laghi kalau sampai Malaysia!”

My nephew to me: “Nana. What is Papa Ki talking about lah?!”

It is almost March. I am already exhausted, and am trying to find some humour in my daily life.

Has it come to this? Impulse and hatred becoming our darah daging? Yes, I admit that not all Muslims, and not all Malays be they in Umno, PAS or PKR condone the church and mosque attacks.

I happen to know and am friends with people who are divided on the Allah debate and the torching of the churches. There are people with strong views, liberal or conservative but are very good people and there are people who are fuelled by hate.

There are angry Christians. Sad Christians. Sad Muslims and angry ones, too. All of us are united and divided. I suppose that’s one of the few things in common that we have, at the very least.

If this was the Victorian era, I would have burst out of my corset and be inhaling smelling salts, when texts and emails from friends arrive in my Gmail and Blackberry. There’s really no demographic to this: some were observant Muslims, some were liberals but they agreed on one thing:

Allah is for Muslims. Sod off Catholics (and one supposes everyone else non-Bumi).

I suppose I can understand how offended my religious friends are but when I saw texts from still-clubbing and partying-types who pray occasionally, my blood pressure rose.

[Allow me to digress. Went to see my ENT doctor the other day. ENT doctor loves talking about politics. That day he was measuring my blood pressure and being the affable chap he was, he asked me about the Allah issue and the missing jet engines. Aiyoma, my blood pressure shot up and he remarked, “Young lady, we’re not talking about politics anymore!” Addendum: my beloved gynaecologyst “Would you ever consider something less stressful, career wise? Like a marriage?” “Dr Raman, I’d remarry if I can find the right man! You think cari husband macam pergi supermarket ke!”]

Educated relatives texting me saying how the non-Muslims in the country should be grateful we lent our land to them, if not they’d be stuck in heathen countries like America.

I read my editor’s article again and again titled, “Where is the love?” I asked her, where IS the love in Malaysia? My tiny world, which consists of books, family, friends and cats, is being battered every day by everything that’s going wrong in this country. Then again, maybe because I work for TMI, and we read all these, every day, all the time, this is why I feel hammered by it all.

That night when we had finished watching the UFO documentary, Abah said, “I wish I could meet an alien. If Allah wills it, I’d like to follow it and discover its world. Away from the madness that is here.”

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.