Sticking together as a nation

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

You would usually find this rather clichéd Henry Ford quote if a company you’re working for has just underwent a merger or acquisition, and you’re undergoing that awkward moment of adjusting – not quite trusting  your new colleagues; but, at the same time, not quite sure what to feel while watching your old colleagues pack up and go.

I guess that’s kind of what we’re undergoing as a nation as well.

We don’t yet quite trust the new arrivals – the Bangladeshis, the Vietnamese, the Indonesians. Yet we see our old friends, the Chinese, the Eurasians… pack up and leave in droves.

Were we successful in building a nation? If Henry Ford is to be believed, indeed we’ve built one .We have a semi-effective public transportation system, a rather-functional civil service, tall buildings and short queues at the public toilets. We work together fine.

But there’s more to nation-building than merely working together. More than mere cold steel and hard concrete, jobs and money, language and culture – there’s also the soul of a country. And our soul has been ripped apart, assembled together and undergone more twists and tussles than your average Malaysian sodomy trial.

There was a time – before slogans and government drives and flashy NGO campaigns – where we knew what to do. Call it instinct, call it forgotten decency. We knew how to treat our neighbours. We knew how to talk to people of other cultures. We knew how to listen to people of other political persuasions. We knew how to dialogue with other religions.

Ironically, those were simpler times – without the influence of satellite television, or the reach of social media. Yet there was an innate sense of tolerance and respect that allowed people from diverse economic, social, racial, religious and cultural backgrounds to come together and form this country we now call home.

Together we overcame many adversities as a nation – the British, the Japs, the Communists, the Indonesians, and forty years of purely Malaysian terrestrial television as our sole entertainment.

Why is it that when a national tragedy occurs, we all huddle up and encourage each other, mindful only that we belong to the same country and have a common fate; only to release that hug when the crisis has abated?

Why is it that every time a football game or badminton match featuring Malaysia happens, we all band together and cheer as a nation for that two hours, all having one common dream for victory, forgetting all our differences and remembering only that we are Malaysian…  then move away to our respective myopic views on race, religion and politics?

Imagine what we could achieve as a nation if we never released that huddle, never let go of that hug.

Imagine if we never forgot we are all Malaysians and never forgot our shared fate and common dream.

Malaysians have no problem coming together. Now if we’d only stick together. – January 6, 2015.

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