There’s always hope

It is extremely easy to feel hopeless in Malaysia these days. What’s there not to be - prices of goods keep rising, people are being laid off, affordable housing is still out of the reach of many.

To make things worse, constant squabbling and bickering between and within political parties have reached feverish heights. People who are supposed to protect us are shunning their duties, and those said to be performing that duty well, ending up missing and later found dead.

We’ve seen this happen lately with police officers, Customs officers, public prosecutors.

Despite constant reassurances of safety, kidnappings still occur in broad daylight, especially in East Malaysia.

Blatant, open displays of racism are being peddled as fighting for rights and people actually fighting for the rights of all Malaysians are being accused of racism.

Violent threats being issued against duly elected leaders.  

Politicians issuing stupid press statements daily, some harmless, others downright destructive, with often little repercussion apart from maybe the occasional slap in the wrist.

And most political parties, previously quick to deny, refute or disassociate themselves from such statements, have, of late been slow to. Some don’t even bother, perhaps due to lethargy or boredom of repeating the same script over and over again, and some more.

It’s not like we’re managing the economy much better than we are race relations.

After months of assuring us GST was absolutely necessary - almost sounding like failure to do so would spell certain economic doom - we’re then asked what the government should do with the money. That’s a bit like getting a donation but not quite sure what it’s for, but I digress.

But thankfully, quite often, the worst of situations brings out the best in people.

On Malaysia Day, while the red shirted protestors were marching around the city centre allegedly shouting racist slogans and burning posters, or as some politicians would call, "rallying peacefully", smaller groups of people attempted to undo the imagery of hate portrayed by coming together within their own circles of influence, to provide an alternative narrative.

In KLCC, some joined the Malaysians for Malaysia’s picnic where they celebrated the nation’s 52nd birthday with balloons and a birthday cake.

Over in Shah Alam, a thousand people gathered and performed a solidarity walk organised by the houses of worship in that area. Similarly, many other interfaith prayers and get-togethers occurred all around the country.

Online, many activists and groups organised their own hashtag campaigns, like #ThisIsOurMalaysia and #KitaMalaysia and many others.

While all this was going on, a group of people from various religious and racial backgrounds followed David Wu, a one-man-army on a walk across Pahang.

David is on a mission to raise funds for a housing project in Kelantan for flood victims there. His 600km trek is also to promote goodwill and understanding between Malaysians from different backgrounds.

You can’t get any more Chinese than David. Yet here is this very Chinese guy, wanting to build a village in Kelantan, the middle of the Malay heartland, in the midst of all the hate-mongering against those two communities by certain parties. Why? We’re all Malaysians.

Then there’s Syed Azmi, of "I Want to Touch a Dog" fame. One of his latest projects involved supplying food to a Tamil school.

And there are many, many more Davids and Syeds out there, many of whom I count myself lucky enough to have met.

So while it’s disheartening to see people hijacking things like Hari Malaysia to spread an agenda that’s quite contrary to the Malaysia we learnt about in school and loved, it’s equally heartening to see that those lessons did not go to waste on others.

And I’d like to believe that, as long as some of us love Malaysia, we will always have the Malaysia we love. – September 22, 2015.

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