The Worth of Independence

In four days' time, citizens of the Federation of Malaysia will celebrate the anniversary of its Independence. The 49th one.

However, this number may not hold much significance to people of or within my generation, as we have never experienced the chaos resulting from racial disharmony, and therefore, cannot fully savour the importance of racial integration. For most of us, our knowledge of history is solely from school textbooks and university courses.

Since all students in the nation are required to study History, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the dogma propagated by our history teachers and university lecturers alike, that "semua yang Barat, tak bagus (Everything that comes from the West, is bad)". A lot of emphasis is placed on the British's "divide and conquer rule", and the negative influences supposedly brought by them which are still here today.

We teach the young not to stereotype. Don't judge people based on colour, we say. Don't make assumptions on someone based on their nationality; it's not right to call people names, we preach.

Then we go about liberally labelling the West as "budaya kuning... budaya pencemar" (the pollutant culture). Academicians waste their energy placing the blame on the other party!

Let's not talk about superficiality here.

That Kancil bearing a thousand small flags on its roof which just overtook you, does not necessarily have a driver more patriotic than the Laksa seller by the roadside, with no flags on his stall.

All that can be said, has been said. It's time for action. I believe the people of our nation have the conscience and ability to distinguish the beneficial from the disastrous in developing this nation.

For this Merdeka day, my wish is simple. Let there be no more propaganda-filled courses which serve to potentially deepen racial lines rather than to eliminate them. As an example, allow me to quote my lecturer from the Islamic Civilization (TITAS) course:

"Muslims believe there is one and only god. Untuk agama India, dia lain sikit. Dalam agama Buddha... tak sama. (Indians are a little different. In Buddhism... it's not the same.)"

With a statement like this, I sometimes wonder how much our independence is worth.