My name is Terence Wang, a 17 year old Malaysian.
Usually, I refuse to write political posts on this site, primarily because I wanted to avoid being affiliated with any organisation or ideology. However, recent trends mean that, for once, I must break my own rules.
Tomorrow, 13.3 million voters will set out to decide the outcome on what is arguably the most contested general election Malaysia has ever had. For the first time ever, polls and surveys conducted by various institutions have decided that the race is "too close to call". In other words, these voters will be ultimately deciding the fate of what Malaysia is to become in the near and distant future.
As the heat rises by the hour, I'm taking a look back at my own journey these past few years, growing up alongside the great journey that the nation has walked over the decade, leading up to where we are today.
Learning
I was twelve when I first started being interested in politics. The year was 2008, and the election fever was seeping in. I remember being mesmerised by the multitude of colourful flags hastily set up along the roads on my way to school. Being young and knowing naught about politics, the whole extravaganza was bewildering to me; I didn't even really get what most of the banners were blabbering about.
Back then, I was ferried back and forth to my primary school by a neighbour who lived a few streets away; she picked up other kids too, and made a little money from it. We fondly called her "Aunty Bibi" - until today, I have yet to make up my mind whether this was her real name or not. When election season began, she, like most of the other adults, had heated chats about politics and stuff-for-the-grown-ups, and would often express her many views - often supportive of the opposition - on our drive home (we were mostly asleep on the way to school). So one day, deciding that I wanted to learn more about this "election thing", asked her about parliament. She got down to business immediately. "Okay, so here's how it is. Parliament has 222 seats..."
As the calendar inched closer to March, and finally into the month itself, I started my own journey of self-discovery. After long regarding news as "boring and unimportant" (if you know me well, I bet you didn't expect this), I started devouring newspapers and paying attention to the 9pm NTV7 broadcast. I learnt about how our country's political system worked, started getting familiar with the various parties better and more. Being an ethnic Chinese and a Penangite, I was also gradually influenced towards the opposition. Which wasn't a surprise, really - growing up, I was already surrounded by accounts from peers and my own family about the discrimination ethnic minorities supposedly face in Malaysia. Finally understanding who "the culprit" was, and having one party in particular being adamantly against that, meant that I chose my sides pretty quickly. That journey was briefly interrupted, though, by the Big Day itself.
Books, testimonials and memoirs have been written about March 8. But what I will forever remember best was seating in the living room with my large extended family, chastised for wearing blue - it was an accident - which was the colour of the National Front (Barisan Nasional), and glancing at the old CRT monitor from time to time to check whether there were any updates on Malaysiakini. And soon enough, the live blog was being updated at a furious pace; our family watched in amazement as the stream announced one opposition victory after another. It was unprecedented as it was exciting, and the hush of awe soon turned into cheers of triumph and jubilance, much like the bold front page published by a local Chinese newspaper published the next day that showed the extent of the opposition's takeover of Penang in particular, with big red crosses over photos defeated BN candidates, next to incoming opposition ones.
After the election, and the events that followed - like the forming of the People's Alliance (or Pakatan Rakyat in Malay, as more popularly known) - I continued my learning about Malaysia's political system. Now a steadfast opposition supporter, I shook my head in disgust at the various accusations of corruption that came up as the new state governments took over and dug into past records. I joined the circlejerk in putting down everything the federal government did - in our minds, they could do no right. Sadly, we weren't very wrong either.
As years passed, though, I slowly learnt, with the help of many fantastic people along the way, to open my mind a lot more, and adopt what has become my mantra and go-to quote today: "The world is very grey." I saw the game of politics for what it was - a game full of lies, manipulation and betrayal, and that applied to both sides of the divide. This slowly drove me to a slight despair, and my shying away from Malaysian politics in general. I was tired of seeing arguments and issues I viewed as pointless, petty and/or childish being hurled around daily on every kind of media.
I Dreamed a Dream
While I started to move away from politics, inside me the hope for change has never wavered.
The whole reason I started being interested in politics in the first place was because of one policy in particular: Article 153 of the constitution, often billed the "social contract". (I believe that through that reference, most know what I'm talking about already. If not, here's a Wikipedia link.)
To many people, the most important outcomes, and hence the ones affecting their voting choices, are bread and butter issues. Things like oil prices, education, subsidies, etc take up the majority of voter attention. For me personally, these and more are all crucial issues, but the one that lies closest to my heart is still the one of racial equality.
See, 'justice' has always been one of my most treasured values. From young, even before I knew what the word 'justice' really meant, I have always resonated with it - good is rewarded, and bad is punished. Whenever something seems to be a little unfair, I am usually the first to get upset about it. I remember years ago, my mother banned me from reading storybooks for specified period of time because I was "spending too much time" on them. I didn't like it, but I had no choice but to wait until the day I could finally resume reading. I counted down the months, then weeks, then days, and the time finally came. So I brought it up in a conversation. With an irritated voice, she dismissed it.
"Your exams are coming! Still want to read some more?"
"But you promised that..."
I don't think I have to describe what ensued. I will say that I was taken aback by that, as my little idealistic mind couldn't accept that there could be such injustice. My point is, while this is a small example, it probably shows how firmly attached I am to the concept of fairness.
It is why Article 153 utterly enrages me. Not to mention that it directly contradicts Article 8: "there shall be no discrimination against any citizen on the grounds only of religion, race, descent or place of birth", it also goes against my fundamental belief that everyone, and I do mean every single person, is equal.
And it's not something that is just tucked quietly away in the deep masses of the constitution, either; it's a law that has real world consequences, something that affects the man on the street. My father used to be a top student back in his high school days. However, when he applied to the University of Malaysia, he was rejected, while at the same time, schoolmates with scores far lower than his got in. Reason? UM never listed any reasons, but those who got in were all of the Malay ethnic group. Make your own judgement about this.
I have lived in Singapore for a little more than a year. And while it isn't perfect, racial equality here works. There is so much lower focus on racial issues, and race in general, and meritocracy is placed front and center. While again, that comes with its own problems (that's a whole 'nother article), the major plus point in its favour is that you are not discriminated based on your race.
And that's the dream. We have even more ethnic groups than Singapore, but we find it so much harder coming to terms with our 'Malaysian identity', that the time for separation based on your skin colour should have been long gone and forgotten, that legal discrimination based on this has no place in the world of today.
Every time a Singaporean, or any other foreigner, asks me why I took up MOE's scholarship, my heart breaks a little.How to answer: because I wanted better education, better opportunities for the future, a chance to be independent? Or to tell the truth, and say its because my country's government and system is too racist to accept me as an equal?
I want to tell them that they will never understand this unique pain of mine, and so many other Malaysians living abroad: we had to work hard to run from our own country. Read that again; we actually put in effort to leave our own nation. Do you know how heart-wrenching that is? It makes us sound like refugees, but that's the reality of it all. People like to call them selfish, but they left because they have lost all hope. I very nearly did.
Ask me a few years ago, heck, even a few weeks ago, whether the situation would change, and I would give you a very pessimistic answer. Now, though, seeing the huge crowds in support of change and equality across the country, I am cautiously optimistic, but optimistic nonetheless. More importantly, I am amazed by the uncertainty of it all. We are standing at the edge of a cliff; in a few days time, we will either have crouched back away from the edge, back to the comfortable status quo, or we will have taken a leap of faith, flying down into a void where anything can happen, a future that no one can truly predict.
There is one thing I'm relatively sure of, however, and it worries me: BN has long been labeled as the 'fear-monger' but they do have one point: when the status quo is disrupted, violence can and will ensue. I'll go one step further and say this: no matter what the outcome of the election, violence will ensue. The polarisation between the two sides is now so large that no matter which side wins, the other will surely riot. And that saddens me, because it means people will get hurt. How many, and how serious this will be, is unknown. All I can do now is hope and pray that Malaysia and Malaysians will be strong enough to pull through it, emerge stronger, and, just hopefully, more united.
For the first time ever, we have a shot. A shot for change, for equality, for something better. Let's make it count.
My name is Terence Wang, and I dream of a better Malaysia.
Photo credit to:
1) Aizat K @ Flickr
2) Gulf Times
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