What has come of “Us”? - This is a question that keeps on being asked of late.
To dissect and study, and then to answer, one has first got to be willing to accept the facts, even if it goes against what we were taught to believe.
No amount of discussion and dialectics would result in anything positive should we be so rooted in our conviction, that we are willing to look the other way in the face of truth.
First and foremost, what is this fear that we have, that we are willing to live in denial?
Dispossession.
Faced with the possibility of dispossession, one would do anything to protect what he/ she has – even if it means to lie, cheat, steal, betray or kill – in the name of God if necessary. It is in human nature to strive for survival, and all else takes a back seat when faced with this predicament.
As things are, it is the insecurity in a certain group of people that has led to the “Bogeyman Syndrome” that afflicts the nation that was once a melting pot of cultures.
The champions of "the” group never fails to remind the “underprivileged” of their apparently noble struggles to enrich them, via an agenda of unblushing, unapologetic greed and robbery.
It is a sentiment that is easily identifiable. It is a sentiment that never fails to win the sympathy of the unthinking masses. We are thus condemned to listen to shameless rhetoric that hides an agenda of greed ad infinitum, ad nauseaum. Any effort to correct the malady that afflicts the nation as a whole is shamelessly politicized and condemned as subversive and anti-establishment, so as to perpetuate the “siege mentality” that has served the nation so well for half a century.
It appears the those with “vested interest” in the apparent economic prosperity of the nation cannot do without holding on to the siege mentality, that should have been diluted over the years. Instead of reassuring the people of the prosperity, they have chosen to inflame the passions of the young ones, so as to spite his brother.
Economic benefits once considered a privilege, is today demanded as a "birthright” - a right to acquire by law, the wealth and riches, that was built on the human spirit of enterprise, excellence, progress and survival.
My fellow Malaysians, today, we live in a nation that has its socio-economic woes swept under the carpet "frivolousness", with the cloud of the infamous May 13, 1969 hanging over our head. All policies made today, goes back to that fateful day – it is a fact that unapologetic politicians take pains to remind us of.
We are a nation that lives on a notion that provides for a "siege mentality".
The saddest part of it all is, those who today work with the co-conspirators of the event, shamelessly applaud the results that it has achieved in terms of social integration – apparently a testament to the cooperation among various RACES.
Racial profiling of an individual has become something of a necessity, that empowers one while it emasculates the other politically- a house of cards without which, the regime would crumble.
However, the scenario quickly reverses itself when one looks at it from an economic standpoint. It has emasculated the political master and empowered economically, those apparently subservient politically. Those who have been repressed and disadvantaged as a result of corrupt policies, have triumphed over the political masters, in their effort to face the challenges on their own – whatever the methods may have been. This has resulted in further ethnic hegemony which is in turn, used to perpetuate the never ending cycle of conflict in our beautiful nation.
The national bogeyman who was once the Communists, has magically been transformed into the intellectual and economic predator. As if that wasn't enough, the propaganda machinery that's groping in the dark, seeks out for more bogeymen in every aspect of life – entertainment, leisure, sport, education, religion, politics etc.,etc., etc. - so as to intimidate the progressives. For every shortcoming, there is a perfect bogeyman.
Nothing is spared in the endeavour of the politicians, towards achieving their goal of segregation through ethnic profiling – not gender, not education, not religion, not social standing or contribution, nor even truth. Nothing is held sacred anymore in the eyes of the politicians – not knowledge, not marriage, not family and most pathetically, not even God.
There is no apology offered for this evil "branding” of humans, and no offense is to be taken. In fact, they who do this, brag about the successes that they "achieved” as a result of this system of selective deprivation, subjugation and mental slavery.
The apparent beneficiaries of this policy of "empowerment”, have unwittingly enslaved themselves as a result of debt and gratitude "owed" to the leaders – without whose ethnic hegemony, they are told, would be stripped of their political & economic might by the ever predatory bogeyman waiting around the corner. It is this blind dependence on the powers that be and the voluntary mental slavery in fear of dispossession, which breeds the evil that so permeates our society today – nothing more, nothing less.
So the question remains – in whose interest would it be to enact racial profiling, ethnic hegemony, religious supremacy, and the economical indebtedness and malaise that afflicts the nation?
It is none other than the political proponents of the “pride and joy” of all Malaysians - New Economic Policy. Yes – Malaysians are doomed to a future of economic and mental slavery under the thumbs of their “political masters”, so long as the NEP survives in any form or guise.
No nation that disregards the noble values that contribute to progress, has ever achieved successful nationhood. Malaysians appear to believe otherwise, and wish to prove history wrong. So be it.
For what it is worth – Happy Merdeka!
