I am a MALAYSIAN

Malaysia has always been known to be culturally and racially diverse. With citizens of various races making up the 27 million population, it’s easy to see why Malaysia is a tourist attraction; culture, tradition, diversity all in one place.

I myself come from a family of mixed races. I have more than 5 different races in my family, with relatives from as far away as Europe.

Growing up, I learned totally different things at home, in school and in the real world. I was brought up to respect, love, tolerate and embrace our differences. In fact, I would like to think that I am colour blind (if you know what I mean).

But when I started school, I was immediately segregated. Not physically but in the many ways of how things were done. When I filled out forms, I remember having to mark the ‘race’ and ‘religion’ column. Even my teacher’s attendance book had the race and religion of each student. Does it really matter how many Indians and Chinese are in a school? Aren’t we all from the same country anyway?

This issue extended beyond the school gates. Being of mixed parentage (of which I am extremely proud of), people often ask me about my religion and race. I don’t mind the questions as it can sometimes be amusing, watching people guess which racial division I come from.

Nevertheless, I never thought twice about this matter until recently. I was at a workshop in Manila that was organized by a European organization. Needless to say, there were Europeans and Filipinos. Other participants came from Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India etc. Now…I work in an international NGO and the majority of our partners are foreigners.  So it’s normal for me to be dealing with people from different countries. But I digress.

The point I want to make is this: it has been ingrained in me since primary school that I have to be identified as an Indian. All official documents and forms have this ‘race’ thing. I am so used to answering questions about my ethnicity that in Manila, when I was asked whether I was Indian, my immediately answer was YES.

Half an hour later and it dawned on me that I had made a mistake. My answer should have been: I am a MALAYSIAN. I’m only ethnically Indian; even that, I am a Hindu. Being an Indian would literally mean I am from India. But the moment had passed and as it was the last day of the workshop, I did not have the time to find the person and correct my mistake.

This happened about a month ago and it keeps haunting me. It keeps haunting me because I can’t help but think of how shallow my thinking is still. I don’t mean to segregate and identify myself as an Indian, but because as they say, practice makes perfect, I have perfected the art of justifying which race I come from.

After the Manila trip, I have consciously made the effort to identify myself as a Malaysian. It’s hard but I think it’s a necessary step towards achieving peace and the true spirit of 1Malaysia. There should be no more Chinese, Indians or Malays. It saddens me to see post-election reports using words such as ‘Chinese Tsunami’ and ‘Malay Wall’.

These Chinese and Malays are MALAYSIANS. No one race determines the country. It is the PEOPLE not the race of the people that makes a country.