Inner Voice of A Silent Moderate Malaysian

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Publish date: Sun, 27 Sep 2015, 01:22 AM

These days, apart from our wonderful food, I realise it is increasingly difficult to find compelling reasons to convince my relatives, peers and students to stay or return to Malaysia. I consider myself a proud citizen. I may not have enrolled in the royal army or made significant contribution to the country, however, I am willing to defend or promote how lovely my country is whenever foreign colleagues or foreign university mates misunderstands Malaysia. I made sure my overseas bosses and lecturers understood I am from Malaysia and not simply the land between Thailand and Singapore. I chose to forego my job overseas and disregard magic circle opportunities abroad to return to Bolehland despite the lower pay. This is because I consider Malaysia as where my heart belongs. I may not have been through as much as generations before me but I believe the state of our nation is deteriorating with each passing day.

Sometimes, I really hope Malaysia is still like my high school days where a Bahasa teacher was willing to depart from the school's past practice of only taking in Malays to represent the school's football team; or when an Indian athletics teammate gracefully gave me his medal as a sign of encouragement in my first marathon loss; or a simple gratitude note by a Malay schoolmate who scored 7As for PMR because I helped him with revisions. Although I was from SJKC, it made me respect, embrace and appreciate diversity even more. Not the other way around.

It is common sense that good governance can withstand scrutiny be it foreign or domestic, traditional or new media. Those in power today have such low moral standards by any benchmark possible; specifically with their nonsensical self preservation rhetorics, narrow divisive agendas and personal financial interests over the people's greater good. Today, an ambassador of our largest trading partner was summoned for voicing legitimate concerns on how he felt towards Malaysia's current landscape. The irony is how our country request to be a part of President Xi's 'One Belt, One Road' and 'common prosperity for all' agenda but refuse to respect sensible commentaries. If our country aspires to achieve developed status/ high income nation by 2020, FDI is a driver that simply cannot be ignored. This requires listening to the voice of international community and looking through their lens beyond that of our own.

Lastly, I just want to say I love my country very much but please do not take my love of the country for granted. Please do not take my silence as acceptance of extremism. Also, I sincerely look forward to the day where people no longer will say 'Malaysia is one of the best country to live in if only we do not flip the newspapers or read the news in the morning'. Do remember, time, progress and market forces will render those who are stubborn, irrelevant.

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