I haven’t written on this issue for quite awhile now. Had been talking and preaching and writing about it too much that I have gotten to a point, that thinking of it is rather futile and childish even. So what I did was totally ignore it and avoid being involved in any discussion and conversation leading to it. That though, does not mean I have mellowed down or stopped caring let alone being indifferent about it.

Too many people are trying their very best not to accept the way they were born. They have this strong self-created urge to defy the truth, to exile from their own self. ‘This isn’t me’, ‘I’m not it’, ‘oh, I’m different’, and all other cliché they can come up with.

They just have to get away from their race, religion, and the culture that comes with the former the day they were born. It is an unsurprising but disturbing the fact that they wish they were born and brought up differently. Wanting to be someone else and something else. They find it hard to embrace the language they were born into, opting for a ‘cooler’ one, of which they are not familiar with let alone be proficient using is. Many are, too embarrassed to embrace their rather non-MTV cultural practices, from the way they speak to the kinds of things they like. Some even stopped using their unique given names to blend in with their aspired social groups. Worse of all, many try so hard not too look and appear they way their physical appearance do.

It is really simple, whether you are or you just aren’t. It seems too ‘uncool’ to just admit to their own ethnics. Here are some instances.

There was a campaign in the college I attended promoting the use of spoken English while on campus grounds. There was an exhibitor who loved to talk and give unquestioned answers. We asked for her name, and naturally she did with an extensive elaboration. “Oh but people, even my family call me Ally, and although I was born into a Malay family, English is my first language”. “Okay…” I thought, “Thanks, good for you”. Somehow it seemed to her as if I was going to punish her for not being born an uptight-anglo-saxon-snob. I get it you’re not English, and have a name that couldn’t define your background more, that it’s almost impossible to pronounce, but chill woman, it’s ok to be Malay.

Sometime the same year, we were hanging out at a café that we hang out in more than anyone else - even the waitresses – I over herd a young lady, complaining about the way people talk to her. These are not her exact words but it sounded something like this, “I doesn’t understood why these pupil speaking Malay to me. I cannot see what they talking”. It hurt trying not to laugh. The situation was funny the way it is, but the fact behind it still bothers me today.

There is a young man I know quite well. He has the same problem. He knew who and what he was, but keep on derailing himself from the real him. When asked on his ethnicity he would tend to make it seems complicated. “My great grandfather married a Chinese and my mother is from Kelantan and has a distant relative from Burma, so I don’t really know what I am”. Well, dude, you are a pure blood and live with it. It’s not that bad being the same as everyone else. We still love you anyhow.

There was a little man. Really he’s in fact vertically challenged. I know a four years old taller than him. But his inability to go for the Space Adventure ride in Disneyland isn’t the question here. He is rather good in the Queen’s language, I give him that. But he also has the idea that everyone has to be at least half as good. He insists that even khutbah during Friday prayer in Malaysian masjids should be delivered in English. I find it amusing the way he fakes his inability to comprehend Malay language.

Now let us look at more obvious instances, of people who just refuse to embrace their own self. I’m sure many of us have heard of the name Hishamuddin Rais, a well known self-exiled ex-ISA fugitive, and currently a freelance bon-vivant. He is not quite a typical I-hate-my-background case. In contrary he has a better idea of preserving traditional Malaysian culture. But the trouble with him is that he is worried that by embracing his own culture he will be no different from others. So what he did? He writes about culinary cultures of the world as he trots the globe. Well what’s wrong with that? Here is what. It is safe to assume all Malays are Muslims. Whether or not he is, is a totally different story. But as far as Malaysians are concerned, he is. When he writes he would emphasize on how much he loves the food he was writing on and what alcoholic beverage suits the dish best. He once wrote on his experience having Satay at a typical Satay stall, and how much he loved the dish with red wine that he brought his own bottle and plastic cup. Ooh, a Malay who drinks in public. Big deal dude. Go to Hartamas Square you’ll find a handful of Malay guys, just like you but younger, enjoying a plate of Nasi Lemak with a bottle of beer. It’s really up to you how you enjoy your Satay, there’s no need to brag about your obsession for hydro-carbonated drinks.

Not many have read about this other Malaysian Malay exile. Salleh ben Joned. He impregnated an Australian girl and married her many years ago. A responsible lad. He has almost full understanding of his inborn religion, Islam, but proclaims himself as an apostate struggling go get out of apostasy. My personal opinion, he’s not struggling. He just doesn’t want to get out of it because once he does, there’s nothing more to complain about, and that’s what his life has been all about. Finding flaws in things and write about it. He is a double trouble. He also hate – although hate is a strong word but the way he writes, he really does – Malay language. According to him it is an adopted language that the Malays made their own. Words from other languages are adopted into the language altogether. I agree that some foreign word adoptions that we practice are rather absurd but take the holistic approach in examining the issue. The fundamental of the idea of the country, down to the formation of our constitution and legal systems are copycats. Our national anthem happens to be the modified version of an Indonesian song Terang Bulan which happens to be the intro of a Hawaiian song Mamula Moon. Our flag resembles the American flag. To think of it, Malaysia is in fact the new America, found by an explorer, adopted the explorer’s mother tongue and cultures  and made it their own, only younger by merely 200 years. Back to Mr Ben Joned, he demonstrates prominent effort in distinguishing himself from others through his poetic writing. Hes writes his English poems so deep and complicated, full of his wide range of vocabulary that I bet even Shakespeare would have had a hard time comprehending. Well, I think he does it so well, that he is different to the extent that he’s almost weird.

Enough instances. These people are too scared of embracing themselves as it would make them normal and unnoticed. Maybe they have no faith in their own cultural and religious backgrounds to guide them through this modern world. Or perhaps there’s a huge lack of understanding and knowledge or too much of it. Perhaps, these people just love this self inflicted confusion as being settled means they then have to move on and actually live and life could be confusing and depressing.

But my hones opinion says, these people have extremely low level of self-esteem, and very insecure of themselves that being normal doesn’t help. If that is the case and I really hope it is, they should stop running away from their own shadows and just get a cock-pump or a boob-job. I bet with my life they would feel better.

All this running away from own self is really disheartening. I can do it too if I wanted to. When asked about my racial backgrounds I can just say, my great grandfather emigrated from Indonesia and my mother was a Singaporean before she obtained her probational Malaysian citizenship. It doesn’t answer the question but it sure does make me feel different.

~Tau Kamal~