Of minah, amoi and kumari.

I did my primary schooling in Sarawak. Standard 1 to 4. My best friends were Kirenjit Kaur and Hasniza Hashim. We were always playing with our good friends, Jeremy Ong, Christopher Ong, K.Saravanan and Gomathy Shanti.

And then I moved to Johor. A school in a kampong. I was 10 years old.

My first day at school, they asked me, ‘what are you?’
‘orang lah (human of course)’ and they thought I was making fun of them. But I honestly didn’t know what they meant.
It turned out that they wanted to know, what type of Malay I was. Baffling, I know. First, I didn’t know that I was a Malay and that as a Malay I was ‘different’ from Chinese or Indian. And so after I got confirmation from my parents that I was indeed a Malay, I had to know what type of Malay was my Malay. I could be Jawa, Bugis, Banjar, Minang etc etc. My parents said, I was just a real Malay. And so the next day I told the kids at school that I was just - a real Malay.
‘How real?’ they asked. And so I went around the new school being introduced as Melayu Asli. An aborigine. Oh well. Best also.
And so that was my first brush with racism if it can be called that. Is Johor more racial than Sarawak? Are nine year olds more aware of racial differences than younger children? I dont know. And i am not about to offer any opinion. I have none. And I am no social science scholar too.

But this much I learnt, that in a multi-racial world that i was in, a few rules must be observed.
First rule, identify which race you belong too. Define your self.
Second rule, wear the proper uniforms. I made the mistake of wearing JEANS (corduroy and bell bottom too, oh no), and so the kids found that confusing. Malay kids in the kampong must not wear jeans.

And as I grew older, to my confusion and horror, it just got uglier.

Yes, we don’t want May 13th to ever happen again. And yes we have been independent for so many years and yes we are now talking about having a Malaysian race. Yes the Malays are beginning to look like Chinese or Indian, and the Indians don’t look typical anymore and the Chinese now have large eyes and big bosom not like before. Sometimes people thought I am a Chinese, sometimes a Filipino. I thought my boss was Chinese but he was really an ahmad. You know, on the surface of things, we have I-love-you-and-you-love-me-we-are-a-happy-family nation. Great.

Then why is it that I still get,
‘don’t la buy from him, must buy from our people’
‘they are out to get us really, they want to take over our birth rights’
‘you know for a *certain race*, you are not that bad’
‘if we want to hire the *certain race*, we must hire ten for one post. Because ten of them will produce the amount of work of one *certain race* person’
‘my boss like that lah, you know what they are like lah’
‘the *certain race* is always playing politics ya? And actually give you service only when bribed’
the *certain race* if they are on motorbikes, you better avoid them. Sure gangster'
'the lowest paid is *certain race*, then *certain race*. pay the *certain race* more because they are worth it'

I don’t know about you. But I don’t think we should label people based on their kulit-ification. You can’t say this race that race is always lazy or sly or power hungry. You can’t generalize unless you have perhaps taken adequate sample size. For example, your encounter with a good representable percentage of the whole Malay population worldwide since their existence and continuously until they become extinct gives you the same observation. Then your conclusion is of worth. Otherwise, it has no statistical back up. It is just prejudice.

I can tell you I don’t like this particular Ah Lee and Senthil because they are crooks, but I wont say they represent the whole population of the Chinese and Indians. And I don’t like certain Ahmads as well because they are crooks too. There are bad apples everywhere. You have good and bad Indians and good and bad Chinese and good and bad Jews and good and bad Malays etc etc.. So why generalize?

We are not any better than the person sitting next to us just because our skin is of a different shade from them? I am not even talking about religion .. yet. Rapists and thieves and murderers are exactly that, rapist-thief-murderer no matter ‘what’ they are.

On a religious point of view, doesn’t Allah completely forbids racism? Yes, He created the human being, in a variety of colours and cultures. But despite the differences, every one of us is created equal. The only superiority one has over the other is the person’s character, morals and piety.

‘O Mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know each other. The noblest among you in Allah’s sight is the one with the most piety (who best performs his duty to Allah). Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.’
~ Al Hujurat: 13.

So who cares what race/religion label you carry? If you are a good person, honest, kind, well-mannered and a being made by the one and only God (how can anyone not be created by Him? You cant spontaneously be), I like you. Enough said.