Burning the bridge at both ends

Why do we resort to condemnation and name calling without at least trying to understand others’ viewpoints?

COMMENT

I was reading an article adapted from Dr M. Bakri Musa’s book, ‘Liberating the Malay Mind’ last night and found it to be a good reference to evaluate the current Malay obsession with Ketuanan Melayu.

With his careful navigation, Dr Bakri examines Malay culture through history, religion and human spirit, exploring how special rights and privileges have prevented Malays from forging a dynamic and globally competitive Malaysia.

“We Malays, or specifically our leaders, have framed our dilemmas as one of Ketuanan Melayu instead of our lack of competitiveness, as it should be. All of our actions are thus “framed” by our mindset. This preoccupation with Ketuanan Melayu and obsession with the various hantus distract us from recognising the real existential threats we face.”
– M. Bakri Musa

I have tremendous respect for Dr Bakri Musa. And I believe many Malays feel the same way. He has worked hard to climb out of the typical Malay mindset and made a name for himself in the States. All the while he has strived to uplift the Malay spirit while drawing attention to Malay woes through his great articles and books.

Sadly, like most articles dedicated to uplift the Malay spirit, his great effort too was bashed in the comment section of the article I read. Allow me to share one of the comments:

“You’re right. When it comes to genetic pool, your Malays are beyond help, for it will take hundreds and thousands of years for the right genes to evolve, so your lower IQ will never catch up, despite your emotional yearning to. I suggest you accept it and get on with life. Your paddy planting lifestyle of working only twice a year and laze away the rest is very suitable for your kind. Throw in a buffalo or two and that completes it.”

And surely enough, when a Chinese takes out his jaded dagger, a Malay jumps right back with a keris pendekar.

“Hadn’t realised that ‘Revenge of the Venomous Pirated DVD Seller’ was replaying again. You’re clearly not much of an intellectual so I’ll attempt to make this as monosyllabic as I can.

According to Lao Zi, having a misguided and misplaced superiority complex when your own numbers are dwindling, is plainly speaking, stupid. Now I am sure you are familiar with stupidity, not that I am questioning your right to inherit dim-witlessness but it is a trait manifested and prevalent among those ancient tin dredgers, the opium smoking members of your genetic pool who worked all those hours for a high, a buzz not hard earned pennies and ended up inbreeding because they could not afford to marry a tart outside the clan.

Now moving on to anger management issues, I know you are pissed off for being exposed now as tossers who would do anything to make a fast buck short of selling your own mothers and more importantly as two-faced closet racists that played a cameo role in corrupting the country.

Nevertheless all is not lost, so repent my little eunuch, tone down your Malay bashing agenda before even the moderate Malays get completely turned off with the likes of you and your venom spewing ilk, who in the final analysis, do actually need the Malay votes to remain relevant in this paddy bountiful land. So love thy buffalo, my little moron.”

As entertaining as it was for me to read the Malay lad’s response (which I thought the instigator rightfully deserved), it saddens me to note that whilst we are working towards building a better nation, there are some of us who tend to be the ‘duri dalam daging’.

The fact that some of us resort to condemnation and name calling without at least trying to understand the viewpoints of people like Dr Bakri is mindboggling.

As pointed out marvellously by Dr Bakri in one of his write-ups, today we are not left with capable, smart and honest leaders, instead we are cursed by incompetent, corrupt and greedy beings who are ever ready to strangle us if we fail to give our blessings for all their misdeeds. At this juncture, we have only each other to depend on.

Why do we allow some morons to destroy our efforts to build bridges between different races and religions?

Why are we harassing each other when we are supposed to be healing the wounds that have divided us as a nation?

Why can’t we learn to respect each other and put our differences aside so that we can solve the greater issues eating up our beloved country?

Why do the rest of us remain silent while some idiot inflicted with a swollen ego engages in verbal diarrhoea?

Why do we only care to open our mouths and be heard in defence of our own race? Why don’t we jump up to defend a fellow Malaysian brother and sister, regardless of his/her race?

As long as we enslave ourselves to our egos and continue to look down on each other, we will continue to be short-sighted. We won’t see beyond our current circumstances. Without bridges unity will continue to be an unattainable dream. And without unity, there is no way we can fight the evil that is robbing us of our past, present and future.

For God’s sake, let us stop burning our bridges and work on strengthening them instead. It doesn’t take much to respect the other side’s point of view – only a strong will.

But do we have what it takes? Based on the comments I’ve been reading lately, that remains a big question mark.