How was your 2022?

A month and half before we welcomed 2022, I turned fifty. I had imagined grand plans to celebrate my half-century. Perhaps fuelled by how ‘the rich and famous’ celebrate their milestone birthdays, I too got swept into that nonsensical vortex.

Instead, my fiftieth birthday turned out to be a sobering day because it was during the pandemic restrictions. My wife Susanna and my ‘right-hand-woman’ Pam did organise a surprise birthday lunch with my closest friends in my own restaurant. And naturally, who doesn’t like it when people sit around waxing lyrical about you?

But it was also a melancholic time for me.

I had many things to be grateful for. I was glad to be born in Malaysia. And that I have such loving parents who nurtured me, really good friends who support me, business associates who put up with my antics, a solid team around me, and a wife who showers me with love, and regular doses of ‘realisms’ to bring me down to earth.

I was especially thankful that at fifty, I had not only survived, but became even stronger after a heart-attack a few years before, and a brain stroke in 2020.

There were many things that made me grateful in my life.

But at the same time, I also felt a tinge of disappointment. I assume it is a bit like what Mark Twain is often quoted as saying – we don’t regret the things we did, but the things we didn’t do. There were things that I should have done in my life, which I didn’t.

The one assurance I gave myself though, was that I would stop suffering fools silently anymore. This turned out to be the hardest thing to achieve, considering we live in Malaysia. So, at times, my columns in FMT drew a lot of vitriol.

In the first month of this year, controversy already surfaced with allegations of opaque transactions about nominee-shares in the Malaysian stock market.

People have been fined millions of ringgit for proxy share trading by Malaysia’s capital market regulator in the past. Yet, Malaysia’s regulator did not reveal details, or the source of funds used by a so-called nominee for a powerful government official, when clearing him of all wrongdoing. This bureaucrat actually helms the commission that is supposed to uphold transparency in the country.

Then, we had a state election in Johor.

How odd was it that our disgraced former prime minister held court and garnered rapt attention everywhere he went during that election cycle. Three judges actually had ruled that his activities were not in the ‘national interest’ as he claimed, but instead, were a ‘national embarrassment’.

As he had a stay of execution against his sentence, he went gallivanting about. He was his coalition’s ‘poster boy’. Large crowds gathered to welcome him on the campaign trail. Schools invited him to speak, and candidates from his coalition brazenly called him their ‘secret-weapon’. He’s finally languishing in prison, now.

On the other hand, across the Johor causeway, our neighbour Singapore, unveiled its impressive plan for the succession in their national leadership. They chose an erudite, social media savvy guy whose resume is highly impressive.

When I think rationally, I can’t help but admire Singapore for its choice of leadership. But unfortunately, I also think like a disempowered Malaysian living in a highly parochial nation. The father of their newly minted prime minister-designate is ‘Ipoh-mali’. So, my admiration of Singapore turned to irritation with Malaysia for losing talent, as usual.

As a nation, we love to ‘trash-talk’ Singapore. We run-down their food and their supposed racism. But at the end of the day, ‘semua-breakdown’ in our country, from LRTs to escalators and KLIA to our national airline. And let’s not even talk about the institutional racism here.

Then, like a thrilling ‘Inspector Singh Investigates’ mystery, we had the case of the missing combat ships in Malaysia.

Apparently, the defence ministry and the private contractor commissioned had ignored the Royal Malaysian Navy’s assessments on the appropriate class of ships for this project. The agreement was signed in 2011, and the government paid out over RM6 billion for the project, which was given to this private contractor through direct negotiations. Yet, 11 years on, there is not one ship in sight. In Malaysia – ‘semua-boleh’.

In November 2022 we saw the most polarised national elections ever.

Pakatan Harapan secured 37.5% of the vote, the ultra-nationalist Perikatan Nasional got 30% and the erstwhile, self-proclaimed saviour of Malaysia, Barisan Nasional got 22% of the popular vote. No coalition could form the government.

The results indicate that Malaysia is deeply polarised. There is a clear urban-hinterland divide. People evidently voted along racial and religious lines in our blessed country. Only after furious horse-trading and backroom deals, a controversial ‘unity’ government was formed.

Sworn enemies during the election campaign are now uneasy bedfellows. I felt relief and trepidation in equal measure. We now have a government, but just how long will this precarious administration last is anyone’s guess.

In 2022, I understood that as a nation, we still grapple with racial parochialism and narrow-mindedness. Though the world has shown that this type of insularity is well past its sell-by-date, here in Malaysia, we continue to highlight and broadcast our differences.

To date, we haven’t resolved how to come together as a cogent people with a shared history.

This year, we completed 65-years of being an ‘independent’ nation, but we seem to be constantly ‘re-colonised’ by our fear of each other.

We need to ensure that our political masters are prohibited from dividing us by race and religion. So long as our education system is infused with unbridled religious and ethnic doctrine, how can we expect our younger generation to live together and thrive in a multi-ethnic society?

Malaysia is a land of so many positives, but I suspect that if we do not break free from obsessing about our respective religions, and loosen the grip of entrenched racial dogma, 2023 and beyond will get progressively uncertain for us, as a nation.

Happy New Year, everyone, and may God bless Malaysia. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.