w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
Harap-harap INI KALILAH !
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Teong on Malaysia, merdeka, the chinese, etc....
The tauke is still on holiday, but would like to post this interesting piece written by Teong in Ipoh Tauges.
"Just to keep this blog alive, I also want to add my views on "Komen Hari Merdeka 2004". Firstly regarding PGL. I am not a movie-goer therefore even the greatest blockbuster from hollywood can only merely slightly take my attention off. When Fooji posted "Komen Hari Merdeka 2004" and I read it, I didn't have any idea what PGL is (or rather I had not seen the clips of the movie) until I saw an advertisement over RTM, if I am not mistaken. That was after 31st August.
Regarding the concept of entity, I think I did write something of it (masyarakat madani and socio-economy of multi-racial nation like malaysia, where the minority is still dominant over the nation's wealth). I believe I gave a very well-balanced view in response to Pang's "Moderate-ism and not Total-ism". We are just fooling ourselves if we say that we can 100% achieve masyarakat madani and bangsa malaysia yang tercinta.
among the malays themselves, in terms of politics they have the Islamic PAS, the reformation keadilan, and the wealthy UMNO and in terms of socio-economy, they have the modern secular KL or city malays and the conservative religious kedahans or kelantanese. even among the chinese, they tend to divide themselves into english-ed and the chinese-ed and in terms of politics, they have the DAP who struggle to fight for more rights, basically for the lower and middle classes chinese and also they have the MCA who incline themselves to promote the standard of living among the chinese (or rather the rich chinese). each subset of the bigger set, among the malays and the chinese, have different goals, different struggles, different backgrounds etc. there is no unity at the micro-scale, how could there be at macro-scale?
like what fooji said, PGL is merely a tool for us to see how divisive we are. we just have to admit that we are living harmoniously because we are selfish; for the sake of peace, we tolerate and carry on our living. to improve the situation or what we call to bridge the gap, i believe it all boils down to the new generation like us, who are, i can say, well educated and can think rather rationally.
nevertheless, after i graduated, having studied in the nation's premier university, it is shameful to know majority of the students still stick to polarisation. cant just we humble ourselves and accept the failures and weaknesses of others, as we too have negative blood in us? i thank God that i have one great malay friend during my 3 years at UM. as he humbly told me that he is one of the many privilleged to enter university each year because of bumi status, and got the chance to study together with me, he does want to make more chinese friends and acknowledging us as more superior to him, he is disappointed to know that many chinese are quite selfish and very unwilling to befriend him.
you see, in UM, supposedly where all the educated and smart people are, there is also such cold relationship, how much more among those who are less-educated. in many ways also the chinese are not up to the mark in university. being malaysians for more than 20 years and among the most fortunate to get seats in the university, they just simply dont know what other cultures are like, and the positive parts of interacting with the right people from different races. why they are haughty? headstrong? un-cooperative? proud and not humble? why they can achieve great academic scores and yet fail utterly in the simplest and most fundamental of humanity and social responsibility?
i believe in God and He teaches me to be humble all the time and in everything, i ought to acknowledge myself as not better than others but others as better than me. in short, i am not trying to convince people to agree with everything. just understanding the different contexts, cultures and willing to mix and get along with different people from different races are more than good. indeed, there are more to discuss and argue but i dont think it is necessary.
regarding F1 and Proton, i dont see any necessity for proton to go so far in the automotive world. if they can produce cars that are reliable, like merely producing power windows that can work for long without jamming halfway after half a year, is a wonderful achievement itself. as long as they can manufacture satisfying (really adhere to the ISO or whatever) family sedans, i would be pretty proud. auto sports, too bighead to think of. the germans and the japanese are by far too advance and no point we leap too far too fast. like what karkin said, petronas is only trying to promote its existence in the eye of the world, even the oil i dont think petronas produces. somebody produces it and stamp a petronas syntium mark on it out of contractual agreement.
finally, klcc. klcc is designed and architected by cesar pirelli. he is one of the great architects in the world, same league as kisho kurokawa, keizo tange, etc. he is a french if im not mistaken.(fooji: he could be argentinian) in my humble opinion, after having gone up and down tower 2 for a couple of times, i do see its purpose and benefit now. true, in the first place, it does serve like a piece of pride and exaggeration symbol of malaysia but the importance behind the showcase is it generates income and job opportunities. with all those luxury makers like aigner, hermes, salvatore ferragamo, isetan opening their outlets there, it already serves as a centre of tourist attraction and economy transactions. i dont see any bad if MNCs dominate tower 2, as long as the majority or even 100% of the workforce are malaysians and they do help in growing our economy. after all, we still need very much of their expertise."
*W.I.B is the personal blog of fooji. He works for the ministry of health seven days a week, skips his breakfast and looks forward to a good dinner at the end of the day.
w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
