Merdeka! Merdeka? Really?

I do not have many recollections of National Day as a little boy. I wish I do. I wasn’t patriotic to any degree, until I went overseas. It was while there that I missed home missed many things Malaysian, and that was when my patriotic consciousness was borne. Coming home, on this celebration of our 50th Year of Independence, I do occasionally feel the desire to fly the flag on my car, in some display of patriotism.

But when I recall the many cases and instances of injustice, unfairness, and how we are made to feel like 2nd class citizens, and blatant corruption, abuse of powers and positions, favouritism, non meritocracy based policies, the urge to fly the flag high and display to the world my patriotism instantly becomes subdued to the point of non existence.

How can we celebrate a nation that encourages the above? Where our purported leaders wave their traditional weapons in the air and bay for Chinese blood? Where we constantly are threatened, live under lies, in perpetual fear of crime, forced to kowtow to alleged masters who created the myth of Tanah Melayu, who unashamedly bestowed the title of orang asli on themselves, who blatantly kick us around while we smile with our beggar hands outstretched, eagerly awaiting and eternally grateful for whatever scraps of leftovers they are kind enough to throw our way instead of feeding to the dogs?

We almost have to be sorry for our existence and be grateful that we are not just swatted away like the latest wave of pestilence.

Like that Chinese boy studying in Taiwan who rapped a satire of us using the National Anthem. I personally found that he had some talent, and creativity. He is merely speaking out about what we all know. Is our government so guilty, so ashamed, and so knowing of the truths of his lyrics, that it needs to moral police us? Is our country so immature and backwards? Malaysians are guilty of believing the shared mirage of “harmony among all races” if we cannot even sing this song. It’s a national lie, the tension always simmering near the surface. We need to skin him alive just to show how wrong he is? Strip him of his citizenship? This whole fiasco smacks to me of a deliberate attempt to divert the public’s attention to something trivial, away from what really matters, such as the recent purchase of Agusta for millions of Euros (we sold it for 1 Euro) and the billion ringgit fuck up that is the Port Klang Free Trade Zone (which we are now trying to blame on a 3rd party).

I still like this country. There are still stirrings of patriotism. But this National Day I am going downtown to Singapore for a quick holiday. And I am not the only one. It really has come to this. On this country’s national day, its citizens are escaping to the country that was kicked out from this country. Left to their own devices a little longer, the fuckpots running this high-potential, resource-rich country will strip it bare, dry, and turn it into yet another has-been.