On being Malaysian

Ung Eng Huan

Having being born just 15 months after the birth of Malaya, I grew up with the natural evolution of this country.

I was 11 when our country was nearly torn apart by racial riots but it left a deep impression on my mind that my family were guarded day and night by a pair of Malay soldiers.

Nonetheless, Malaysia survived this trauma and so did racial harmony as far as I could remember of my secondary school days at the Victoria Institution.

It was in the United Kingdom while pursuing higher education where I began to not take for granted what being Malaysian meant.

London was and is an extremely cosmopolitan place so one would inadvertently be asked at some point about one’s origins. When asked whether I am Chinese, I always answered that I am Malaysian with some ancestors from China but with Malay blood also being a Baba… The English would then ask me who Ali was and where were my 40 thieves?

I couldn’t survive without nasi lemak so I learnt how to cook it, along with Hainanese chicken rice and briyani.

Fast forward to today. I have a Malay business partner who is of Brunei Malay, Dusun, Chinese and Indian stock. By the way, it’s not an Ali Baba business with its 40 thieves and all (please excuse the pun!).

He’s a brilliant scientist, so humble he refuses to be named here, and he’s not being humble because we’re doing poor quality science.

In fact, we are developing a drug called RetroMAD1 that’s a broad spectrum antiviral that’s worked in 20 different viruses already and next month, it will be tested on monkey cells seeded with the deadly Ebola virus.

Yes, you heard it right… a Malaysian biotech company with Malaysian technology is joining in the race to cure Ebola. Our drug will go to the Australian government’s Bio-Safety Level 4 lab for trials shortly. It’s already worked on HIV1 in the labs of the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

Being Malaysian, in my view, is being the underdog. We’re not quite there yet at developed-nation status although we aspire to be. But we’re an aggressive little underdog willing to take on challenges and show the world that despite some current negative publicity, we can do it.

Killing viruses is one thing but eliminating the psychological “viruses” that now threaten the very fabric of racial harmony is another.

We don’t have to pull each other down… what’s the point?

There’s a whole world out there to compete with! There’s no other country quite like Malaysia even with its scars and blemishes, so let’s make it even better!

Being Malaysian is about being moderate. I know some extremist voices exist but there are many more moderate Malaysians than them.

If all of us just whispered, we’d drown these few shouting at the top of their voices. We need to cultivate more of a “live and let live” attitude and give each other the dignity and self-respect due.

Historically, extremists never prosper for too long. Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries are neutral, moderate and economically well off.

It pays to be moderate. Let’s just laugh at all the extreme provocateurs till they embarrass themselves (they always do… much to our amusement when we joke about them when we sip teh tarik at the Mamak down the road).

Being Malaysian is about being tolerant. Sometimes, the meaning of moderation and tolerance is confused.

Moderation within a society is not about compromising what we hold to be true within the practice of our religion if we have one. It’s not being “lukewarm”.

Rather it’s about practising our religion without imposing our views on others who may not agree. Malaysians are a multi-ethnic and multi-religious people and we do not want to rupture any sensitive fault-lines that may threaten the very fabric of our otherwise peaceful nation.

This is where tolerance comes in. It’s not about being tolerant of crime or injustice but more about being tolerant of the differences of opinion that such a diverse nation will inadvertently have.

Tolerance needs effort. We must take an active effort to understand the other side of the argument and objectively keep an open mind. This is what I like about Science. What we believe today may change tomorrow if there is sufficient irrefutable evidence to back it up.

I was in Rio de Janeiro for two weeks prior to their disastrous 7-1 World Cup defeat by the Germans. What impressed me the most about Brazilians was how racially integrated and mixed they had become through extremely frequent inter-marriage.

This did not happen overnight because the White Brazilians were settlers of firstly Portuguese, and later, Spanish, German and Italian origins while the Black Brazilians were
originally brought in as slaves mainly from West Africa while the Japanese and Lebanese came in later waves of migrations.

Of course, there were indigenous tribes, too, mainly around the Amazon. However, over the last century, there was a policy of racial integration to create a Brazilian race.

Today, the overwhelming majority of seemingly “white” Brazilians have also some black ancestry and most blacks also have some white genes somewhere.

More than half the population is classified as Browns. Together, they continue to integrate by intermarriage and racial tension is virtually now part of ancient history in Brazil.

Perhaps one day, maybe a century from now, however unlikely it may seem at present, we may be allowed to also build a truly Malaysian race by intermarriage?

So Merdeka Day is here again and Malaysia Day as well when our Sabah and Sarawak brothers joined in to a common destiny.

It’s time we ask ourselves whether we are going to progress as a 21st century nation or regress into medieval times? The future is in our hands.

We are all so interdependent that we really do need each other to create a better Malaysia. Along the way, there has to be some “give and take”.

Let’s respect our diversity as it can become the source of our greatest strength…and yet on the flip side, be our greatest vulnerability, too.

I am a child of Merdeka. I’ve watched this country grow and prosper.

I’m acutely aware of all the imperfections and shortcomings. I’ve been on both sides of the political divide at different times and am presently undecided.

By the way, in Science, it’s a very normal thing to be undecided.

Something deep in me tells me intuitively that there’s got to be a better way to make this nation a better place for all the children of Merdeka, including the poor, homeless, uneducated, disenfranchised, blind (literally), marginalised and those struggling with the rising cost of living.

That aura – that afterglow – of Merdeka still exists after all these years. It gives us the same hope that our founding fathers offered this young nation at its birth.

We’re currently undergoing a tumultuous adolescence but I’m hopeful that logic and common sense will finally prevail over emotional rhetoric and that when our nation finally enters adulthood one day, we the children of Merdeka, will still be around and be proud of the outcome.