The national dream

Long have I desired to write something to this effect, after watching the many hands raised up when I asked the Form 2 students while teaching as a temporary teacher, "Who plans to leave Malaysia when you grow up?", after observing the response I got (and still get) for wanting to "study and stay in Malaysia if I can and God wills", after hearing my contemporaries scheming and planning to attain PRs in other countries as soon as they can, and after listening to so many snide remarks about our nation's incompetence, uttered not out of concern for the disadvantaged or underprivileged, but out of pure disdain for this place.

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My national dream is to see a renewed love for this land.

Days ago, the nation went to the ballot boxes and cemented their decisions on paper. The sentiment for change was in the air, we were gearing towards a democratic revolution, we pushed against the walls of oppression and then...The walls came, crashing down. 

Of all of the enormous, ambitious and repeatedly mentioned hopes that have been re-birthed along with the political awakening of my fellow Malaysians, there is a national dream that has yet been realized- one that threatens to destroy the very foundations of this country should it prevail, and more importantly, one that plagues my generation.

How many times has it been said time and time again, that we were fooled to love! We were trained to lift our right hands up to recite the national oath every week, we were made to stand to sing the national anthem every Monday of our schooling years, we were indoctrinated with ideals and notions of the country in our very textbooks, we were encouraged to proudly swing the “Jalur Gemilang” on the National Day; we were taught to love this land, even made to as it seems. But soon after, my generation grew up, and growing up, we saw more.

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Untainted by the doctrine of nationalism and unbiased to certain ideals, the higher education we pursued opened our eyes to the ugliness of our home. The more we saw, the more we hated, and the more we hated, the more resolved we became, "to leave this screwed up place as soon as I can and get a better life where my race will not be discriminated and my privileges will not be based on the colour of my skin". Like grapes dried by the sun, we became as prunes - tired and cynical of the system, eager to escape a desert of injustice, incompetence and corruption.

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And so I ask, what good is change in the system if our hearts can't love a nation whose rulers would inevitably rise and fall with time? If our patriotism depends on the names of the leaders who govern this land, it could very well waver in a matter of 4 years.

Hence, my dream for a renewed love for this nation. Not a tolerance for corruption, nor a liking for sin, but a steadfast, stubborn choice to stand for this place and the insistence that 'where my destiny began is where my destiny lies'. A renewed love for this nation, which, isn't dependent on the abilities of its rulers or the times, rather a willingness to be counted as one of its citizens, and if so be, mocked at for being 'patriotic for a lost cause' when all others have lost faith in it.

It is the firm idealistic stand that beauty is not to be a reason for love- because Malaysia may very well be 'ugly' in many ways. It is the appreciation of a new, unbiased view of the country and the choice to love despite what one sees. Most importantly, it is the passion for our birthplace and identity. Sure, we were taught to love this place, and even indoctrinated to, as some may say,

but if we, who realize all these things and can now see for ourselves...

if we, who know the shortcomings of this land and no longer recite oaths or sing songs ignorantly…

…knowing that love is a choice to be made, not a passion to be forced - love anyway, then change has truly come to Malaysia.