Waiting for a Hero
By Shang Neng
If we truly love our home, our country, we have to be the ones to exact the change we long to see. NOBODY IS GOING TO DO OUR DIRTY JOB FOR US!!!
It's our home, our mess to clean. We can't be like the ignorant international settlers in Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, waiting for a single hero to save them all from the ensuing war while they live their days away in their make-believe heaven.
"So do you plan to go home once you've graduated?"
It was a simple question, one that I've already formulated a regular answer to.
It was just a simple day in Australia, another simple Malaysian asking.
"[Laughs] Nah, I am hoping to practice here if things work out. Malaysia's beyond hope. I feel so oppressed when I'm there. The politics, some of the vulgar mindsets of the people. I had once thought differently, naively so too. Perhaps in 15 years time when the tides have changed the shoreline, I might return."
He shook his head slowly, a little smile splayed across his face. He then went on to say such simple things. Simple, yet profound to me. He changed me on the inside that very day. He made me question so much of my reality then. I was fazed, all alone in my little world in a battle with myself.
(This was me: The Love Note No More)
The good and intelligent youth of Malaysia clearly see the things happening around them for what they are, and for what they entail. They realise that any silver lining in the clouds are mere products of what the oppressors want us to see. The storm clouds are looming as never before, never seeming to diminish. The politics is scary; the pay is meagre in retrospect; price of fuel is rising. We need greener and newer pasture, we shout.
And so, the good and intelligent people all aim to leave the country the first opportunity they get. They want to abandon ship because the hole now seem too big to mend, the ship was apparently sinking. The captain and the deckhands all seem to be keeping the keys to the lifeboats for themselves.
And so, we leave in droves (or sit on our hands and await for that opportunity to leave); the promising youth of today promising to return when the hole has been mended.
And here is where my Malaysian friend shook me from my reverie, right there in that foreign land, miles and miles away from…my home. Our home.
If we, the good and intelligent youth of Malaysia were to all act like how I planned it to be, who else will be left on board the sinking ship to mend it? The elder generation can't hold on for that long. The remaining passengers do not see the problem for what it is, overly focusing on that non-existent silver lining. The captain and his crew…they are only ripping profit until it is too late, when they too shall abandon the ship in their high-tech lifeboats and sail to shores of paradise.
Clearly, I am not all that intelligent after all. I have been clouded by inexperience and a disgusting sense of arrogance and misplaced pride.
If we truly love our home, our country, we have to be the ones to exact the change we long to see. NOBODY IS GOING TO DO OUR DIRTY JOB FOR US!!!
It's our home, our mess to clean. We can't be like the ignorant international settlers in Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, waiting for a single hero to save them all from the ensuing war while they live their days away in their make-believe heaven.
Can't you see it yet? No hero's going to come to Malaysia's rescue. You, my friend, have to wake up from that slumber and step up to the challenge of creating the Malaysia you want it to be. You, me…we are the heroes we have been dreaming for.
It is for that reason, that I need to go home when the time is right.
To right the wrongs of my country.
And if things have been righted by then, it is also my sole duty to ensure that my children and their children will not need to go through the shit that we have been subjected to.
