How to feel good about this Merdeka?
By Sim Kwang Yang
I write many columns for many publications under various names, and I was asked by one editor to provide a “feel-good” piece on Merdeka.
If you take one of those correspondence courses on how to write saleable articles, you will be taught to write on topical and seasonal subjects. A professional columnist like me must learn to write on important dates of the calendar, and August 31st is one of these dates.
Any writing course will also teach you to have an ending that make the readers feel good. If you just hantam with a long string of negative toxic expletives and whining, like many people who leave comments on blogs and websites on the Internet, nobody will want to read your stuff, and you will not be able to sell your articles.
I understand the world of commercial journalism, so I finished my assignment of “feel-good” piece on Merdeka, without becoming a ball-carrier for the BN government. It tested the dexterity of my skills as a writer, but it can be done, because there are a lot of nice things about Malaysia and Malaysians in particular.
When it comes to writing for my home blog the Hornbill Unleashed on Merdeka, then I hesitated. My feelings are much more complex and mixed than just feeling good or bad about our 52nd Merdeka anniversary.
My lived experience and my long memory tell me that Malaysia came into being on September 16, 1963, and not August 31, 1957. But for UMNO and their nationalist narrative, the great Malay nation of Tanah Ai Melayu came into historic existence on August 31st, with Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah being attached to form Malaysia on September 16, 1963. Our state was added as an appendage, as an after-thought.
You try arguing with the Orang Malaya of all races, and you will die of frustration.
Then again, in my ageing years, I have metamorphosised into an ambiguous position that increasingly distances my consciousness from nationalism and the myth of the nation-state. They are abstract human theoretical construct, the ontological existence of which is still under probe by numerous scholars who have made their career on the subjects.
The official images of citizens carrying and waving the national flags and shouting slogans move me little. The patriotic jingo emitting from RTM turns my stomach year after year. I protect the health of my stomach by not watching and listening to all Malaysian TV and radio stations during this Merdeka season of hysteria. Patriotism has to be much more sophisticated than that.
But Merdeka this year comes at a unique moment of our nation’s history.
Of course, we have versions of the old narrative. A Malay woman has been sentenced to be whipped six times with the rotan for drinking in public. To call the punishment barbaric is an insult to those barbarians. (Remember Conan the Barbarian; he was a hero warrior!)
Then there is the case of the 50 protesters allegedly from a Malay majority area who protested the relocation of a Hindu temple to “their area” by carrying a cow’s severed head as a symbol of hate for the Hindus.
I have problems with this perception of “Malay-majority area”. “Chinese-majority area”, and “Indian-majority area”. If we divide Sarawak and Sabah in like manners, we have 60 or so similar areas. The nation is then broken down into 63 different enclaves, and the concept of one Malaysian nation would fly out the window. Then there is no need to celebrate Merdeka at all, because the nation of Malaysia has virtually disappeared from the common imagination of all her 26 million citizens.
I remember the numerous cities and towns that I have visited throughout Malaysia.
