We can’t move forward with suspicious minds
In the past, we took it in our stride and rarely let off-colour jokes and remarks get to us. But of late, no thanks to social media and the Internet, any action or remark spreads like wildfire and gets mangled, misinterpreted and embellished along the way.
The Star
SUSPICIOUS minds. That seems to be the state of thinking in our country in these disquieting times. Any action, any utterance is quickly judged on whether it’s racial, religious and even gender “unfriendly”.
Granted, in a multiracial society, there is the expectation that people should know how to speak and behave so as not to cause offence.
But we know in reality, there is a tendency to typecast or stereotype ourselves and people from other communities. This is an age-old mindset but for the most part, it’s harmless. And if anything, it was and still is fodder for jokes and teasing.
In the past, we took it in our stride and rarely let off-colour jokes and remarks get to us. But of late, no thanks to social media and the Internet, any action or remark spreads like wildfire and gets mangled, misinterpreted and embellished along the way.
There seems to be a wilful desire to think the worst of “others”. It doesn’t matter the source: it can be the Government trying to introduce a compulsory subject in private colleges, or people from one community trying to scale Everest, or high scorers not getting places in their chosen courses, or two foolish young people trying to be funny in their tasteless and ill-conceived joke.
The reaction to all of the above is there is a hidden agenda, an ulterior motive to all such actions. Because of the suspicion, it leads to the desire to hit back, to accuse, to hurt, to mock or even to punish beyond the actual “crime”.
More worrisome is the almost- automatic way to look for racial and religious undertones in just about everything, which inevitably leads to people thinking along the lines of Us Against Them.
Sadly, there is a strong belief that the results of the general election on May 5 has worsened race relations. The hearts of the people have hardened against each other.
One group feels betrayed by another, that there is no sense of gratitude for or appreciation of what has been done for them nor the generous accommodation of their demands.
The other group’s response is that they have been pushed to the wall and the decades of accepting what they perceive to be biased policies and implementation has gone unacknowledged and finally, enough is enough.
Interestingly enough, the lyrics of Elvis Presley’s song Suspicious Minds encapsulates this Malaysian dilemma: “We’re caught in a trap, we can’t walk out … Why can’t you see what you’re doing to me when you don’t believe a word I say? We can’t go on together with suspicious minds, and we can’t build our dreams on suspicious minds.”
When Malaysia celebrated its 50th year of Merdeka, The Economist commented about the “increasingly separate lives that Malay, Chinese and Indian Malaysians are leading”.
The British magazine added: “More so than at independence, it is lamented, the different races learn in separate schools, eat separately, work separately and socialise separately. Some are asking: is there really such a thing as a Malaysian?”
That was six years ago. How do we answer that now?
