The difficult choices of non-Muslim Malaysians
I can be Malaysian and Dusun too, you know. My culture is something I like and erasing it for some notion of false unity is ridiculous.
Erna Mahyuni, The Malay Mail Online
To be non-Muslim in Malaysia is both difficult and not difficult, depending on who you talk to.
As Malays in Malaysia are not allowed to not choose Islam, being non-Muslim automatically makes you non-Malay and having that label is reductive.
Painting Malaysia as only occupied by Malays and the people they “allow” to stay — which is everyone else — is a problematic and fundamentally flawed perception of the country.
We are a confused and confusing nation. We need public holidays to remind us that Malaya’s independence and Malaysia’s formation are fundamentally different dates.
There are some who scoff at Malaysia Day — why make a big deal about the distinction? If Malaya never gained independence, there would be no Malaysia, no?
But Malaysia wouldn’t exist either if Indonesia and the Philippines had their way. If things had gone differently, Sabahans and Sarawakians would call themselves either Filipinos or Indonesians. But history decided differently.
There are times when I wonder if Malaysians are just idiots. Is it really all that difficult to call yourself Malaysian, and also want to have your unique background also accepted?
I find it stupidly annoying when people keep talking about “erasing” race and go around saying “we’re all Malaysian.”
I can be Malaysian and Dusun too, you know. My culture is something I like and erasing it for some notion of false unity is ridiculous.
The problem now is that we have politicians who would like to erase both the history and the significance of non-Malays, for the sake of winning votes in the heartland.
It is a dangerous, horrible ploy to tell the majority race that they are entitled and better than anyone else, while reality shows that so much disenfranchisement exists in the Malay community.
If we need to unite, we should probably unite in calling out divisive policies and inflammatory rhetoric. The constant flip-flopping in describing our country is ridiculous; today Malaysia is the country for all Malaysians, tomorrow it is only the real country of the majority and the rest should just go back to their ancestral lands. Can politicians just make up their minds?
