When your country doesn’t love you back, you look for love elsewhere
I do not believe in the concept of unity. I despise overt shows of patriotism and nationalism breeds injustice and intolerance over anything else.
Erna Mahyuni, The Malay Mail Online
I angered quite a few people from a certain minority race in Malaysia with my last column. Truthfully it was not my intent but neither do I have regrets.
Can you really blame me to find it disturbing to see my countrymen lavishing praise on China and mocking Hong Kong protesters?
If anything they have more in common with the Hong Kong protesters who lashed out at powers that will not listen to them.
They should know just what it means to feel as though your opinions do not matter and see your rights run over roughshod.
One reader was so angry with me that I received a long email diatribe about the “evils” Western countries have perpetrated.
Last time I checked, though, the US hasn’t shot an unarmed protester in the chest, or at least not this year.
One thing for certain is that despite Malaysia being more than 50 years old, we still only pay lip service to the dignity, rights and aspirations of our minority races.
Being a minority does not mean that you mean less, that you are in any way, an inferior Malaysian.
It must be tiresome to be treated as though your concerns matter little and to have your own (former) prime minister ask mockingly, “What else do you want?”
There are no happy minority races in Malaysia. If there is one thing that unites them all, they are all miserable in their own fashion.
