The football test of fealty

How 'Malaysian' is the country's national football team? As of June 2022, it's made up of Malaysians born to two Malaysian parents, Malaysians with a non-Malaysian parent, and players who were born non-Malaysian and became naturalised a few years ago. — FAM

The “cricket test” was a phrase coined by a British member of Parliament in the 1990s. It referred to the observation that many immigrants to Britain professed British citizenship, but when their original country’s cricket teams visited England, they would support them instead of their new home’s team.

It’s very hard for non-Malaysians to get citizenship, but if it’s true that “to know Malaysia is to love Malaysia”, then does that love extend to sports?

The 2023 Asian Cup’s final qualifying football match on June 14, 2022, saw Malaysia play Bangladesh at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, and there was significant support for the visiting team. Of the estimated hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, I would estimate maybe 10,000 of them turned up at Bukit Jalil.

Eventually, the Malaysian football team managed to win the game and qualify for the 2023 Asian Cup finals. I say “Malaysian” but it might actually be more accurate to say a team made up of Malaysians born to two Malaysian parents, Malaysians with a non-Malaysian parent, and even players who were born non-Malaysian and only became naturalised a few years ago.

I estimate in the current squad there are eight players upon whom you might have to mark their Malaysian nationality with an asterisk. Yet, in victory, they are all Malaysian and were praised loudly by the crowd in Bukit Jalil when they beat Bangladesh 4-1.

However, go back a few days, to June 11, and you would have seen a different tone when Malaysia lost to Bahrain. One Brazil-born naturalised Malaysian was picked on in particular for his poor performance (and I agree it wasn’t his best game).

Now, given that we gave him Malaysian citizenship so he could play football for us, shouldn’t we also take it away from him if he can no longer contribute? How do we decide if somebody is worthy to be called a Malaysian?

Last week, a post was made on social media by Penny Wong (Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs who was born in Kota Kinabalu) who welcomed Sam Lim (Australian MP for Tangney who was born in Johor) for his recent election victory. She wrote, “And the Malaysian caucus has doubled!”

One Malaysian responded to this by writing, “You’re Australian. You moved to (Australia) for a better life and you’re now representing Australians”, ending with “Don’t call yourself Malaysian”.

By absolute coincidence, I met up last week with an old friend who had moved to Australia 15 years ago and now holds an Australian passport. I asked him, “Do you still consider yourself Malaysian?”, and without hesitation he said “Of course!”

This was his answer despite only sporadically returning to Malaysia over the last decade and a half. He wasn’t even born in Malaysia. His parents were from India, he was born in Singapore, and is now working in Australia. But he calls himself Malaysian.

How do you make sense of what seems like cognitive dissonance? How can somebody have left to begin a new life, work so hard to build a home in a new country, claim a new passport and yet yearn for the past? Is it just nostalgia? Memories of a better life now long gone?

Surprisingly, the answer is “yes”. Research from the University of New Hampshire in the United States showed that the most important and valued memories that people would recall are ones that were important transitional moments.

If these memories relate to you being in Malaysia, or if they have a Malaysian context, then these important memories might help define you as a “Malaysian”. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing now, it’s what you value most in your life as a whole that counts. And if that anchor is Malaysia, that might be true your whole life.

I can’t find the source, but about 10 years ago there was a survey of Malaysians who had returned after leaving to work overseas, and the number one reason why most came back was because they had to take care of an elderly relative. Another highly-ranked reason was because they wanted their children to know their roots.

To a certain degree, governments and companies try to take advantage of this loyalty. Schemes like the Returning Expert Programme give tax incentives and other benefits. But these incentives are more a sweetener than the main reason to return.

In all of this, the question of citizenship almost becomes secondary. The passport is a document to facilitate travel rather than a mark of fealty.

Can immigrants adopt their new home with gusto? Can they pass whatever the local equivalent of the “cricket test” is? Interestingly, there is a YouTube video where Bangladeshi fans were interviewed as they arrived at Bukit Jalil stadium before that match. One fan said he often watched local football and was a big fan of Selangor.

But what about the acid test for international games? Another interviewee said that he was going to support Bangladesh in the game against Malaysia, but cheekily added, “Other match, I support Malaysia!”

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.