Lessons for an ageing nation

I TURNED 64 yesterday. I am now well on the wrong side of 60. The country we call home also has its birthday near mine. It turned 61 four days earlier.

I am ageing and so is the nation, with 15% of the population set to be above 60 in 2030. But this is not about the ageing, it’s about the nation.

Malaysia is a blessed land and I am so glad to have been born here (actually, I was born in Malaya and was almost three when Malaysia sprang into existence). It is made up of so many races, cultures and religions, and there are no natural disasters.

At my age, I know there are not many birthdays left. In fact, some astrologer wrote when I was a baby that I would not see my 66th birthday. Still, I think I have already seen a lot.

I listened to music on turntables, cassette recorders, CDs and pen drives, and now on Spotify. I saw the first computers – with dumb terminals – and rotary phones that became mobile phones so large that you could kill someone with them. Those then became smartphones which can do pretty much everything, even turning the bidet on for you, I think.

But all that was progress. I have also seen regression.

I remember a country that was happy, with everybody being friends with each other, when I was little. When I could read and write, I read about a leader who said he was the “happiest Prime Minister in the world”. He was just called Tunku.

Where I grew up in Penang, we were all friends. The Malays spoke Hokkien, the Chinese spoke Tamil and the Indians spoke Malay so fluently that they were often mistaken for Indian Muslims or mamak.

In fact, it was a Malay lad, Hamid, who inspired me to learn Hokkien. I remember well the day he stood up in class to say “Wah eh mak ki bansan bay hu.” (My mother goes to the market to buy fish.)

The teachers beamed at him. And envious me decided that I too wanted to speak Hokkien. A couple of years later, I could have a decent conversation in Hokkien with any Penang Chinese.

All of us – Malays, Chinese and Indians - got along like a house on fire. That was until the house actually caught fire in 1969, with politicians stoking the flames. And for the last 50 years or so, I daresay the house has continued to burn down.

How things have changed. A couple of days ago, I watched a video about a Malaysian Indian man who fell by the roadside due to a diabetic attack. A Malay couple rushed to help. A Malaysian-Chinese man called for an ambulance, but the Malay couple had taken him away for treatment in their car.

It was indeed heartwarming, and many praised the multiracial help. But the fact is, several decades ago, it would not have been news. It would have been just another day in paradise, otherwise known as Malaysia.

I had Malay and Chinese aunts who were married to Hindu uncles. They went to each other’s places of worship and there was no problem. Mixed marriages were something born of love, not a tool to collect votes.

Today, some politicians promote hate. They divide us by race, by religion, by the clothes we wear and the food we eat.

The latest row is about halal and non-halal. One group even wants three different types of halal – halal produced by Muslims, by non-Muslims and in a joint venture between the two. It would be a first in the world.

I am no authority on the religion, but isn’t halal just halal? You cannot be quasi-halal or semi-halal. What difference does it make who makes the product? I am in the dark here and would love to have some expert clarify this.

Worse, there was a report about a woman who did not want a Chinese doctor to deliver her child; a “kafir” should not welcome her child into the world, she said.

The other option was a Malay-Muslim man, so she had to opt for the Chinese lady doctor who welcomed the baby with an “assalamualaikum”. That broke the ice, and the patient and her family are now friends with the doctor. Now, that is a heart-warming story.

To be fair, it is not just the Muslims who shy away from the non-Muslims. There are many people who will not seek treatment from a Malay doctor. Their excuse? “He may have just become a doctor because of his racial privilege and not because he is any good.”There are many top Malay-Muslim professionals making their mark abroad in the face of fierce competition. The Malays can be just as good as anyone else. It’s not about race. It’s about skills and knowledge.

Our education system hasn’t helped, either. It has been changed so often in the last 50 years and scoring methods have come under scrutiny. Are passing marks lowered to let more people get higher grades?

Exams have been scrapped. Instead, students learn their history from half-baked, racist professors ranting on TikTok. No one questions them. Instead, they get glorified with even some political leaders backing them.

Like I said, we don’t have natural disasters, only man-made ones.

Now, we have children in so- called schools being abused, both physically and sexually, with some religious leaders asking for things to be played down “because it could hurt the image of the religion”.These same leaders went to town with guns blazing and swords swishing when a few pairs of “offensive socks” were found in a store of a supermarket chain. The chain had to issue an apology.

The socks issue was no small matter. But the sodomy and abuse of children is worse. The culprits must pay, whatever their religion. Schools should be about learning, mingling and understanding one another in a nation of so many different cultures. And they must be safe places for our children.Schools, and society as a whole, should not be about religion, race or the kind of clothes we wear.

That is really what I would like to see in this blessed “tanah tumpahnya darahku” – even if I don’t live to see my 66th birthday.