IN an op-ed yesterday in a regional news portal, Deputy Youth And Sports Minister Steven Sim summarised three things he learnt in his first year in the federal government.

Sim’s second of his three points struck a chord with me – the need for the progressives to finally address and engage in open discussions about the sometimes-uncomfortable themes of race, ethnicity and religion.

For far too long, middle-class, urban Malaysians from all races have tried to pigeon-hole the growing divide between the races as something that only existed in the political sphere, as if it was somehow unreal.

We have attempted to convince ourselves and others that the obviously-racist government policies, and justifications for their existence, had no real bearing or effect on the everyday Malaysian.

“These are just politics” and “true Malaysians are not racist” have always been  comforting phrases, but also always slightly forced.

Growing up mostly in Kuala Lumpur, my exposure to the cultures, beliefs and food of non-Chinese Malaysians was, expectedly, quite extensive. My friends were of all races and religions, and we all mostly came from urban, middle-class families.

In such an economically-homogenous setting, our beliefs and our stand when it came to ultra-nationalistics views and racially-prejudicial policies were, unsurprisingly, almost identically liberal. Racism was a dirty word, and one that we never believed ourselves to be party to or victims of.

Even though my Malay friends, most of whom have graduated from Western universities, bemoaned the continued racial rhetoric from ultra-Malay nationalists, I never sensed anything deeper than a mere dismissal of racial problems as some sort of made-up evil. Racist policies, in their minds, was not their doing, even though they were aware that they were benefiting from them.

As for the non-Malays, most of us refrained from talking at all about the elephant in the room – why race-based quotas have not been replaced by needs-based quotas – for fear we would sound like ingrates demanding a larger slice of the pie.

All of us were afraid to voice our feelings or questions about a system that we knew was broken, because somehow we wanted to believe that racism and religious vitriol was a thing that only lame politicians used.

We wanted to believe that if enough people ignored this chasm that was driving a wedge between the people of Malaysia, the hatred and bigotry would just go away.

Some years ago, I spoke to a friend – a  middle-class, Western-educated and progressive Malay man who championed the voice of the moderate – about my realisation that my options in life had very much been shaped by Barisan Nasional’s New Economic Policy.

I ventured to talk about quotas in local universities and about how my friends of a difference race, who were raised and educated in the city, and whose families drove sports cars and owned million-dollar properties, could qualify to become doctors while I, who scored higher than them in STPM, could not.

The discussion didn’t go very far, and my friend soon dismissed my concerns by declaring that our country could not move ahead if we kept harping on the past.

He said that there was little anyone could do to change the racist policies of the past and present, and to stir up pent-up feelings of discontentment would add little to the narrative moving forward.

And that was the abrupt end of what could have been an open, honest and maybe confronting discussion about our racist past and present. I admit that I had felt slightly guilty for seemingly falling into the trap of politicians by simply voicing my views that I was raised in a system that was working against me.

But I was also left wondering if by dismissing and keeping mute on the reality that the system was unjust, liberals and progressives have played a part in emboldening the extremists and ultra-nationalists over the years.

Just because millions of non-Bumiputera Malaysians like I have come to live with racist policies – thrived, in fact, in spite of them – doesn’t mean that these policies are any less damaging to the economic and social fabric of this country.

The reason most of us are not brimming with resentment at being raised as second-class citizens just because our ancestors had chosen to rebuild their lives in a foreign land is not because the policies are right but because our love for our country and our friends and neighbours have tempered the bitterness.

Everyone has an idea of what the new Malaysia should be, and for the progressives, it is a colour-blind Malaysia.

But to get there, we cannot ignore the fact that entire generations of Malaysians have never been fully embraced as citizens with equal rights and privileges.

Recognising this and talking about it is not an exercise in futility; nor is it stirring up a hornet’s nest. It is in fact a journey of healing for not only those sidelined as non-Bumiputera, but also for the Bumiputeras who have long felt shame at the position of advantage they enjoy simply by virtue of  their ethnicity.

Sim had noted in his opinion piece that as a result of progressives shunning uncomfortable topics like ethnicity and religion, the discourse has almost entirely been monopolised by conservative Malay-Muslim political parties, Umno and PAS.

We’re already seeing how dangerous their rhetoric can be. 

But we also have to stop blaming them, or making it easy for them to drive a wedge.

Unless those of us who believe and hope that our country can truly be better, address the difficult issues head on, we will only have ourselves to blame for the widening divide between the races and religious groups, and the growing injustices. – May 8, 2019.
 

* Julia Yeow has been in journalism for two decades and counts it as her first love, despite enjoying brief stints as a lecturer, clown and salad maker. She is a strong believer in social justice, and holds that there is sometimes more truth in the greys, than the blacks and whites.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.