1 Love Undivided

(Picture originally taken by Victor Chen & Dannie Mar)

I have no definite answer on what being a Malaysian means to me. Personally, I think that it is a group of things and ideas that happens in our life of all Malaysians such as the culture, thoughts, behavior, and many more.

                To me, one of the many things to be a true Malaysian is to face difficulties of trying to attain harmony and peace. In Malaysia, religion and race are the two main issues that we are all aware of and being not able to solve it properly just yet. Malaysia is such a complex society. It is multiracial, multilingual, multi-religious and almost multi-everything. The problems are so complex that I don’t think we should allow the government alone to solve them. It is up to all Malaysians to come together, and come up with a solution. One of the many ways to do that is that we will need to keep talking to each other, just like what “Malaysiakini” has provided, a place or forum for the people to have free access to discuss. I am not saying that Malaysia has been creating a bad image of what the country is, it is just that there is no perfection when it comes to dealing with so many people. Some may have agreed to not discriminate and see each other as equal, but there will still be some others who would not comply to the idea of being as ‘one’. This is such a headache. Hence, as long as not all the people are committed in becoming as ‘one’, a Malaysian would have to constantly battle to achieve harmony.

                Also, as Malaysians it would mean a lot to have more faith in our own country. With our most recent famous example of MH370, the country is already in depth of help and we don’t need people to add on fire to fire. We are still a developing country. I think Malaysians have too little faith in our own country due to several factors, mainly the media. To me, media such as the news reports has been portraying many things that are not the facts, and this has turned the backs of many Malaysians, including me. We think that Malaysia is a hopeless place. With this, most of us do not trust the news reports, except the sports news. Hence, we are not willing to contribute much thinking or involve in any political practices. This leads to the reason why Malaysia is lacking of talented folks, as most of us chose to contribute to other countries. This will eventually link to issues of racism, religion and ethnicity. I think that people are not aware of the issues mentioned until they are being discussed by the news reports. People were peaceful before until the news went haywire about everything regarding our skin colour, culture, behaviour and more. This eventually separates our unity as “one” Malaysia as people would actually believe and influenced by the media which is mostly controlled by our beloved government.

                So, what does it mean to be Malaysian? It means to have faith, and overcome difficulties hand in hand no matter who is beside us. Everything has its good and bad. We should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder and discuss together despite of our ethnicity, gender, religion, race, language, and culture, as long as we are walking in the same direction to achieve a harmonious life in the country. Even if we have not achieved it yet, and may never will, but the most important thing is that we will consistently try.

                “Do it again. Play it again. Sing it again. Read it again. Write it again. Sketch it again. Rehearse it again. Run it again. Try it again. Because again is practice, and practice is improvement, and improvement only leads to perfection.”

― Richelle E. Goodrich

                With all of this, I would like to conclude everything into one video. And I certainly hope everyone here will watch this video as it had touches me. Feel free to like or comment on the video. Thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlqTZBaqdQ8

DFTBA,

Dannie

References:

~    http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/my-confession-i-am-a-malaysian-peter-ling

~    http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/content/faith-malaysian-perspective
~    http://www.thenatstory.com/what-does-being-a-malaysian-mean-to-you/

~    http://www.malaysiakini.com/