Go read Rehman Rashid's Opinion in today's NST entitled: The Great Unspoken National Contract.
Its that's what he calls the Malaysian Way.
Abstract:
Is it true that the Chinese electorate in the past two by-elections showed they were unhappy with the government?
In the free-wheeling domain of the w-w-websites, the odium heaped on the government reaches doctoral levels, as they say: Perasaan hasad dengki, piled high and deep.
The point is, though: Race has almost nothing to do with it.
The Great Unspoken Malaysian Contract resides in the way we live with and among each other; in how we greet and speak with one another.
It is mostly expressed in the language and gestures of our daily interactions, and after many decades’ development, it has attained universal familiarity in this country.
By and large, however, we suffer through and get by. With strength and discipline. Gritted teeth. Clenched fists. Red in the face from holding our breath and counting to 10 a hundred times a day. With enormous acts of will and faith, and ever-deepening trust and hope in the Almighty, we bite down, dig deep, suck it up, and get on with it.
Labourer and peasant ancestries offer good genetics for this. At the bottom of it all lies the innate mutual understanding that everyone with something to wear and somewhere to sleep is on the same quest: Cari makan.
Such hunger is common to all — though it’s surprising how the more you eat, the hungrier you get. (Rehman, who eats and get hungrier?) But this is something known and understood by everyone from the emaciated slave to the sleek billionaire: Enough is never enough.
If we live, they’re dead, dead, d’you hear me?! Apa, lu cari pasal ka? You talkin’ to me? Go ahead, make my day.
As a consequence, the Great Unspoken Malaysian Contract may smell a little rancid these days, but it still makes an effective poultice for these old scars that still ache from time to time, especially when there’s thunder and lightning and it rains mineral water.
It would be constructive, therefore, to recognise that the Chinese voters who swung away from BN in these last two by-elections were not disgruntled because they’re Chinese but because they’re Malaysian.
A government is returned, salient messages nailed to its shirt-tails. Things get done, somehow, someday. Everyone has their say, somehow, some way. Food is found, the world turns round, and everyone lives to fight another day.
Its that's what he calls the Malaysian Way.
Abstract:
Is it true that the Chinese electorate in the past two by-elections showed they were unhappy with the government?
In the free-wheeling domain of the w-w-websites, the odium heaped on the government reaches doctoral levels, as they say: Perasaan hasad dengki, piled high and deep.
The point is, though: Race has almost nothing to do with it.
The Great Unspoken Malaysian Contract resides in the way we live with and among each other; in how we greet and speak with one another.
It is mostly expressed in the language and gestures of our daily interactions, and after many decades’ development, it has attained universal familiarity in this country.
By and large, however, we suffer through and get by. With strength and discipline. Gritted teeth. Clenched fists. Red in the face from holding our breath and counting to 10 a hundred times a day. With enormous acts of will and faith, and ever-deepening trust and hope in the Almighty, we bite down, dig deep, suck it up, and get on with it.
Labourer and peasant ancestries offer good genetics for this. At the bottom of it all lies the innate mutual understanding that everyone with something to wear and somewhere to sleep is on the same quest: Cari makan.
Such hunger is common to all — though it’s surprising how the more you eat, the hungrier you get. (Rehman, who eats and get hungrier?) But this is something known and understood by everyone from the emaciated slave to the sleek billionaire: Enough is never enough.
If we live, they’re dead, dead, d’you hear me?! Apa, lu cari pasal ka? You talkin’ to me? Go ahead, make my day.
As a consequence, the Great Unspoken Malaysian Contract may smell a little rancid these days, but it still makes an effective poultice for these old scars that still ache from time to time, especially when there’s thunder and lightning and it rains mineral water.
It would be constructive, therefore, to recognise that the Chinese voters who swung away from BN in these last two by-elections were not disgruntled because they’re Chinese but because they’re Malaysian.
A government is returned, salient messages nailed to its shirt-tails. Things get done, somehow, someday. Everyone has their say, somehow, some way. Food is found, the world turns round, and everyone lives to fight another day.
NOTE:
We may get some digestive problem with his philosophical encomium. At times, I get nauseate. However, as pointed out, "it’s what you call the Malaysian Way ... of life.
1 comment:
There is a greater Contract-- The Great Unspoken Humanity Contract which resides in the way we coexist with each other and not by classifying one ethnic group as rich and another group as poor. What would happen to Britain if the ethnic English would proclaim themselves as the "sons of the soil"(whatever the f@#K that means) and the minority Scots, Irish and Welsh as "non-sons of the soil"? There will be independent Wales, Scotland and North Ireland today.
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