Are we a nation?

Who am I?

I asked myself after reading about a State assemblywomen’s failure to register her baby as “Malaysian”.

The baby has to be registered as either Indian and Chinese, since one parent is Indian and another Chinese.

In this modern time, there will be many many such cases where people from different ethnic groups marrying people from other ethnic groups.

You marry someone you love, regardless of his or her background, including the colour of the skin.

This is in fact good for nationhood. This is in fact good for human kind.

This is also an good example of 1Malaysia, and Bangsa Malaysia.

Is that not what the past and present leaders want?

The Old Horse, when he was the PM, had advocated the emergence of Bangsa Malaysia, which should actually be encouraged right from the beginning of nationhood in 1957.

The present PM has time and again used 1Malaysia as his selling point to draw Malaysian voters back to his folds.

It is in fact an irony that Malaysians cannot register the birth of their children as Malaysians.

When I quit Parti Gerakan, my main reason is that, to paraphrase my statement then:

In fact, as a result of more than 5 decades of race based politics, the country has drifted so much apart that racial polarization has never been as bad as now . Despite the many decades of trying to work from within, Gerakan is now further and further away from realising its ideals.

Three years after the 308 General election, I sense that apart from rhetoric, there is little change in policies gearing towards uniting the people and providing a fairer and more equal footing for all. I feel that it is now futile for me to try to fight within the system anymore.

The action of denying Malaysians registering their children as Anak Malaysia has confirmed what I said then. The concept of 1Malaysia , as proposed by the PM, is nothing but rhetoric.

The answer to the question of “Who am I” should be ” I am a Malaysian”.

Now, the logical next question is that ” Are we a Nation”? If we are, why are we not called Malaysians but have to be registered as Chinese, Indians, Malays and so on?

All these are a result of 5 decades of pathetic race-dividing play by political masters.

If we are sincere about 1Malaysia, we should in fact do away with the ‘race’ column in any forms that we fill. That should be the right first step towards achieving the ideas of 1Malaysia.

How about that, Mr Prime Minister?