Tricia Yeoh

The By-Now (in)famous Peace Offering of Lilies

May us Malaysians continue to light up the dark country with little itsy bits of hope, any which way we can!

I thank those who have posted words of comfort and support in the midst of this crazy fiasco. I am testimony that it is possible to remain calm, as the eye in the storm, by responding in a rational manner. Thanks to the big guy up there (and I don’t mean the leader of the country). The forum two nights ago was interesting, bringing together the country’s popular bloggers: Jeff Ooi, Tony Pua, Shahrizal, Nik Nazmi, Khoo Kay Peng (political analyst), Oon Yeoh and of course not forgetting Uncle Kit himself (Lim Kit Siang).

A host of pressing issues were brought up, but I think what was most relevant that people could bring home with them, was how the Internet is going to affect the next Elections. No doubt blog-hopping is now classified as a valid “pastime” by some people, and it will be no different come 2008/2009 during our Pilihanraya. People visit blogs and online news sites to get updated and alternative sources of information. They rely on opinion leaders in their various blogs.

According to Jeff Ooi, the Minister of Information gets two files sent to him at the end of each day to look through. The first is a file on mainstream media, the second on alternative media. In the second you have your online Malaysiakinis, blogs and opinions/comments of the public, I’m sure. These are read through diligently everyday. So imagine what sort of impact the Internet is going to have in local politics.

My advice is for those who are already blogging, to quit talking so much about what they’ve done today. People don’t really care about what colour hair dye you have on now. And even if they do, is it really all that important to publicise?

No, I hope that we would focus on issues. It doesn’t have to necessarily be related to the political atmosphere in the country, but talk about what interests you – religion, race, God, poverty, the list is endless. Think about what sort of change you might want to exact, if not in your generation, in the next to come. What sort of ideas for the blog hoppers, for your friends, if not the leaders of the country?

Here’s to the Internet.. and its great, great potential!

The Prime Minister yesterday said that knowledge was the key to the nation’s growth. Sure, these ministers can go traipsing along on their little education journeys to schoolkids who don’t know a thing, making them believe that truly the government is serious about working towards knowledge, truth, seeking of wisdom and all that jazz.

When really, ask yourselves if the administration that we see today is one that consistently pushes towards an attitude of excellence? Is an administration that denies facts and figures one that is truly reflective of the road towards seeking knowledge? Or is it restricted knowledge, one that is bound by the constraints of what they dictate? Interpreting what knowledge is and what it is not – is silly and ridiculous. Worse, brushing off what they do NOT consider as knowledge – just because the government doesn’t agree – is childish and sounds very much like a schoolkid’s argument.

Let’s talk about Singapore since we’re on the warpath here. Look at the university rankings. Our supposed premier university UM has fallen by over 40 places this round of the Times Higher Education Supplement university ranks. It is now at position 192, while Malaysia’s highest scoring Uni is UKM (bravo, bravo *drily*) at 185. WOOHOO! We celebrate and congratulate ourselves, patting each other on our backs.

Meanwhile, Singapore sits smug at 19th position with their NUS.

Singapore can be condemned as a country that, through its detailed social engineering process, reeks of sterile and homogeneous people and townships. Their government plans out mostly everything for them, and therefore its people have been accused of being one-track minded, unwilling to think outside the box to cultivate creativity. We are clever to point fingers, but when it comes to true cultivation of knowledge and seeking Excellence, they beat us flat. They invest their money into their academicians at the university. They attract their foreign academic lecturers at research institutions and pay them well because they know they are worth it.

I am sadly ashamed at the contradictions of our leaders’ statements. Do they really listen to what they say? One day, they say that seeking knowledge is the key to our country’s success. Another day, they say that certain research is unreliable “just because” it contradicts official findings. THINK about that statement.

Knowledge seeking? Are they really doing this amongst its university students? The civil service? Amongst the public? Does the administration preach by example? Do they show their citizens that they are equally fascinated with new discoveries? Do they value knowledge, really?

Talk is cheap. Show me your actions and I’ll take you at your word.

After having walked the sidewalks of Brickfields on a hot hazy day, I wonder how it is that people living side-by-side can know so little about the other. You have the various racial groups huddled together in a little country, but put a C within an I community and you stick out like a sore thumb. Worse, put a C within a conservative M area and you get stares like you’re wearing a bikini in broad daylight.

Brickfields is a hustle-and-bustle community, all sorts of smells and colours, the odd lady throwing birdseed to pigeons that scurry till the motorcycle engine roars into life and disperses them like feathers in the sky. Blaring music against trendy thickly-lined-eyed-ladies. This is a part of Malaysia that I appreciate, but why, amidst  all its diversity, do I feel alien?

It is natural for people to feel a sense of belonging amongst their own kind. Nevertheless the level of interest one takes in another community is telling of the degree of integration and assimilation into a larger society. That each community isolates itself with a set of cultural norms and values that cannot be pierced except upon forced entry (or research!) is not a good sign.

How many C’s fully appreciate the whole works of a M or I culture? And vice versa for each group. Is it skindeep friendship or are we able to ask those important life questions of our fellow neighbours without the fear of being accused as “disrupting national unity”?

Every relationship needs to be nurtured: how? By having open discussion when one is unhappy with the other, talking it out and explaining the situation till the other can understand based on fact and feeling. You do this without a hot head but in a calm, cool and collected manner. Any person with a friend or having been through a relationship will be able to tell you that. A relationship that fears to speak the truth, that cowers away behind a shield of false protection, with zipped mouths and a denial syndrome is a relationship doomed to fail.

So. Until we are ready and prepared to talk straight with the other, be open and frank in both the good and the bad things, I’m afraid that my cordiality is not a sign of unity. Indeed, the opposite is true.