All Malaysians, casting aside race, religion and party, must congratulate the new Mentri Besar Perak who is a new breed of Malaysians the country hopes for. Let us face it, stripped of our race, religion or the political party we belong to, the individual is just a human being, laughing when happy and crying when sad. No amount of padding will change this concept, where down at heart we are a defenseless group fighting for survival. Our egoism, our pride, our assumed self-esteem, makes us to believe in race, religion and other wordily values of rich and poor. We forget we are just homo sapiens and our highly developed brain, unlike animals, makes us to think in terms of a better race, a better religion and better environment for living. Hence, we react based on race or religion as if these will put us on a higher pedestal than our neighbour.
Malaysia or Malaya as I knew it when young, made me live with my neighbours as equals. I knew Ahmad goes to a mosque, Wong prays to his Gods, Lingam has his temple, Gurumukh has his gurduwara, and Sam has got his church. I couldn’t care if none of these people, don’t practice the religion the way I do. At a young age, perhaps I could not visualise that religion is a matter between the person or the God he is associated with, but for me our religious backgrounds had nothing to do with how we live as neighbours and friends. Differentiating people by religion was never there. We tolerated what we ate, my friend may eat pork, but since I could not eat that stuff, it did not make my pork eating friend an outcast. Similarly with beef, if you ate it, that is up to you but I won’t eat it.
As I grew up, I knew what tolerance means, at house functions where Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, and Deepavalli are celebrated, it was always a communal gathering, Malays, Chinese and Indians, the host explaining to the guests, this is beef, this is pork, making damn sure you don’t eat what you thing is prohibited for you. At Chinese weddings I have seen separate tables for Muslim food catered by Muslims, and if I had known or could predict, the divide by religion was beginning. This could have been in the late 60s and 70s and following that the concept of race, religion and differences were magnified, thanks to the political mavericks for their own survival, and today we see a country divided by skin colour, religion, added by new concepts like New Economic Policy, Ketuanan Melayu, races being neglected by virtue of race etc etc. The division is very strong. We could never get back to the good old days. The divide has widened, and any amount of adhesive won’t gum it together.
The only hope lies in forgetting our past messing up, think of the future as an experience learning from our past mistakes, and treat one another as humans. The fear is, if not, we will be at one another’s throat, and this will effect not only the present generation but our children, grandchildren and our generations to come. Can’t imagine Malaysia as another African state, where as an analogy, black against black, the difference being they are from different tribes.
Perhaps I am over ambitious, but getting back to the present, our Mentri Besar Perak a PAS man, was seen today by my sister-in-law on a trip from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur. The family stopped at the highway rest area, I believe Ulu Bernam rest area, and my sister-in-law a person who, at least in front of me, won’t be opinionated – you know Indian custom and all that, was praising the Mentri Besar to high heaven. She told my wife and I, you won’t believe it the Mentri Besar Perak wishing us ‘Vanakkam’ (a law must be made for all politicians to be bi, tri, quad lingual) in Tamil. She went on to add, we are lucky to get a man like him in Perak, what a nice man, and my brother-in-law adding ‘the former Mentri Besar, never saw him’.
Please keep on reading on the Perak MB Ir.Nizar, who is I think a bit different, and I hope other leaders take the trouble to cement up the shaky position, Malay for Malay, Chinese for Chinese and Indian for Indian. The tsunami of March 8 is a blessing for Malaysia.
MB Perak PAS yang penyayang!
THESE ARE THE PICTURES THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED MEDIA WILL NEVER SHOW YOU IN THEIR PAPERS.
An explosion occurred on the 17th. March 2008 at the Malayan FlourMills premises at Lumut killing 3 persons and on the 18th. March, the new MB Ir.Nizar and the DAPstate assemblyman Ngeh Koo Ham visited the family of one of thevictims. Here are the pictures that will bring tears to your eyes!
MB Ir Nizar bersama ADUN DAP Ngeh Koo Ham melawat keluarga mangsaletupan kilang tepung Malayan Flour Mills di Manjung pd 18 Mac 2008.
Gambar di bawah MB Ir Nizar ketika meluangkan masa di rumahseorang dari 3 mangsa yg terbunuh, Lok Lai Keat, 51 dari Sitiawan. MBIr Nizar yg boleh bertutur dalam dialek mandarin.hokkien dan kantonese turut memujuk anak mangsa Lok Min Yee, 10 yg meratapi kehilanganbapanya. (gambar dibawah tidak mungkin tersiar di media arus perdana).
Our public media controlled by BN government won’t show this photos,news. So let it be our responsibility, all of us who receive this mailto spread and share this touching stories to all our belovedmalaysians, chinese, indians and malay friends.
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