A story for Merdeka

Let me tell you a story. When I was a young kid of no more than five, I used to live in a neighborhood in SS5, near Kelana Jaya. One day, at about five, maybe six in the morning, I suddenly woke up to the sound of the Azan or call to prayer humming over the air. It wasn't too noisy or anything, but just audible enough over the background, cutting through the still and crisp morning air.

If there was something else I also noticed, it was that my (now late) grandmother was beside me from the moment I woke up. I still do not know until today why an elderly woman - she was about seventy years of age then - like her was awake at that hour or indeed whether it was me who woke her ever so light sleep with my stirring. But what happened next I will remember for a long, long time.

Being the young, naive kid that everyone was at the age of five, I cursed the Azan for waking me up. I remember complaining in Cantonese to my grandmother that the Azan was 'noisy'. It was then that my she said to me in her usual, gentle tone.

"You must not say that. It is their way of worshipping God, just like we have our own way,"

And just as she said that, the Azan ended. Quieting myself and knowing I was wrong, I went back to sleep. I have never insulted the Azan again ever since.

With just a few words, my grandmother taught me more about acceptance and respect than any Pendidikan Moral textbook or 1Malaysia campaign ever could. She who was seventy years old. She who was born in the time of Empire and who never went to school, learnt to read nor speak Malay.

I'm telling you this story on the eve of Merdeka simply because I want you to know how extraordinary we can be as a nation if we want to. All it takes is just a sprinkling of acceptance and a pinch of common sense. I still think of that morning sometimes whenever I read about the bigotry that we see everyday.

Why is it wrong to have a Hindu temple in a Muslim area? Was it necessary to protest with a severed cow's head? Why is it wrong to sell alcohol? Why is it bad to work in an Indian majority company? Why are we fighting for the rights of only our own race? The list of questions I see goes on, all sparked by incidents that affected me both communally and personally.

But the main question above all else is this: if after fifty-two years of independence we cannot even look past our differences then what hope do we have for the next fifty-two?

Racism and bigotry is about more than politics. It may be institutionalized now but that doesn't mean we can't break down this imaginary wall that separates us. It doesn't mean we have to participate and turn it into a zero sum, eye-for-an-eye game. No we musn't even allow ourselves the thought of it. For it is a greater triumph to come out of all this together than to say my or your or anyone's race 'won'.

And if my 'uneducated' late grandmother can liberate herself to think like that, so can the rest of Malaysia.

Selamat Hari Merdeka.