COMMENT Studs Terkel, who captured the tears and the laughter of the “etceteras of history”; and who was recognised for “having celebrated the lives of the uncelebrated “ once described a condition that he calls a “national Alzheimer’s”:

“When there’s no yesterday, a national memory becomes more and more removed from what it once was, and forgets what it once wanted to be. We’re sinking under our national Alzheimer’s disease... With Alzheimer’s finally, you forget not only what you did, but also who you are. In many respects, we have forgotten who we are.”

Terkel was talking about the lie that spawned the Iraq war. But for many Malaysians watching the spectacle of the search for MH370, his words could just as easily describe how far removed Malaysia is today from what it once was. The world could be forgiven for thinking that Malaysia has not just lost an airline; it has lost its sense of who it is as a nation. Or rather the Malaysian political establishment has.

Just as the families of passengers on MH370 cling to the last shreds of hope of seeing their loved ones returned to them safely, we etceteras of Malaysian history, members of the uncelebrated Malaysian diaspora, cling to hopes of a return to the once genuinely functioning democracy and meritocratic society we were raised in.

We remember a time when the judiciary was independent and well-respected. When the civil service reflected our cultural and ethnic diversity. When things worked as they should to serve the needs of ordinary people. But even as its tourism campaigns wooed visitors with the promise of ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’, the country slid from its advertised heterogeneity towards a jingoistic homogeneity.

But Malaysians cannot forget the relaxed multi-racial neighborhoods in which we lived and played or the spontaneity with which we ate at each other’s homes - without fear of defilement. We remember joining in celebrations of each other’s religious festivals.

Open, welcoming and free of suspicion

Malaysia is a paradise for food that is probably unequalled in Asia for its delicious variety, a blend of the various regional cuisines from the many streams of immigration, borrowing from each other to create a Malaysian culture that was open, welcoming and free of the pall of suspicion and distrust that now hangs over everything.

We were once able to share our values as easily as we shared our food. It gave Malaysians a sense of possibility and confidence that wore well at home and abroad.  Malaysian students excelled at universities internationally because of what they were capable of, not because of government patronage.

Nostalgia can, of course, lead us to sentimentalise. The past wasn’t perfect. Our transition from colony to independent nation gave the Orang Asli (indigenous people) a kind of second-class status as wards of the state while the departing British recognised the Malays as the official  “natives”.

One could tell - and the Chinese liked to show - how economic power rested largely in their hands by simply observing how things came to a standstill during the Lunar New Year holiday when shopkeepers and tradesmen shut down. Malays were expected to be satisfied that the ceremonial powers of the sultans were preserved and the reins of government were reserved for their ruling party.

Second and third generation immigrant Indians thrived in the civil service and the professions. But many Indians also languished on the plantations, betrayed by their own community leaders who pandered to pride in the homeland and kept them prisoner to poorly funded Tamil schools that could not help them climb out of poverty.

In 1969, a dozen years after independence, speaking on the occasion of the anniversary celebration of the Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM), Justice Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim (right), later Lord President of the Courts of Malaysia, re-affirmed the need to address the economic imbalance of the nation.

One indicator:  only 25 percent of students at Universiti Malaya and 5 percent of the students studying at colleges and universities abroad then were Malay, even though Malays made up more than 50 percent of the population. The Mara system of colleges was one of many efforts to try to address that educational imbalance.

Opening the doors to all

More broadly, the New Economic Policy with its stated goal of redistributing wealth through prescriptive equity participation and employment policies was supposed to open the doors to all.

But implementation fell far short of intent. Policies designed supposedly to benefit the rural Malay poor have instead further enriched urban elites. The once gracious capital city of Kuala Lumpur has made it, not without controversy, to popular lists of the world’s most dangerous cities.

As Justice Suffian pointed out 45 years ago: “Our country cousin visiting the city is full of envy when he sees people of other races prosper in banking, insurance, commerce and industry, in the great rubber industry, the mining industry, in the wholesale trade, and the retail trade. He is told that nobody stops him and his friends getting into these areas, and that if they have not, it is entirely their own fault.”

The desperation of rural to urban migration that does not produce the better life hoped for - and an air of constant anxiety about crime amongst the middle class who are living the good life - hang over Kuala Lumpur like the smoky haze that too often dulls its blue skies.

Looking back, despite the race riots of May 13 of 1969 that scarred the country’s psyche forever and birthed the New Economic Policy, people still felt a sense of optimism that Malaysia remained a work in progress and the national project was something everyone was engaged in. That confidence has eroded both at home and abroad.

Instead of addressing that erosion, the nation’s courts have provided fodder for ridicule internationally with multiple rulings about who can call God ‘Allah’. Scholars, and other Muslim nations who do not suffer from the same anxiety about how people of other faiths might address God, are bewildered by why a nation that once had an ease at work and at play, today bristles about how it prays.  

So much else that needs fixing

Especially when there is so much else that needs fixing: widening inequality, the decay of a once strong educational system, the decline of public services and the lack of accountability for seemingly obvious cases of corruption or grave incompetence.

Figuring out how to offer well-maintained public restrooms might be a better indicator of Malaysia’s progress than squabbling about who gets to call God ‘Allah’.

The events of the last few weeks make it clear that Malaysia could certainly use a little divine mercy as it searches, not just for MH370 but for the nation it once was.

Media pundits in the United States cluck patronisingly about Malaysia’s progress and how far it has come since independence. They wax eloquent about how Malaysia has obviously, in their opinion, not developed enough to handle a crisis of the magnitude of a missing airliner.

What they miss is what ordinary Malaysians know: that it isn’t a question of not having progressed enough but of how far our elected leaders have turned back the clock. Malaysia suffers from the refusal to draw on the best its citizens can offer.  

Last week the New York Times reported on the death of one such citizen: Irene Fernandez, celebrated internationally for her work on behalf of foreign migrant workers in Malaysia, who provided much needed critical labor on the plantations, construction sites and in homes but enjoyed few protections. She was hounded and jailed by the Malaysian government for bringing abuses to light and calling for much needed reform.

If there is any truth to the adage that God - or Allah - helps those who help themselves, Malaysians need to be even louder in making clear that they expect better from those who profess to lead. Malaysia can do better than parade a reflexive defensiveness like a tic we have no control over. But that seems to be the signature on the spectacle of how MH370 went missing and how the authorities in Malaysia handled the search.

Clearly Malaysians need to remember who we once were. For sure, ordinary Malaysians know that we are capable of better than what the world has seen in the country’s handling of MH370’s disappearance. Our best hope is that what we saw on display these past two weeks is a case of temporary amnesia at the top, not the cruel march of a national Alzheimer’s.

On Aug 31, 1957 the country’s first and universally beloved Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, cried “Merdeka!” as the Malaysian flag was hoisted for the first time.

It signalled the passage from colony to independent state. It’s time for those in power in Malaysia to make that word stand for exactly what it means: freedom. Not just from outside domination but from the internal demons and policies that have hobbled us and muffled the conversations so critical to real growth.


DAWN MORAIS PhD blogs on issues of faith, culture and politics at www.freecatholic808.com. She teaches Civic Engagement and Issue Advocacy at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and provides communications counsel to clients to promote renewable (geothermal) energy, indigenous arts and the use of mediation in conflict-resolution. She also blogs for the Huffington Post Hawaii.