Malaysia is our Home
It is obvious that the country belongs to all its citizens.
Malaysia is the home of all Malaysians. All Malaysians. Since it is our home, it is our duty to take care of it.
Even in our house, sometimes we have our siblings who may do things that may damage our home. Or they may show selfish tendencies that make the house less of a home. Home is to be shared by all. We have to make it a happy home habitable by all of us.
If we do not care for the state of the home, then we are behaving like a guest in the hotel. We have no say in the state of the hotel room. We just do not care as long as we can sleep there for a while. We have no attachment.
To some citizens, the country may be a house, but to the Rapera, the country is a home.
Just feel glad to see people think this way. Many conservative-thinking Malays always commented on Malaysian Chinese (or Indians) being "immigrants", and should be treated like "outsiders" (or worst - should be sent back to where they belong).
Saw this article in BBC News,
"We go to China on holidays and see where our ancestors come from," said businessman Banie Chin.This is exactly what I feel too. I wanted to China, just to see where my grandparent/ancestors came from and how is the place looks like. But, deep down in heart, I'm still regard myself as Malaysian. And wish to be able to contribute to this country someday.
"I've been to my village - to see my grandfather's grave in Jiangxi. My grandfather died fighting with Mao, and my father then came here from China when he was very young.
"But I'm Malaysian," he added.
I'm sure all Malaysian Chinese feel the same sentiment too.
Many educated Chinese Malaysian leaves Malaysia simply because they feel they are illy treated. Just take my class for example, more than 10 out of 40 students are oversea (some migrated, mostly to Australia) now. So one can just roughly guess the number of highly educated Chinese migrated each year. Not including non-Chinese, i.e. Malays, Indians...
A news from The Malaysian Insider which states the figures of migrated Malaysian from March 08 to August 09.
This figure, however, is much smaller than the 304,358 Malaysians who were reported to have migrated from March 2008 to August 2009.
“Generally, the push factor from Malaysia has been on the rise ... people feel pushed away from the country. They feel alienated and they feel that their prospects are limited by factors that they have no control over,” he added.
Another figures from The Star for the period between 1996 and 1997.
According to Deputy Home Affairs Minister Datuk Tan Chai Ho, some 106,000 Malaysians had given up their citizenship between 1996 and April this year.
Of the figure, 70% or 79,100 were Malays, 25,107 Chinese, 1,347 Indians and 350 of other races.
A paradigm shift must take place. Especially for those conservative Malaysians. Message must be passed on to them. Someone (leaders) must change them and let them rethink their current modes of thinking, norms, etc. Let them rethink so to change the fate of our country.
PM, DS Najib commented on the privileges of Malays in an interview on Al Jazeera,
Speaking about his 1 Malaysia platform, Najib denied that the special privileges of the Malays would be trampled upon.
He said that 1 Malaysia was predicated on the constitution and provisions to protect Malay special rights.
Hopefully, 1Malaysia can be the channel to start keeping talented Malaysian from leaving. Hopefully.
