Losing Our Country...? Part 4 and Final

To climax this first series of essays focussed on looking at where My Country is headed, Desiderata is honoured with a perspective by my most esteemed GUEST BLOGGER SABRINA TAN. YoungSab, as I fondly call her, is always a reliable Penny from Heaven who'd answer my call to render service to Malaysia by lending her mind to issues of concern to all Malaysians. I believe this four-part "Losing Our Country" is indeed of concern to ALL MALAYSIANS, whether staying locally or temporarily studying or residing abroad. SABRINA TAN has shared her youthful thoughts via Desiderata2000 channel here before, and this time I was lucky I caught her on holiday early this week to share her thoughts again.

ENJOY and PONDER, will you fellow Malaysians, and feedback to Desiderata?

Our Country?


First of all when I looked at the phrase “Our country”, the question that comes into my mind was, do we actually have the right to call Malaysia ‘OUR country’?

In OUR country, everyone gets to enjoy the rights and everyone gets a share of the benefits. The definition of OUR in Collin’s Compact Australian Dictionary is: of, belonging to, association with. Now can someone tell me, in Malaysia, does the belonging word fit in for everyone?

We swear that we will be with Malaysia through her ups and downs, not by whose connection is closer to whose connection.

Personally I feel that I don’t think I am able to call Malaysia OUR country, when clearly there isn’t a sense of ‘OURness’ in the things that we do.

As referenced by desiderata in “Losing our country” by Krugman in The New York Times, Malaysia will eventually follow that path, and this I can pretty much guarantee on it.

The benefits that were ‘designed’ by our kind hearted administrative personnel were aimed for the ‘benefit of the common good’. But note, the COMMON isn’t used here in reality.

I know of a fellow countryman here who is under scholarship to do a postgraduate degree in the humanities, and yet this person is STILL under scholarship. I am nearly completing my degree and she still has not finished her postgraduate studies. In the earlier years, part of the scholarship was to foot for her living expenses, which includes the best room you can find available in the hostel. Was this person from a working class family? Nope.

Both parents are highly educated professionals, have a great house in KL, hired an Indonesian help.

This is the deserving? I don’t think so.

What about the deserving who are slogging their time and labour away in the fields? In the sea?

What about their children?

Are they sitting in the same mode of transport as these people? Do they even get a chance to sit on the aeroplane?

What then, is the missing link between these ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’? THE CONNECTION.

Don’t even get me started on education and children becoming permanent residents of other countries.

Quite honestly, if you are a citizen of another country other than Malaysia, when you hear that a fellow Malaysian has to go back to serve the government for 3-5 years in the health profession regardless of whether you were a private paying student or not, don’t you think that the idea itself is very very preposterous?

Yes if that policy is implemented to scholarship funded students, local university graduates, one can understand where you are coming from. However what about us who have NO STRINGS ATTACHED with the government? What about our parents who have to slog sooooo hard just to make sure that they can pay our fees annually? And mind you, the fees ain’t cheap at all. If one is an international student (non-PR or citizen) of either Australia or New Zealand (heck, any country for that matter), the fees are even way sky higher than most courses! If you do not believe me, go to http://www.otago.ac.nz/international/fees.html#2006tuitionfees for a fair idea of how much it costs.

Do you think it’s fair for us to come back and serve for 3-5 years? Yes, we can at least provide some government service, say maybe for a period of 1-2 years. However to go through all of it on the compromise of our parents is cruel. Some parents had to borrow loans, mortgage, heck even borrowing from friends and relatives so that their off springs can go chase their dreams.

And the worse thing is when serving under the government, one is not rewarded because of our ability. Our labour and enthusiasm is not recognised. Why? It’s all because of “The Connection”. Would you still care? Would you even bother?

For years I have been trying to figure out why the Chinese from China are so patriotic towards their country. No matter where they are in the world, they would often swear to me saying that they would go back to China no matter where they are in the world.

I then talked to a few of them and asked them why do they love their country so much and would give their undying love towards that country.

They then listed the few reasons below and some of them touched my heart immensely:


* Since at a young age, they have been taught that China is the best place on earth and no matter what they should appreciate their mother land and serve to their very best for this country
** They had to go through military training a few times (twice in their secondary schooling, and involved both boys and girls) during their school years. Each national service has instilled the spirit of patriotism in them.
*** They are very proud of their country’s progress thus far and believed that they have done very well and have come a long way.
**** And this last and most important point — THEY FEEL THAT THEY BELONGED TO THEIR COUNTRY. THEIR TALENTS WOULD NOT GO TO WASTE AND THEY FEEL THAT THEY HAVE MORE POTENTIAL TO GROW.

Can Malaysia come to this point ever? Will we be able to reach to this understanding at some point in our lives? Or do we have to just silently wait for divine intervention?