May 13, Feb 14

Since today is Valentine's Day, it might be interesting to add ‘Love’ to this column’s usual discussion of politics.

"Do you love the country?" It was the first question posed in an opinion poll titled ‘Indian community’s support for the country’. The questionnaire was handed out to the busloads of MIC members ferried to the Cheras badminton stadium in KL for ‘An evening with the Prime Minister’.

Attendance at the event was grossly exaggerated by mainstream media (MSM), naturally. In reality, the Barisan Nasional (BN) party gathering on Jan 20 was a muted affair. Unlike the Hindraf sonic boom, MIC’s was not an ‘illegal assembly’ with police threatening and forcing people to keep away. Yet the numbers were wanting.

As it turned out, the Indian masses had been wise to stay aloof of the MIC function. For why should any self-respecting Malaysian turn out to pay fealty to the Umno big chief, only to have his patriotism questioned?

To the BN-MIC query "Do you love the country?" I would suggest the rejoinder "Does my country love me?" In fact, I would further propose that our opposition parties adopt this tack when they go on the stump to fish for non-Malay votes.

If I had to choose one thing I love about Malaysia, I’d pick the blue ocean of Terengganu, the bucolic drive along the state’s scenic coast and even the incessant rain during monsoon season when dragonflies come out to play (locals call the insect ‘puting beliung’ possibly because they seem to dance in the wind and filling the air).

However, I cannot fathom that the beautiful Land of Ulit Mayang would or indeed could in any way love me back. Its timeless crashing waves and sweeping winds are indifferent to me or even to King Canute for that matter. So how does one relate to one’s country?

I suppose we react to the forces – not of Nature but of Man – that impact on our lives. These would be the ruling oligarchy. And enough segments of it have intimated that as a Chinese and non-Muslim, not only am I unloved but I’m unwelcome here as well.

He loves me, he loves me not

I can tell you that my mother’s grandfather lived in Malaya. You’d also already know that Selangor Chief Minister Dr Mohd Khir Toyo’s father landed on these shores as an immigrant.

At year 2005, close to 1.5 million or 5.8 percent of the Malaysian stock, mostly Chinese and Indian population, had left for Singapore, Australia and other Western countries, (source: World Bank Migration and Remittances Factbook).

There is nonetheless a slightly larger drove of immigrants, mostly Indonesians than there are emigrants … so I guess to bureaucracy this human traffic exchange is still a net gain in terms of desirability if not quality.

It is held by the Malay supremacist crowd exhorting ‘Balik Cina’, ‘Balik India’ that the Malaysian Chinese and Indian’s forefathers crossed oceans to seek greener pastures and their descendants will continue to do the same. It’s the diaspora imperative.

For the unprivileged races, it was hardly a love match with Malaya. It was a meeting arranged by a matchmaker – the British – wherein the forefathers of the cream and coffee-skinned races had later entered into a marriage of convenience with the chocolate mocha.

My view of the mythical ‘social contract’ is that it is an uneasy co-existence. There is the bullying partner and the cowed other half who is not permitted to say this or do that, both living under one matrimonial roof but hardly talking. I can easily understand why these conditions prompted so many to file for divorce.

Recently I came across a searing observation by a Chinese man: "I love my country as much as my country loves me". Well said. If the second-classers have called it quits and walked out on Malaysia, it could have been because of unrequited love.

And why indeed should one have affection for the country if unreciprocated? Because the notion of patriotism has been drilled into you? Well, the notion that Malaysia enjoys racial harmony has been sledge-hammered into the national narrative too. Only those still reading MSM would continue to believe in BN’s fairytale of unity.

So let’s by all means question the patriotic presumption. Ask if Malaysia is deserving of your love. To put this in personal terms, do you love a woman because she loves you too? She cares about you? She respects you? Treats you well? Looks after your children and has their best interest at heart?

Now apply these same criteria to testing one’s love of country.

The fear factor

With a happenstance marriage on the rocks, the economic and emotional abuse characterising the union is one thing, the climate of fear prevalent in the fractious household another.

Who’s constantly made to be afraid of May 13? Given that the casualties were predominantly Chinese, the inference is quite obvious. The spectre of Chinese blood spilled on the streets is every now and then resurrected to keep an already cowed community forever subservient.

For as long as I can remember, May 13 has been invoked by Malay bigots. Recently, the same veiled threat was raised by the MP for Petaling Jaya Utara. The China Press on Jan 21 reported Wanita MCA deputy chief Chew Mei Fun as saying, "If there is insufficient Chinese representation in the Barisan Nasional, it is not a good thing. The Chinese community cannot afford another May 13 incident."

She somehow manage to extract a clarification from the newspaper to say she had referred not to that particular date in that particular month but really only to the particular year of 1969, and by extension its elections results that favoured the opposition, which in turn sparked the killings.

The paper’s retraction was a subtle shift in semantics but not substance. Pity MSM. And poor Chew is evidently suffering from the Stockholm syndrome occasioned by the toxic environment she is in, and the company she keeps.

Commonsense says that a loving relationship is a balanced one. It’s imbalanced when one side provides only false assurances – a hot-off–the-press example being the PM’s duplicity on the dissolution of Parliament. While the other side is expected to give and give, not to mention give in all the time. Add fear-mongering and the battered spouse will be well advised to seek shelter elsewhere.

The fraught relationship will not get better if unconditional love is demanded and not returned measure for measure. Either salvage the relationship or ditch it. The doormat partner should learn to exert his dignity. Or else better walk away than to be perpetually walked on.

Minorities do have a choice between Feb 14 and May 13. Find a more fulfilling love elsewhere or exorcise the fear and loathing once and for all. For the odd couple to remain in this loveless pairing out of expediency and cowardice is insupportable and self-destructive.