A Good Read

My Heart Bleeds

by Timothy Cheng

…for this nation.
I can’t sleep. It is 2.30am.
I know people are gonna get mad at me writing this, but it’s right from the heart.
And I’ve been silent too long.

***

I enrolled in University of Malaya two years ago as a medical student.

And realised what a sheltered life some of us live. Through our orientation by seniors, I realised how racist my surroundings were. We juniors were taught to get to know seniors from our OWN race, before the others. And so we graduate, hardly getting to know our seniors from other races.
One senior tells of her experience:

“Hi senior, my name is XXX”
“Why you greeting me? I’m not of your race lah.”

Mind you I’m not referring to any particular race but making a general statement. This is tradition, so says everyone.

As the faculty does not release past year questions, students memorise questions out of the exam hall and compile them into a book. This past year questions then become one of the main reasons for a junior to join this orientation system – to get the past years. And yup, therefore the past year memorising is also done by races and you have the malay past years, the Chinese past years and the Indian/Bumiputera past years (which is compiled from their Malay/Chinese friends that are nice to pass some to them. or they find someone’s book lying somewhere)

Being the abnormal/weird one that I was, I suggested that we combined with the Indians and the Bumiputera students to memorise the questions. Tried it for the last semester of first year. And after that got blasted nicely by the seniors who made us promise:

- that we will never share with other races
- that we will never memorise with other races
- that we will never bring this issue up again

Campus elections came and went and I was elected as student representative of the faculty with one of my promises: to tackle this issue of racism.
And one day I came to my senses (credit given to a batchmate too, Satpal) and I thought, why shouldn’t we just have one student society? Instead of having:

- Medsoc (medical society)
- PSIPUM (persatuan siswa-siswi islam perubatan universiti malaya)
We should just have ONE medical student society. And combining efforts in the past year questions thing would be the first step to do that.

Instead of:
Why should we share and memorise questions together?
Should the question NOT be:
Why CAN’T we share and memorise questions together?

***

And so I decided to bring the matter to some friends and the student in charge of coordinating the chinese past years. The more I talked to my friends, the more of this answers I got:

“Actually can lor…just that must see the majority…and then leh..the seniors how ah?”

A bit of history: Students 4, 5 years ago used to memorise questions together. Why did we suddenly change? I don’t think our seniors from many years ago would be against this. If my history is wrong, then forgive me.

***

Anyway, tonight came and as my Chinese batchmates sat in front of me, I futilely explained my suggestion..aand I realised my fault. I had forgotten about THE PROMISE. And some said “Past years are not the only way to unity.” Really hmm? Why is it that I still see people speaking in mandarin in front of your friends? Why do you not take any interest in PSIPUM activities? The FIRST step to unity, or to helping to change the faculty, would be these past year questions.

And so we voted.

And as I watched 95% of friends putting up their hands against the idea of sharing…

my heart bled.

Tears would have fallen but they somehow didn’t. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

SO…we are back to square one. I now realise that people just aren’t mature enough or prepared to see the long term benefit in sharing. Many do agree and feel that it is the best for all of us. But not everyone is as foolishly brave as me. I’m thinking to myself…what do I do then? Do I still follow the rest of the chinese? And how do I do that when I’m trying to stand for unity? Should I comply for the sake of peace?
For not following the chinese would mean that I’d probably be: kicked out of the orientation/buddy line system; which would affect my current first year buddy, etc.

“You’ll lose all your friends, don’t do this.”
I think I’ll find my TRUE friends after this.

“You are still part of us! Although I don’t agree with you….we will not disown you…appreciate your contribution.”

“No matter what the outcome, you are always part of us, friends, nothing will ever change this fact, neither ideology, culture, religion nor race.”

“When an idea cannot run, you need to think of a new one.”

“Theoretically I agree with you.”

Thank you all for those encouraging messages.
So maybe I have failed. Failed to think of a BETTER idea. No problem. I am not going to let 5 years of medical school slip by without TRYING to change things.

***

Who is to blame then?
A lot of underlying problems.
The chinese are angry cos only 10% of non-bumiputeras are allowed into matriculation.
But don’t they see that before this it was 0%?
They don’t agree that there is a society for islamic medical students; they assume that the malays get special help from their lecturers.
We have the medical society, which has a chinese president for a year, then an indian, then a chinese, etc.
The malays are upset cos the chinese take their past year questions but don’t want to share their own. The chinese can make announcements in mandarin right in front of them.
The indians and bumiputeras are frustrated because they don’t have enough people to memorise questions.
We sit and eat in the dining hall according to our races.
And the list goes on and on.

***

Who is to blame then?
The system has conditioned us to BE racist.
For example: Filling any sort of form, will require you to put:
- religion
- race

And so we have this definition of people according to their race.

We only speak the language that we are most comfortable with. And that separates us. Students don’t mix with people from other races, simply because they find it hard to talk to them. If you’re a non-mandarin speaking Chinese, you naturally have your own English-speaking friends.

Malaysia is a multi-racial society and must also be multi-lingual.
Languages, not A language, will unite us.
Unfortunately the education system is not there yet.

Some of us go for biro tatanegara camps, and slide shows are put up saying, “Melayu itu tuan.”
We get mad when people get mad about teaching math and science in english.
We think bumiputera special rights for is unfair.
We don’t like it when the chinese are more successful in making money than the rest.
We can’t stand it when we hear the “azan” (muslim call to prayer).
We don’t like to wear the baju kebangsaan just because it’s a baju melayu.
We say we will never have a non-malay prime minister.
We think we will never have a non-malay education minister.
We don’t like the “baca doa” before ceremonies.
We throw the ISA at people that try to speak up.
We are frustrated that there are so many mosques and “surau”s everywhere but relatively much less places of worship of other religions.
We make a big fuss about using the word “Allah”.
And so on.

***

So I’m living in utopia, someone said. My ideas are all unreal isn’t it? Too ideal maybe?
“Just accept lah. Life’s like that. Always bad.”
Humans naturally gravitate towards their own race. I suppose we just have to accept it huh?

But friends, we are either:

FOR or AGAINST something.

And it can only be: RIGHT or WRONG

***

And as I sit here at 3.30am, with a big sigh, I wonder again:
Is there NO HOPE for Malaysia?
Again I ask: who is to blame?
No one is to blame, but ourselves. Yup, including me.
Something must be done. Let’s start.
And not give up. Who’s with me?

What will YOU do?

Plodding on,
Timothy.

————–

Hannah here. I was blog-jumping when I came across this piece, written by a friend, Tim Cheng. Apparently I only read the post-edit version, which wasn’t quite as powerful as the original, so here it is.

And for some reason I think he may have used a line I had said somewhere somewhen.

Which reminds me of the last time I actually sat down and talked with Tim, which was a week before our electives started, in the DM of 6th College. We talked a bit about orientation, (a tiny little bit, as I wasn’t in a mood to talk about things – I had other things in my mind at the time) and Tim’s plan to brainwash the juniors. I remember asking him, “You sure about this? Are you going to do this every single year, even with the possibility of nothing changing?”

He said yes.

Salut.

And I said good luck.

Sorry Tim, I’m not much of a people person, and I don’t believe that people can change as easily as that. So I won’t be helping you brainwash anyone. But if you ever feel discouraged or anything, remember that you’ve got friends who are on your side.

Go, Tim!