Thursday, June 16, 2011

May I not be Malay or Chinese or Indian?

I wrote a letter to The Sun, reacting to a letter regarding Hannah Yeoh's kid's registration problem with the NRD.

This was the letter I wrote.

(Pardon the quality, w890 is not equipped with the "auto-focus" feature)

And this was NRD's response.

(Ignore the grammatical errors, the quality of English in Malaysia puts me off.)

Anyway, back to the point of this post.
Based on the response of the officer, the child's race can either be Indian or Chinese if the parents are such.

The child cries:
Can I be what I really am?
A Malaysian and stop naming me what you want me to be,
Just let me be, what I really am!
My mom is Chinese and my dad is Indian,
And yet, I gotta choose one of them?
I'm half and half,
I'll always be half and half.
To ignore either side,
Would make me incomplete. 
The law needs to be changed.
I doubt my neighbour who's mom is Chinese,
And dad is Malay,
Got a choice to make.
She was simply Malay.

Now, now, the law doesn't apply to everyone does it?
Just the ones who're not Malay?

Apekah salahnye kalau kesemuanya dilayan seperti satu?
Itulah sebab utama hamba gelak sinis apabila mendengar konsep 1Malaysia.
Mana kebenarannya?
Setakat menggunakan konsep yang kurang dari original,
Diambil gambar seorang Melayu, seorang India and seorang Cina,
Dan ketiganya bergurau senda?


Hello? Gambarnya menarik di poster,
Realitinya, jauh berbeza.
Dukanya, menggunakan konsep itu semata-mata nama politik,
Tapi perbuatan-Nya yang lain, semua anti-1Malaysia.

I love my country, but we need nationalists to keep us united, not opportunists.

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