hari malaysia 16 september.

some interesting posts i found through Star Special - Malaysia Day

Thursday September 16, 2010

Growing up in a land where unity was at its best

By V.P. SUJATA

I GREW up in Kota Kinabalu (KK) when my family moved there from Kuala Lumpur in December 1971. I was three. We came back in 1984 after I completed my SPM examination.

I was always the only Indian girl in my class from Standard One up to Form Five at St Francis’ Convent, KK.

This was not a problem for me as I was not treated differently. There were quite a few Indian teachers at school. Even the principal was an Indian.

I had close friends who were Chinese, Kadazan, Sino-Kadazan and Malay. We still have reunions to this day.

We spoke both English and Bahasa Malaysia. In fact, most of the time it was a mix of both. Tamil was unheard of.

There were probably less than 50 Indian families in KK at that time.

There were no Tamil movies at the cinemas or on television as we had only TV1 then.

I grew up loving P. Ramlee and Nordin Ahmad movies. I still watch reruns now.

Unity was at its best. There was no segregation among races. We were one.

If a student was a favourite, it was because she was clever or good in something. No one referred to another student as “that Melayu, that Cina, that Kadazan or that Indian.”

We referred to Sabah as Malaysia. (I noticed after my return that people in the peninsula referred to Peninsular Malaysia as Malaysia and Sabah as Sabah.)

How can we not consider ourselves Malaysians when we spoke and studied in the national language?

Every Monday, we sang the Negaraku and the state anthem during school assemblies. Our school participated in the Malaysia Day celebration parade at the Town Padang on Sept 16.

My father’s Indian friends in Kota Kinabalu were Mr Nayar, Mr Menon, Mr Vanar, Mr Singh, Mr Gomez, and Mr Mendez, among others. I did not know at the time that there were Malayalees, Telugus, Ceylonese and Punjabis. To me everyone was Indian.

So it was somewhat of a “cultural shock” for me when I returned to Kuala Lumpur and found out that some Indians did not refer to themselves as Indians.

I also started hearing derogatory remarks made against other races, which was totally alien to me.

Over in Sabah, the Malays would join in celebrations without worrying if the food was halal or not, they didn’t even bother to ask. (I did not even know then what halal meant.) They trusted us non-Muslims not to serve them something they are forbidden to eat.

I probably grew up totally ignorant of the reality out there. But it was nice being ignorant.

Ignorant is bliss and would help in forging good race relations and unity in this country. Then we need not struggle so much to make the 1Malaysia concept a reality.

V.P. Sujata is a journalist with The Star