A couple of days ago, I received a shuddering phone call from a dear female friend and colleague of mine who had had her house burglared by two amateur robbers, who, instead of literally burglaring the house and snatching all the money they could take from the house, were more intent in getting to her, while she managed to lock herself inside her kitchen door. The story certainly suggests a much more perverted intent in the mind of these robbers instead of doing what they came to do. And there’s little surprise in guessing that these robbers are Indians. I wished I was going to be wrong when I asked her whether ‘they are Indians?’ but unfortunately my instinct is right.
For me, it begged a huge disappointment knowing yet another event has occurred that will not help the already huge stereotypes I face as an Indian, even though that incident will only as much as add as little pint of darker paint in the already large canvas of a very, very bad drawing of all the Indians of Malaysia. Talk about robbers, gangsters, drugs, and any-kind of rowdy attitudes, Indians almost automatically almost immediately come first to the picture of many other Malaysians, and not to exclude the higher-class well-educated Malaysian Indians, from which a certain portion of them try to alter their identity as much as possible so that they do not be identified as Indians. Another female friend of mine- who is a lifelong critique of Indians’ general attitude in this country; is also a person who feels uncomfortable being spotted in public wearing a saree or a Punjabi suit for that matter. Even though it disappoints me that she doesn’t find her own heritage appealing enough, it is logical enough to understand why she decides to be as distanced as possible from being Indian. Not to forget how I felt when a high-class Chinese girl scouting the house I’m renting to rent a room for herself (at a time when I wasn’t in the house), scoffed after learning that an Indian lives downstairs in the house, and rejected the house ‘just because’ she has to live with an Indian boy, whereas she was more than comfortable living with two other Chinese guys. I could brand this as a racist attitude, but let’s not forget that part of racism stems from how we carry ourselves in the social spectrum. The death of A.Kugan that stormed the layman Malaysian Indian community in the country recently is another proof that there is little use of Indians complaining and getting disgruntled. We are being stereotyped as criminals? Yes, it is sad, but it also the truth that many of us are indeed resorting to crime when life doesn’t offer a road of escapism, and we find it convenient to place the blame on the government, on the alleged marginalization, and the racism that surrounds us.
As Malaysian Human Resources Minister S. Subramaniam has quoted, unemployment is easily pushing Malaysian Indians to the furor of crime. But we seek help from all the external factors around us- it is of essential need for us to help ourselves before expecting a hand from others. As the famous saying goes- ‘God only helps them who help themselves’. No matter how far we go in arguing the core to our problems, it is beyond denial and the best solution will always have to be attained ‘within’ us rather than around us. We can’t expect the society to paint a much better picture of us unless we demonstrate our will to be the change rather than just expecting change around us. Gandhi didn’t say ‘be the change’ for no valid reason.
Our wrath and dissatisfaction has been more often than not been focused on the government and also on the bumiputra quotas that are existent in this country. But little do we acknowledge the fact that we are not the only non-Bumis who reside in the country, there are many others- especially the Chinese community. Why, then, do we come across as the community with the most problems, most issues, and also as the community which occupy the bad pages in the annals of the Malaysian community?
I used to bounce a shadowing, indirect question to my regular Indian former schoolmates during short conversations- why Chinese people always seem to be better off? And in most of the times, I would get the same reply- because they are Chinese. Are Chinese men born with special wings that stamps them as gifted businessmen from the word go? When the Chinese community are always able to better and improve themselves and survive in this society- why, then, can’t we do the same? There is nothing here which is racially born. No traits were born specifically for one skin color- we merely create those traits and confine ourselves to those traits- we set a certain limit, and we think that is as far as we can go. Probably the time has arrived for us to take a step further and see for ourselves what our real potential is. All we need to do is to stop blaming external forces for our failures or turbulences- we are the reason for everything happens around us. And if we change our attitude, that is all it takes to see a different society all together. We throng within the thousands of crowds to offer a prayer to God every now and then, and spend loads of money that could, so easily, instead be spent in contributing those in our own community who are in need of it. We contradict ourselves as we find convenient time to gamble, get into financial trouble, get drunk and creating havoc and painting a bad picture of you and everyone of your kind. If we quit whining and get our acts straight, then our potentials are limitless.
Another worrying aspect is the level of unity among our community. The so-called ‘class gap’ is pretty apparent in our society- from an English-speaking Indian couple scoffing and ridiculing a bunch of fellow Indian workers who do not know how to speak proper English, and in return, incurring the dissatisfaction of the working-class individuals who perceive arrogance from such a couple. Before you scoff at your own kind, you might as well consider the cirmcumstances that the person you are talking with might have gone through in his/her childhood. And in return, the individual across the spectrum might as well take will to improve him/herself so not to get ridiculed again instead of holding a grudge against people who think they are better than him/her.
And what happened at my friend’s house is just yet another addition to the long list of self-destructive acts we have done so successfully in curbing our own potentials, and in clamping down a potential hand that will aid us so that we will grow together. Why do we give up so easily? That is the question we need to start asking ourselves. And if you have not given up, show the people of your kind that you have not given up on them instead- a little lamp in a room full of darkness indeed lights up the whole room.
Lets all together knock on life’s door so that it will open up for us- and later we shall earn the respect and dignity we all think we deserve. Let’s not expect a hand to carry us out from mud, let’s all offer each other the hands to get ourselves off the mud. Let’s all realize our potential.
Ram Anand,
30 March 2009
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