LETTER | Where are we headed, Malaysia?

LETTER | It pains me to pen this in light of current events. Our nation is at a crossroads and we need to decide where we are headed. Do we tread down this path towards the right, or do we take a left turn?

I do not intend to add fuel to the current fire but I believe these recent events warrant an open discussion. Not about the events per se but what they signify and tell us about the undercurrents of our nation’s trajectory.

Yes, it’s an ultrasensitive issue, an unfortunate event that should not have happened, but it has happened. I despise it and condemn it, for it was blasphemous and should never happen in an ideal world. But it did.

However, I am in no position to talk about it and I do not want to either. What the events portray is more important.

The inflammatory rhetoric of a certain political party, to me, is irrelevant and unsurprising. What is more worrying here is the deafening silence of the moderate majority, the religious authorities, the government leadership, and the intellectuals.

There have now been three firebombing attempts. Call these isolated incidents if you will, but are these sparks of a bigger, simmering fire? 

We applaud the king and the police for calling for an end to this debacle, but other than them and a handful of other respectable figures, there has been deafening silence. It is this silence that worries me more as a minority citizen in this country.

Like what was said in former Umno leaders Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan’s Keluar Sekejap podcast, are there no ways to show a united condemnation of the event in defence of one’s religion that does not lead to violence? Can a peaceful reprimand not be sought? Can we not allow the laws of the land to take its course?

There are also speculations that the entire incident could be a scheme to either sabotage a rival’s business or to deliberately instigate racial disharmony. If we were to descend into aggression and division, would we not be playing into these plotters’ hands?

The entire debacle could just be an honest mistake, but who am I to know for sure? So, I’ll leave it to the courts to decide.

There also seems to be a worrying trend of demonisation and boycotts of businesses and products by companies that are either fully non-Muslim or not wholly Muslim in spite of their legitimate halal certification.

These posts are widely circulated on social media and have been shared by my acquaintances as well.

To add further complexity, there are also ongoing debates on the use of certain terms and labels against those of different faiths.

Personally, I do not care what I am labelled with, but it shows a glimpse of where Malaysia may be heading towards. Has the Malaysian narrative reached the point of “us vs them”?

There needs to be mature and open discussions with good intentions across the divide that hopefully do not hide behind the three capital letters, headed by community leaders, religious figures, and political leaders.

Instead of fighting among ourselves, it should be focused on how we as a nation compete with neighbouring countries who were once lagging behind but have now overtaken us.

But now, except for the respectable few, there seems to be deafening silence from the moderate majority. This makes one wonder if the moderates are even the majority.

I fear that these recent events are a litmus test for our nation. We seem to be a lost nation with two contradictory compasses. Where are we headed, Malaysia?

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.