Last week, while getting choked by the haze, I wondered if the country would celebrate the National Day without a clear blue sky, the Twin Towers blurred by the thick haze, and the participants of the parade having to wear masks. Or worse, this year's celebration could even have been cancelled due to the haze.
Anyway, miracles happen. And it was a miracle, I think, that God decided to pour rain and shift the wind directions. Nonetheless, the haze in bulan Merdeka is some form of testimony about how little certain Malaysians love Malaysia.
Last week, I bitched about the Indonesians and the plantation owners. I was so mad with them, blaming them for choking our lungs and robbing us of our blue skies. Embarrassingly, I realised a day later that the fires were started by Malaysian companies as well. Worse, there is a rather huge open fire just kilometres away from Putrajaya, at the Sepang district.
Embarrassing is the word.
Last month, during the general assembly of a very powerful political party representing a certain ethnic group, kris-wielding-fiery speeches were made to advocate further polarisation of the society of this country.
In the name of dominance of their ethnic group, they are willing to make the country go through more generations of stunted growth and ridiculous unproductive policies directed at enriching a certain elite in a certain ethnic group.
Last month, we had a minister exchanging words with a former prime minister over the abuse of the national automotive policy which was designed in the first place to breast feed the national car project.
Unfortunately, the focus of this fiasco was not about stopping the breast feeding, but about the disloyalty of the minister towards her ex-boss and ex-mentor. No one dared to point out that the present national automotive policy was making millionaires out of a certain few.
Instead, members of a very powerful political party were making noise why this automotive policy is not enriching them but only a few of the minister's friends. No one fought or thought about the health of our economy, the sensibility of our society and our global competitiveness.
It was about dominance and enriching certain people from a certain political party of a certain ethnic group.
With just two weeks more to Merdeka, we are showing signs of 'failure to thrive'. Like an endocrine patient with his pituitary gland taken away, we are having problems with growth and stress management.
There are Malaysians who only care to make money even if it means betraying the country. There are Malaysians who are so concerned about the 'ketuanan' of their own ethnic group.
There are Malaysian who have been made second-class citizens who are seeing less and less of the meaning and purpose of staying on in this country. There are Malaysians who have misinterpreted love for the country as love for the government.
Probably, we should not celebrate Merdeka this year with fireworks or parade or pancaragams. Instead, all of us should take part in a giant post-mortem national convention about what went wrong with Malaysia.
The things that are wrong with Malaysia could be destroying the very few things that are right with it.
