As Suanie Sees It

One of the favourite essay topics that various people love to throw around is the question, “what makes Malaysians Malaysians?” Feel free to include your own variation of the question, but I guess it still tickles people’s fancies to try define nationalism or patriotism; generally a Malaysian identity. I don’t know what good can come out of attempts at answering, but if there are prizes to be won at the end of the day, hey by all means go for it.

For some reason I have been thinking about this almost the whole day, brought on by an incident that Mr. Tall related to me some time back. Apparently there was a tourism do at the Dataran Merdeka a few months ago, quite a massive event and he decided to check it out. He was more than pissed off when some Datuk or the other from the (now-ex) Ministry of Tourism showed up more than a couple of hours late to officiate the damn thing. A couple thousand people were already waiting at the square, not to mention the various diplomats who were invited to the event and had showed up on time!

Now, all Malaysians know that those VIPs never arrive when they are supposed to, and along the way we’d grudgingly accepted this to be part and parcel of life (if you have to deal with YB Datuk Datin sekalian). Now, I know very well that I am not to blame for the Datuk’s tardiness. But when Mr. Tall related the story to me, I felt damn embarrassed and ashamed to be a Malaysian. My goodness, putting those couple thousand people on hold! And all those dignitaries from Japan and such, how would they think of us now??

Best part was, it was an event in conjunction with Visit Malaysia, Celebrating 50 Years of Nationhood. Am I over reacting or is this truly what the fuck?

Once I attended an event where we could only eat at 9 p.m. Why? Because the VIP Datuk decided to arrive much later than he was supposed to lah. Worse than a Chinese wedding dinner, I tell you.

A few years ago, two lovely people got married. For some reasons, a very important dude was invited to the wedding. The bride and groom waited and waited and waited, tapi the guy tak tunjuk muka. Finally they couldn’t wait anymore and went back to their wedding celebration. Later it was found out that the VIP arrived a while later, found no one waiting to greet him and so turned around and went off.

I mean, seriously? All those blue and white police men and women halting traffic just to let your black tinted chauffeured rides to zip in and out of everywhere and you can’t even be on time?

Those in Barisan Nasional and Barisan Rakyat (I’m including the latter just in case), sedar diri sikit lah. Dahlah gaji all paid by the people and companies, then some insist on making the people and companies wait till the cows come home. Where got such a good deal one? So what makes Malaysians Malaysians? My answer tonight is, our willingness to take it both front and back.

p/s: Guess the song in the title. No cheating.