Election Fever

Tonight I stumbled upon, for the first time ever, on a political ceramah. A PAS+PKR ceramah no less, with our ever so popular deposed ex-DPM Anwar Ibrahim present to give moral support!

It all happened when my dad and I decided to go to Kampung Baru for dinner since it's been a while since we had their nasi lemak antarabangsa. As we arrived at the area, a van with speakers was going around, announcing about a PAS ceramah with Anwar Ibrahim present, will be held at 9pm. The time then was 8:45, so we were in luck.

We ate at the stall, which was so conveniently near the PAS HQ where they are holding the ceramah. We could hear everything pretty clearly. I was excited. This is the first time I saw a real ceramah, and in the throng of such strong anti-government sentiments! XD

After finishing our meal, we decided to go closer and stood by the road that was half crowded with people already, looking up at the screen hanging over the road. Several PAS party members were giving away their candidate's manifesto to the crowd. They were also selling a self-made VCD showing how 'zalim' Dr. M was, and how he admitted to throwing Anwar into jail despite him not doing anything wrong. Intrigued, my dad bought a copy, just for the heck of it.

As soon as we reached home, we watched the VCD. It was poorly made, the fonts and captions extremely amatuerish and Dr. M's speech video was obviously a cut and paste. And when he did mention about how he 'abused his power and threw Anwar into jail even though he was innocent', he was obviously being sarcastic. Anybody who couldn't see past his sarcasm is either an idiot or is warped in some way.

I may say this because I am a big fan of Dr. M, but admittedly, no matter how one may disdain him, there is no denying that he was the best Prime Minister Malaysia ever had. But still there was almost a parade as Anwar arrived to the scene, an hour late than his supposed arrival. The PAS leaders were touting how Anwar deserves to be PM and hailed him as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia. God Forbid. He would quickly sell our country out and then save his own hide in some sinkhole in the U.S.A.

With all the hype going on about the elections, I can't help but give my dua kupang too.

First and foremost, I hereby admit that I believe the BN will win regardless of the outcome. But I also would like to see more Opposition in Parliament, just to keep the government in check. Although I am not fond of Pak Lah, due to his slowness, I have better faith in BN running the government than the coalition of oppositions. Why? Let me tell you why.

1) The coalition has no track record of running a government. All they do during their campaign is point out the wrongs in the BN government and made unrealistic promises to the people. I mean come on! Buying back all the toll booths on the highways? Don't make me laugh! It would take billions of the people's money and will be impossible to be achieved within their ruling term of 5 years. Free education? Education is already free. All the way up to IPTA you say? Okay, go ahead and use more of the people's money to subsidize the universities too. While you're at it, why not lower the fuel prices too so the government can lose even more in revenues and continue pampering the people with an easy, carefree life, further shielding them from the effects of globalization.

But for how long?

How is this different than spoon-feeding the people and make them more dependent on the government to take care of them instead of venturing out to take control of their destiny. Pffft!

2) It has been proven that the opposition cannot cooperate with each other. You see it all the time. They say they are together, but they are actually fighting for vastly different reasons, all clearly divided between the lines of race and religion.

Well I suppose those two reasons are sufficient. The campaigning here in the West is very race-based. DAP is vying for Chinese and Indians, while BN is vying for the Malays. You can tell by the language on their campaign posters.

And of course, this in turn, affects the sentiments of the people. People here are less tolerant than they appear of other races than we do in the East. For example, whenever I talk about some friends back home in Kuching I would be asked the specific race of my friends. Once is okay, but if I have to clarify each time that I was hanging out with a Chinese friend and another time a Malay friend and no, I don't know any Ibans personally though I think their language is amusing. Like, WTF, back home I don't even feel any need to clarify races, but here, whenever I mention the specific race of a friend, I feel like I'm being carefully scrutinized, as if being checked if I harbour any racist sentiments towards them.

Nobody seemed to believe me when I said I judge people based on their attitudes, not race. Because here, people judge you on your race. Openly.

I'm Malay and the others would look at me as if saying "Oh she covers up, but she's actually a bitch inside. They are all pretenders." And it has become an open secret what we think fo each other, thus hindering productive inter-racial communication because we are all clouded by our own prejudices.

I mean, who cares if Padungan is infested with Chinese and Petra Jaya is dominated by Malays. I mean, you're already comfortable living where you are. We Kuching-ites could live with that no problem because a lot of Malays are not comfortable living next to a neighbour with a pet dog. Perhaps because we live in different locations that we are more tolerant of each other. I live in peace, you live in peace, we don't disturb each other's homes, so no reason to hate each other either. Why can't the West think like that?

But no, the racial sentiments here are so strong that political parties are fighting to get more of 'their' people into certain locations. Like, if there are no Malays living in Seputeh (Mid Valley area), then build low cost homes so they can afford to live there and garner them more votes in the coming elections.

Gaaah!!

So now they are deciding where you should live too! Thanks to this election, a lot of people of other races are looking at me all weirdly. Hello! I'm from Sarawak! The only Sarawakian in the whole college! Did you know that Kuching urban seats are all won by the Oppositions yet we could all still live in harmony without going on a rally?

I am so fucking tired of people being so politically correct, always making a point that they are not racist by clearly mentioning the name of their Chinese/Malay/Indian best friend.

...Right.

If I had based my close friends in terms of race, God knows how many lamers I'd have in my Lamer List. If you are friends, you are friends. Don't have to point out their race you know. When you do that, you're treating your friend like some kind of novelty item, befriending them just because they are Chinese/Malay/Indian/Iban to show off what a multi-racial embracing citizen you are.

Less is more. When you try too hard, it backfires. What's so wrong in keeping an open mind and just take things as they are, for once?