Maybe it’s the incessant rain and the news that most of Johor is under water. Or maybe it’s because the sun’s been missing for the past twenty-four hours. The gloom is infectious, like mold on bread; my descent into depression began last month and hit the very bottom today. It is the weather, I tell myself. It appears that most of my conversations begin with short commentaries on the weather.
I’ve spent my time thinking. I don’t want to launch into some long spiel explaining Greek idealism, but think about this for a moment: all the cynicism, criticism, doom and gloom we’ve been observing in our country obviously points to some singular truth: we believe that things are very wrong in the country. This negativity obviously points to a deficiency in what we imagine should be the state of things. This suggests that we believe that there is a concept of the perfect Malaysia we have yet to realize.
I’m quite certain Utopia exists nowhere but in our minds, but I’d like to know what people imagine our country should be. We all think we know what it is, but lately I’ve been thinking that what we imagine the country is is predicated upon what we find wrong with it. I suppose when one’s perception of a thing is defined by the negative, one has a skewed perception of that thing.
In thinking about what the country should be, I found myself imagining the positives I’d like to see, but always in contradistinction to the negatives. My point is, I found myself thinking of the positives in terms of the negative, but not of the existing positives that we should encourage. Is this because I can’t see any positives in this country, or is it because I think there are none?
The latter suggests a lack of humility.
Comments (4)
I wonder if that’s how Noah felt when he was in his Ark ;-)
Btw, there was a sci-fi & fantasy con over at your side:
http://cedko.com/article.php?story=20061116150745354
You know what the core problem is in NegaraKu, xpyre minus da d?
It’s that among Malaysian bloggers are some intelligent writers who can express themselves with reason, logic and rational mind, a feature hardly found IN ANY OF THE POLITICIANS. And I include boith ruling party and opposition party politicians. It’s all words, words and more words — for blardy 5 decades and we don;t seem to have moved beyong quotas, privilegs and robber baronry and thorwing kacang putih to the handicapped by the top 20% elites enjoying 80% of the country’s wealth.
So it’s all negativities because our national leaders spout non-sense most of the times, they ought to be either sent back to kindie or the asylum or the zoo and leave us citizens alone. And don’t tax us anymore so that you can live in “small” houses as deined by prime meat Datuk Z and his ilk.
desi> that’s the significant thing, don’t you agree? This country started out with bright visions and an imagined community in which we can all call ourselves Malaysians. It’s almost as fighting the common enemy, the Brits, brought us together.
And today, we have devolved into factional interests because we lack a common purpose, or a common tongue, or a common creed.
I wrote a post some time back about English and subsuming our cultures in the interests of an alien one to ensure that everyone loses something of their own particularities in hold on to a greater common identity. I doubt anyone will ever agree with it, but as far as I can see, the alternative is the Malaysia we’re living in.
zer0> bloody hell, that’s spot on. What did Noah think while waiting for a sign from God? I wonder sometimes what Moses must have thought or felt, having seen the Holy Land but not permitted to enter therein. What would become of his people? What would become of the future?