Become 1 Malaysia

25, 26,27 July were one of the meaningful days in my life. There I was with a bunch of my UTAR friends attending a race camp organized by Awam. Students from UKM, USM and UPM and even from USM. It was about 6 we reached there and signed in and went to our rooms. There was lunch at about 8pm and after that, we had our first session of the camp. I was rather nervous because I was having a bad sore throat and usually when meeting up with new friends i would just keep quiet and let others make a move. You want to call it shy or arrogance, up to you.

The first session was the ice-breaking session. There were four facilitators; Fahmi Rezza, Gee, Ruhan a.k.a Koi and of course "BOSS". We talked about ourselves and got to know others. We were broken to a pair and I got a guy called Iskandar doing his final year in UM. So this exercise was to get to know about your new friend and introduce to the other. So as usual, every Malaysian during getting to know a new friend will go into a routine of asking their name, from where, brothers and sisters, hobbies and other lame stuff.

Me and Iskandar or his nickname was "Is" asked some questions and of all a sudden I we were talking about politics. How random! We did not talked about families and all but were discussing about the political diversity and how media manipulates our mind. I have had loads of Malay friends and I think,Is was the first guy i felt like relating myself with. He can even speak Cambodia. Damm, how cool is that. A Muslim who likes to learn about other native speakers language. There were others also who were talking about changing Malaysia, being scared of things, cars, girlfriends the usual stuff and to a extend of following a friend to buy condoms, and there was this guy form UM. Jamal was his name, he is twice as crazy then me lah wei. During introducing his friend, he bersyair lah wei. HaHaHa. Al tough I had sore throat, I cant stop laughing.

We then talked about why do we say, we cant talk about race issues because its sensitive? There was no reason to call a race/ethnic issue as sensitive because we think its a sensitive due to the media. So what if there was a riot, so what if there might be a miss understanding among other races. No proper planning was done during talking about racial issue and the way the message was sent out might have been wrong, that's why I think we had all those stupid acts. If you were to ask me about May 13, it was unnecessary. Why do we the citizens have to be responsible on the stupid acts?

There was nothing much on the first night. We finished at about 12 a.m and we were suppose to sleep. Me, tony, basil were sitting with Fahmi Rezza and were talking about reality and stuff. Man was crazy lah! We were asking about " How real is reality ? And how do we know that we are the only being? We talked till 3 am. On there opposite side there was KJ with Ruhan and some UKM students. If I'm not mistaken, it was Ken, Firdaus, Lings and some others. They were talking about some wicked theories like Marxist theory and things about social science. It was similar to what we were talking about, but I think it was deeper.

Anyway we were talking about the mechanism, atoms and molecule that says that a thing is not moving but its not there. Lets say; I have a pen on the table, and it has a rule of not to move but yet its not there. Tony was saying about we are actually no here, and the final blow was what Fahmi said; What if there is something beyond this world? What is all now that is happening now is just a dream? I'm typing now in my blog right, what if I'm actually like 80 years old and going to die and I'm just dreaming about writing the blog? What if I am just a part of a dream now, so I'm just a fiction character in the mind. Do you think we are crazy? It was X-files. It was 2 am and we are talking about quantum physics and universal things.

Its was only the first night. I was thinking to myself. the truth is we are so mixed up in the world of fashion, civilization and many more that we don't care about the reality. Should I say reality? OH, What the heck? Don't care! The next morning things were starting to get heated up. We learnt what happened in Malaysia history and made judgments weather its good or bad. There were some of those issues that were said its bad like Hindraf was bad because it had a majority of Indians only and much more.

We have our own reasons to give and all of it seemed to be reasonable. We also ended up talking about Hindraf rally which was held and some were against it and I was against it partly, the fact that some Hindraf leaders were only looking at their friends and in Hindu people only. Not Indians only were facing those problems but other races too had it. I think its unfair to fight for 1 race only of we want to have integration. If we were to say that Indians can feel the most and other will only feel pity saying its hard to put myself in their shoes, that's pure bullshit!! The fact proves that all races and ethnic have the same problem but why only Indian. So how? Does that prove that Hindraf just thought of themselves and not others? Yes it worked but at what cost? Think for yourselves people!!

Before lunch we had a talk given by Hissamuddin Rais and Dr. Syed Husin Ali. Both of the speakers were great. I loved the way Hissamudin Rais said about we University students are thinking like Old people and the fact that we are made to think like an old people adding by urging us to challenge the old people. Some of the my friends from the other university did not like the way the speech was given because they say that as a Muslim, he cant say such things about breaking the rules. To me, I think they did not get the idea of why he said such things. If the students were to read some of his works than they will be able to understand why did he say it.

Actually what he meant was to o against ur parents and university and even the government if you think their actions were wrong. The tattoo was just an example lah. I don't know maybe some were just too sensitive I guess, its just how we see it how we interpret it. Some of them saw him with his religion values and some saw him as himself and his values.

The next activity was to talk about the stereotyping in a race. We were to discuss the different stereotypes that Malaysians use on other races. Indian are seen as thief, gangster, rapist, Malays for lazy, cheater, sex maniac and Chinese as Ah long, Pajak Gadai, dirty, eat pork and there were many other races lah . What i wrote here is just a small portion but the thing is that, we were made to realize that even an Indian can be lazy and can also be dirty. So the thing having to stereotype is wrong. What we need is to just think positively. Most Malaysians are not taking things positively.
Let me give you a situation. When ever a person from other ethnic says or does something wrong, we remember it till we die but if they were to do a good act we just let it pass. Why can't it be the other ways round. I really thank other friends in the camp because we were like going against it and we don't use this on them. It was just what we have heard or others saying. It is bad to have a stereotype on others even if its good or bad cause if its good and they failed to meet the good stereotyping the give them a bad stereotyping. See how it works.

The following was to create what you think is "Bangsa Malaysia". I was rally impressed about what Ling's said a law student from UKM. He said it does not matter if you are born in Malaysia, even if you were to think Malaysia about the food, culture and arts, you are a Malaysian. Born in Malaysia as in the IC is for our law and order, what we are talking is to have the thought of serving and being apart of Malaysia. There are visitors who come to Malaysia and comment and to fight together with the people in Malaysia against something which they do not like.

That's Malaysia spirit. Another comment which made my mind to just blow up was about why must it be " Bangsa Malaysia" cant it be a bangsa for a whole world. Even its a big radical and extreme, its way really logic. What if we combine our thoughts and passion to create 1 world. That would be great. But then lets start with something small like make our races as Bangsa Malaysia. Languages and culture of all races will be there but as one. We also did a drama about stereotyping and I had to be Samy Vellu. HaHaHa. Me and Jamal were great. All the stupid stuff came out and we were to act it out was really cool. We managed to pull the act out.

Later at night we had a movie called "The big Durian" . Others who have not seen the movie did not understand the movie because its too technical. Too me we had to see the movie twice. Its something like there are hidden agenda's in the story which the story of the Amok guy was made as highlight. People were very much into it that, the political issues were hidden under and made it to be seen as a racial issue.

We even had talked about the quota system in the universities and the was a great debate on the Quota system. Some were saying Chinese need more, Indians also and Malays students given too much. The fact is that the poorest among us are the Malays and there should be more allocation for them. But the thing is that some rich kids tend to missus it for their own benefit. But I'm not saying having a quota system is the best but if were to have new policy and to change the structure of the government then the quota system is to be changed and I think the system is too old. Get a new one, a new and better one.

We were given a choice to be the policy makes and surprisingly all of us did not see races to do the quota system instead we saw the rural schools. Wow!! Its like most of us are not seeing race we were like 1 nation. I was pleased to see that. Our group made a list without a quota at all. The students were to get in the university based on their knowledge and understanding. No bias or what so ever. There were also some who came up with the allocation for vernacular schools.
I think vernacular schools were not needed at all. They some up with racist students. I think, its better to insert them in national schools where they are able to interact with all different race and gender. But its not only by doing that all the problem will solve it. I believe everyone has their right to learn ones language and culture and also has the right to learn others culture.

So the education plan has to be revised in order all of them to be changed into national schools. In that way we are able to create a hybrid where they are as one.
That night some of us UTAR students and UKM students talked about religion and stuff. I cant tahan till 4 am and went and slept but the others were talking till 6am. That's crazy. We talked about religion and stuff. What do be see in religion, can we go to the future without religion and alot others . I think I cant type it here cause I think I will take me days to finish it. But it was 1 hell of a discussion.
The next day which was a last day we didn't had much cause I have explained it above, the quota system. It was suppose to be on this day. Hahaha. Looks like we are too much to the future. Rapping up was the part where we had to share what we feel about the camp all all of us loved the camp an got new friends to share and have activities with. The facilitators were so proud of us an Dr. Carmen broke down in tears seeing us all as one. I think that was a very great thing. We don't see much teachers who will cry of joy seeing all of us being as one. We have proven ourselves to be as one an also 1 step closer to create the perfect nation.