You sit down on a bench at a park. As you observe the children playing, squealing in delight, you see an old man hobbling down a steep slope. There is a peculiar appeal to that image. You sit there staring at him. He tries very hard to walk down the slope without losing his balance. Beads of sweat start forming on his forehead from all that effort. As it trickles down to his walking stick, his grip slips and the next thing you know, the old man has fell. At the moment, your instinct is to run to that old man, try to avoid him falling to the floor.
At that moment, nothing else matters. Your age differences, your skin colour, the language you speak. At this moment, you do not discriminate. Your instinct tells you what need to be done. That is to save the old man. But why is it that it is so difficult to take those actions when I add in another detail, that is to say, the old man is an Indian old man, when assuming you yourself are Chinese or Malay or vice versa? Is it so demanding a feat? I am not being judgmental, but that is the truth. You know that hesitation is reflected in your eyes when you look at yourself in the mirror. I know this, because I am a victim of this revolting behavior. We all are.
However, that description of the situation is incomplete. Before the old man hits the ground, a child, a child estimated to be of 5 years of age, rushes to the old man’s aid. What I see here is a child, uncorrupted by the hatred, inbuilt by his parents who got it from their parents who got it from their parents and it goes on. This is a fault caused by the society. We talk about the past, holding to it like it just happened yesterday when in fact, it happened so long ago, you yourself are not sure when it actually happened!
There is an e-mail that had been passing around. It is about 2 monks, a young monk and an old monk. They encountered a lovely injured woman in need for help. The old monk gave her his help by carrying her on his back to her destination. After the monks left the woman to her way, the young monk was furious that the old monk would allow that to happen. However, he didn’t confront the old monk with his thoughts. After a long time when the young monk is unable to contain the anger in himself, he finally did. What the old monk said was “I only helped the lovely woman because it is a blessing to be able to help. I too, did leave her at the river bank. But you, you had been carrying her for all this time”.
What the old monk meant is that the young monk had been thinking about the lovely woman for all this time, carrying her around. Just like us, carrying the doings of our ancestors around, acting as though we were personally wounded by those actions. People do change you know. How can you take more in your hands when you are already leaden with those past that you cling dearly to? You must let it go and let your true experience tell you the truth. How do you expect to change your perception of others when you are nailed on the impression that they are still the way they are umpteen years ago?
Our children are like a blank piece of white paper. They do not discriminate. They treat everyone equally. When you see children in kindergarten, they mingle around without a care, treating everyone with the same manner. But why is it that when they grow up, they tend to lose the bond they share when young? Some may say that it is because they learnt the hard way that the other colour are money-minded, greedy, unethical, rude, smelly and more creatively made-up labels. Try and imagine someone saying this, I hate so-and-so’s race because they are so stingy and money minded. It makes the speaker sound immature and it sounds like he or she doesn’t know what he or she is talking about! Tell me that there are no stingy and money minded people of other race than so-and-so’s race. You cannot. Not without telling a lie in the process. Then why is it that we are still doing this when we know full well that we are all being biased in this current situation? What is the point of our prime minister launching the “1 Malaysia” concept?
Sometimes it is easier to live in a world where the innocence of a child is in everyone, not just the young, but also in the middle-aged and elderly. Maybe this way, we can learn to give others the chance they yearn for to prove your century old hypothesis of them wrong. Maybe 1 Malaysia is about having that child-like innocence. Maybe it is to instill these qualities in us. Maybe 1 Malaysia is about seeing the world in only one colour, the Malaysian colour. Maybe it is about being the child who helped the old man. Maybe it is being the old monk who left the lovely woman at the river bank. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It will always be a maybe until we make that effort to lose the concept of other that was formed decades ago, and embrace them like a blank piece of paper, allow them to draw their colour and patterns on the paper and then from there form your own theory on who they are and how do they actually react to certain matters. Maybe that way, we could greet them with welcoming arms, accept their flaws, and enjoy the benefit they provide to the country.
