JUNE 27 – One of my fondest memories as a young college student is sitting on the cement stoop outside my friend Fairuz’s father’s house in SS2 in Petaling Jaya, sharing smokes, talking about girls, movies, music and, occasionally, even politics.
A highlight of the evening would be when Fairuz – the funniest guy I know – would do his send up of the Otis Redding classic “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay”.
The song’s refrain of “wastin’ time” could not have been a better theme for what generations of young kids do with their evenings.
If there is one thing it has done, our prime minister’s rather vague and wishy-washy 1 Malaysia slogan has caused me to think about why I became friends with Fairuz.
In short, the reason for our friendship was that we enjoyed each other’s company and shared views on music, movies and a great love for books. Oh yes, we liked to smoke too.
It would be a lie to say that we never thought of each other in terms of race.
Sure, he was Malay and I was Chinese but in the end we were friends because we had fun hanging out with each other.
The slogans of the time – and yes, there were plenty at the time too – were not responsible for our friendship.
If anything, the trite and well-worn slogans served as a reminder of our differences.
Such slogans – whether it is Najib’s 1 Malaysia, the DAP’s Malaysian Malaysia or even Barack Obama’s Yes we can – serve more as a turn off than a unifying force.
Of course, there are truths to such slogans. Of course, we would all want better race relations.
And repeating them non-stop does work too, to a point. Just like how millions of young Chinese use to wave Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book around and quote platitudes from their ‘bible’ to ensure everyone in China thought with one mind and one heart.
In the 1980s, young Malaysians could be heard everywhere breaking out into “Demi Negara yang tercinta dicurahkan bakti penuh setia . . . ”
The song, Setia, was the brainchild of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government then, soon after the bruising 1987 Umno crisis and Operasi Lalang.
Young people of different races could not help but be united in song, as it was played more than ten times a day on RTM. But the unity and loyalty theme of the song did not prevent our differences from spilling out in the open.
Francesca Peters, the popular singer who provided the vocals, could not escape the unfortunate and unnecessary controversy of being photographed wearing a crucifix on one of her album covers.
That’s the thing about differences. It will always be there.
If there’s one thing I agree with the prime minister about is that we should stop using the word “tolerance” with each other. Instead we should embrace our differences.
When I hang out with my friends Dinesh, Jahabar and Ravi we often crack jokes about each other’s race and culture.
And the reason we can do that is that we actually know a fair bit about each other’s race and cultures.
The racial stereotypes provide endless fodder for jokes. The jokes help break down the racial and religious barriers.
But before you can crack such jokes about each other, you have to get to know each other first.
Nowadays when I do meet or call my friend Fairuz, which is not as often as I would like, I will refer to him as “Melayu” and he will call me “Chinaman”.
This is affection between old friends and not recommended for everyday usage with everyone you meet of course.
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