BOX OF CRAYONS



We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. - Copied shamelessly from Kwentong Tambay

After travelling in and out of Malaysia for the past two years, I've finally seen the dark side to this country. Malaysia is a hodgepodge mix of the following races: Malay, Chinese, Indian, Tamil, Pakistani/Bangladesh, and Middle Eastern. On the surface, everything seems to be okay. Only when you've spent some time people watching will you see how turbulent the waters are underneath the surface.

In Malaysia, the Muslim Malays reign supreme. They get priority in getting placed to public universities, they have subsidies when buying cars and properties, and they even have real estate auctions that are only open to bumiputras. The top government posts are held by Muslim Malays.

Everytime I talk to my Chinese and Indian friends, they always have something to say about this bumiputra policy. They say it's unfair for them getting so much help from the government when everybody is taxed the same rate. Some of them have so much as given up hope for their children ever getting into public universities that they work so hard just so that they could send their children overseas for college.

Some sectors in our government used to openly admire Malaysia, for the way their country has progressed since Independence in 1957. Since then, Malaysia has risen from a third world country to one of the top developed nations in the world. Kuala Lumpur is a testament to that, with its gleaming Petronas Twin Towers. Sepang is too, with the race track that hosts the annual F1 race. But they don't know that underneath it all, racial discrimation is dominant. Wow, can you imagine how much deeper into shit we would be if there was racial discrimination too in the Philippines? Something to think about...