So they say it is a new dawn...

May 9th came and went, and they say it is a new dawn for Malaysia. Is it? I guess in some way it is. A new gavornment after 60 plus years. Never thought it would happen in my lifetime. After my whole life of living under an affirmative action hijacked by racial issue, it is a welcomed change, and perhaps with it, a little more hope of a better Malaysia.

Yet in the truest sense a lot of things still remain the same. Change, some say, will need to take time. I guess no one can deny that. But then again, we live in heady times. Technology is rapidly changing us. Things are moving at dizzying speeds. And perhaps with that sort of speed, maybe change will speed up too.

I think there many displaced people from the current change. Like me who have grown old under ‘affimative action hijacked’ they too are affected. For those on the other side of the divide, and in Malaysia the divide separates us into Bumi and non-Bumi. Within the Bumi side, there is the Malay and Others; Muslim and non-Muslim too. So imagine, for them too, having grown ‘old’ and being told that they were the ones needing the help; it is a time of feeling lost too.

It always strikes me as funny that we always claim how compassionate the God we believe in is. Yet when it comes to living out our faiths, how often too we become the ‘oppressors’. How we dress, what we eat, what we say..these remain the areas that are being harped on. I’ve come to a conclusion that for raee relations to work, we need to take out religion from the equation. Religion is divisive; not because it teaches us to be that. It is divisive because the believers are humans who want those carnal things ... power, wealth and status.

But, I still look forward to the hope of better things to come.