Just saw Another Country - a play showcasing Malaysian and Singaporean works and performers. Review coming out in The Malaysian Reserve early next week. Won't say much but it is a sign of a great play that it gets me thinking.
For some reason, the past few months, I have been meeting Malaysians who have spent some time in the States. Their observations and message are consistent. Why are Malaysians so negative?
I immediately felt responsible, partly because everything is about me but largely due to the fact that I am such a great person who feels responsible all the time. I also felt guilty because I single-handedly made being cynical cool.
I mean, who can deny the large social impact I have had on Malaysia? Hordes of Malaysians suck my dick every day. I am the iconoclastic icon, the thought-leader, the forerunner, the Greatest Mind of the 21st Century.
For over 12 years, I made being cynical cool, when all this country ever needed was to appreciate what we already have and enjoy. And we all know, before I arrived 12 years ago, all Malaysians were very positive people cooing about our stupid buildings and stable economy. After me, everybody was like, "Meh" to everything.
I fear I have done all of you a great wrong.Things are not so bad here.
In my travels, I have met people whose job is to literally suck dicks every day. Fat dicks, thin dicks, long dicks, short dicks. Sweet dicks, sour dicks, sweet and sour dicks, salty dicks, spicy dicks, dicks with too much umami and cheese or whatever. Dicks dicks dicks. When you talk to these people, and you usually only hear "Mrrf Mrrf Glug glug glug" cause they're sucking dicks most of the time, you get the sense that it's not so bad here, in Malaysia, where you can make even better money sucking dicks. You only even have to suck only one dick a day instead of like, 300.
Things SEEM bad because we are a molly-coddled nation whose people are so used to having politicians do everything for us. We asked these politicians to take away anything and everything offensive from us, to uphold our laws and keep us safe, to tell us what is right and what is wrong. In return, we allow them to take our money. Most of our money.
And yet, even with all this, I sincerely do not believe that we can attribute all our successes or blame all our failures on politicians. This is lazy. This is avoiding responsibility. This is giving away too much power to politicians.
Politicians are the worst of us. They rise from a pool of the most desperate, deformed, mentally-handicapped and morally-bankrupt. And yet we expect them to do anything?
I believe that all of our successes and failures are our own. Datuk Nicol David became a dominant force in world squash not because of politicians, but in spite of them. Datuk Lat became an institution not because he had to kowtow to politicians - it was the other way around. He became such an institution that no one dared to mess with him. Name one single politician who can fight Malaysia's most talented people.
Blaming others simply give up power over ourselves to idiots. We all have more control over ourselves and our environment than we dare to admit. Because admitting it is accepting responsibility and our greatest sin is refusing to be accountable.
And what is so dangerous to own up to everything you've done - both good and bad?
So that others would not hate us? So that others would love us? Weak. Pathetic.
And so I find myself agreeing with these Malaysians who see more than I have. I have not set foot outside of South East Asia nor do I desire to do so. I'm okay with Malaysia and the occasional trip to Thailand to rejuvenate my flagging spirits.
I think they have a point. We are being too negative. Not to say that we should start being delusional or let our guard down, especially with politicians. I'm just saying, enough with the negativity. I'm tired. Just relax.
Otherwise, there is only one way this will play out. Come 2018, we might have blood on the streets, instigated by politicians who fight for the power to decide everything for us. I hope I'm wrong, but you see, I'm always right.
