Sejak dulu ladi, memang tidak dapat dinafikan bahawa saban hari, kita diasuh supaya mencintai tanah air. Namun demikian, sekiranya kita tidak mampu merasai, melihat, atau membayangkan sama ada tanah air kita mencintai kita, apakah yang akan terjadi? Misalnya, daripada beratus-ratus graduan SPM yang menerima biasiswa setiap tahun, kita dapat melihat dengan begitu jelasnya bagaimana pelajar-pelajar ini diklasifikasikan dalam "kategori-kategori" tertentu. Meskipun ada pihak-pihak yang tegas menjelaskan bahawa langkah ini bertujuan untuk melindungi kepentingan etnik-etnik tersebut, pada hakikatnya, terdapat kesan-kesan sampingan yang tidak dapat dilihat disebalik jendela realiti.
Do I love my country? Yes. Do I love what my countrymen have done to me? No. I work like crap, studying, revising, and fucking my brains off my head to get the so-called "minimum requirement results" which are supposed to guarantee me a scholarship. Then, I watch as each and every one of my friends who score similar results open their scholarship offer letters in glee. I can't help but hate them sometimes not for who they are or what they did but what they get. Why them? Why not me? Am I that horrendous-looking with my "sepet" eyes that the interviewers refuse to give me a scholarship no matter how well I score, no matter how many co-curricular activities I enter? Here's an example I love to quote:
My school has 8 straight-A students:
Student 1 2, 3, 4: Each of them obtains scholarshipS (several per person), offers to local universities, matriculation, etc...
Student 5, 6, 7, 8: All of us get nothing. No scholarships. No local university. No matriculation. Hey...wait....ONLY ONE of us is A BIT lucky! She got a matriculation offer at some remote place. What else? Take the only thing you are given la. The rest of us suffer in silence.
Obviously, you can figure out the identity of the 8 students & why they are segregated like that.
Meskipun tidak ada sebarang monolog luaran antara kami, setiap satu daripada kami tahu maksud tersirat di sebalik senyuman-senyuman manis kami. Secara tidak langsung, perkara biasiswa ini telah menyebabkan saya membenci kawan-kawan saya. Kenapa? Kenapakah rasa benci boleh timbul dalam diri saya terhadap kawan-kawan yang saya sayangi selama ini? Kenapakah mereka boleh memperoleh sesuatu yang kami semua layak diberi? Malah, mereka pernah memberitahu saya bahawa hati mereka ibarat dicucuk jarum-jarum berbisa setiap kali mereka melihat atau terfikirkan saya akibat perasaan kasihan, empati, dan rasa tidak puas hati terhadap ketidakadilan yang tidak patut wujud dalam negara kita. Terdapat beberapa orang dalam kalangan mereka yang menyatakan mereka sanggup menyerahkan biasiswa mereka kepada kami yang juga layak. Sayang sekali, meskipun hati kami memang tersentuh, tidak dapat dinafikan bahawa lautan duri telahpun wujud antara kami tanpa disedari.
It hurts for me to think of my secondary school friends. It hurts for them to see me. It hurts for us to see each other. And where does this problem stem from? The all-powerful people we vote for, we place our trust in. Their desire to protect a certain class of people will only turn the protection into destruction. Those treated unjustly will only rebel, hate, and despise the country. When they serve outsiders who treat them better than their own country, they are labeled as traitors. "No patriotism" .... "Not contributing to their own country" .... "Brain drain" .... "Ungrateful of the country's deeds towards them". Well, let's ask them one simple question: What exactly did you do to/for us? You know it yourself. We do not hate each other because of the color of our skin. It all begins from our education system, the very basis of our mentality.
Sehingga saat masalah ini ditangani, kita tidak akan mampu melihat negara kita mencapai kejayaan melalui perpaduan atau apapun caranya. Berilah peluang kepada masyarakat anda untuk berdiri atas kaki sendiri. Janganlah dukung mereka sepanjang hayat mereka. Kurangkan atau potong bantuan dan pertolongan yang kamu curahkan atas mereka. Jangan sesekali lupa bahawa wang yang kamu siram atas mereka ibarat hujan juga terdiri daripada cukai yang dibayar oleh orang lain.
As I cried alone that day (like I've been doing frequently recently), I realized one thing: Why must I hate my friends? This is a ridiculously unjustified feeling which shouldn't exist at all. They are my friends no matter what. It's the scholarship giving assholes who are my enemies. My friends deserve every ringgit of the scholarships they got. The problem is that I didn't get what I deserved. So what? I'll still study at my current private university, like others of the same skin color as me. If you even dare to pester me now, saying that you decided to give me the scholarship after all, I'll tell you to fuck off. I'd rather study with my great lecturers & friends here than ditch them halfway for a scholarship you "donated" to me out of "generosity". I'll obtain my degree, Masters, PhD all without using your money. (Note: Your money comes from the taxes we pay anyway) When I go to work for someone else, you cannot say that I don't love my country. After all, I have yet to see any love, gratitude, or even acknowledgment from you in the past, present, or even the future.
So....let's ponder on the topic once more. Unity is the mother of success. But, if unity is killed from its very womb, how do we expect it to even give birth to success? May you have a Merdeka day which is actually thoughtful rather than the money-burning parades and activities I see on television. By the way, I'm watching television alone while I declined an invitation from my scholarship friends to go shopping with them. Why? It hurts.
The damage is done.
