Hegemony

In an age where self centeredness reigns, where everyone has an unprecedented and many precious opinion; I feel like, I wouldn’t want to be left out from the scene.

It seems like people have moved on and forgotten about the recent upheaval that created animosity between two majority races in the country; which is a good thing.

Speaking of the recent disarray, rather than racism, I’d prefer addressing and narrowing it towards one of the underlying source on the cause or what might’ve instigated these outbursts. We do not know if it was propaganda but we all know that there are many people who are unhappy and we have many impoverished people who are unhappy. The nature of an unhappy person is that when provoked he lashed out without thinking twice because he is always on the edge—Often unstable, due to stresses, discontentment and the feeling of rejection.

For one, we live in an extremely stressful age;

Everyone is always on the edge,

 Firmly enveloped in fear,

Paranoia becomes second nature,

Selfishness becomes the norm,

It’s a dog eat dog world!

Arrogance and narcissism in ordinance,  

A living hell, a living hell,

Mankind seems to be heading towards a certain darkness,

One that might lead to everlasting unhappiness.

Mr. Soren Kierkegaard a 19^th century Danish philosopher, proposed that an individual has to pass through three stages on the way to becoming a true self: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious though according to him, many are stuck at the aesthetic stage commonly known as the material stage. Hence everything is of face value ergo shallowness becomes a determining factor on how one perceives happiness.

We probably are not as racist as we are judgmental. We judge others through outer appearances and physical possessions. We are indeed a shallow lot. Wouldn’t it better if we could grow up and be less superficial? It seems like we are cursed, we think the more possessions we have the better we are. We appreciate possessions more than human values.

Despite our differences which I will elaborate later, I believe the so called rage/anger is the outcome of one being in a stressful state for too long or due to not having a normal/comfortable life so to speak.  

“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” As said by -Carl Jung-

We have people who are poverty stricken and being treated as failures/ social outcasts in the community, the only easy way to get recognition sometimes can be unthinkable to others. This is not an easy problem to solve especially when there are so many struck by poverty. To make matters worse, as we all know, our economy is gradually worsening and basic things are getting more expensive.  

Imagine someone who has lived in discomfort his whole life while observing others living a more lavish or what seems like a happier life because we as a people tend to think that a bigger house equals bigger happiness and worse still we pay more respect towards the rich and towards people with titles before their names than the poor.

If we think about it, the root to our major problems is primarily done by the people who are in control of the economy yet we praise them and idolize them.  

Speaking of races, well let’s address them as race: A, B & C…after reading comments and opinions of races predominantly belonging to race A… I for one; well, this is a little difficult to say but they have discovered what sarcasm is in 2015— Having said that, among the many things that bothers me are their overly-confident remarks on how they did things ‘on their own’ without anyone’s help; that or students who just finished studying claiming, ‘I made it all on my own and now I am going to do things my way’. After being spoon fed your whole life, you spout things like that? Little do they know that for generations most of them have been the spoiled brat of the nation, so to speak.  

As for race B everything is either and investment or a transaction, though I guess, they work so hard that they hardly have any time, that’s why you see them always rushing and as the saying goes, ‘don’t give you face’ as a consequent their stares and attitude towards others or even their own—well from my personal experience I would say gave birth to a kind of superiority complex that is pretty discomforting and distasteful in a ‘masyarakat majmuk’ like atmosphere.

As for race C who are probably the unluckiest of all the races—I for one have pin-pointed the cause to their dilemma. We from other/mixed races mostly grew up with fairytales which I’ve come to realize have molded millions of minds and have set unrealistic expectations and a false sense of happiness unto clean, innocent minds.

Race C grew up with something worse, movies!

 Yes I said it; these movies have caused the minds to stray away from reality, as a result many grown man think that with the stylish wave of a finger and by muttering something like, na adicha ni satideve, people will just be at awe at the stylishness/swag of the main protagonist. There are millions of individuals in race C though to every individual, he is the main protagonist in his own movie/life.  In closing, the influence of movies to the people of race C is just too much and has probably caused grown men problem in differentiating between real life and unrealistic cinematography.

I almost left out race D & race E...I happen to be part of race D & E. Race D is of the mixed/kacukan race and are well liked because of their openness, understanding and flexible nature.

As for race E… all other races dislikes race C including its own kind. Sadly, despite all that I wrote above about races seems pointless for in today’s world it seems like there is only one race, which is the race of/for money. Let’s refer to race E is as the race of the poor.

The society’s outcasts…people don’t notice but the rempits, mat dadah, the kongsi gelap, the pariah, all have one thing in common. Most of them come from poor, broken family and from a poor neighborhood. These places are often neglected and abandoned by authorities and probably seen as a lost cause. As a consequence, children who grow up here are wrongly influenced and they become adults and just like that the cycle continues. To me, one of the most crucial parts of growing up is during one’s childhood to adolescence; when the brain is molded and shaped.

Having said that, let’s distance ourselves further and have a, so to speak panoramic view, our leaders are corrupt, our politics thrives on racism and other negative stuff…though none bugs me more than our education system that progressively molds a child’s brain into becoming a superficial, shallow and a selfish adult.

On another note, if there is one thing we can change, it would be changing our education system. How difficult can it be? In an age where copying and pasting has proven to be helpful and at times a work of magic, ‘copy and paste’ have always worked out if done properly, you know without breaking any plagiarizing laws; Let me rephrase, rather than copying and pasting let’s use the term emulating. Here is what I am insinuating. Why not emulate countries whose education system has proven to be effective in creating better and wiser people? Send a delegation to other countries, learn about their education system and implement them in our own. “Ambil yang jernih, buang yang keruh” as the saying goes. How difficult can it be? Also, I am sure many have heard of this, “a smart man learns from his experience, a smarter man learns from the experiences of others.” It might take years but it has to start somewhere right? Also it will be a dream come true if proper education was free for everyone.

Coming back to topic, it is not an impossible task to eradicate poverty in our nation. Though it seems almost impossible to have clean and honest politicians; if only kindness were more prevalent over un-kindness then perhaps we wouldn’t always be angry. The root of many problems in a society is poverty and inequality.

My fear is that in the near future instead of lessening the number of poorer families and poverty stricken neighborhood judging from where we’re heading it just looks like things are worsening and impoverishment might just multiply and over the years, create newer families who then experience & observe the inequality of life and give birth to angrier and disheartened human beings.

Let’s pray and hope for the best.