Stop Jumping On The Government Hate Train

If there's one thing I've noticed during this time of the year is the general hate people have for the government.Instead of celebrating the achievement of 53 years of independence,many are instead directing their concentration towards reliving racial sentiments.I'll be frank here:this group is predominantly made up of my fellow Chinese and Indians,in the age range of secondary school to 30-something adults.

The question is:why?Here are some typical answers.

1. The government is corrupt.
   
   
2. The government is racist.
   
   
3. Therefore,I have no future in this country and will migrate if given the chance.

But when you ask for evidence,they find it difficult to find any.Even if they did,it would be something they speed read through in the papers or a passing sentence that came up over a meal.

Nowadays,it is considered "cool" to hate the government.If you don't,you are weird,a government hugger and are "wrong".Therefore,the rising popularity of Namewee's videos and anything Raja Petra Kamarudin or his entourage writes.

In my opinion,all this hate is borne out of generalisation,which can be broken down into upbringing,and the view of the government as a single entity instead of as a collective.

On the point of upbringing,we have been taught since young to discriminate.In fact,disliking Malays is a very "Chinese" thing to do.The stereotype of Malays being lazy,stupid and reliant on the government for handouts is created by our forefathers.Having come to a new land all the way from the Orient,they play the unfamiliar immigrant.Therefore,they base their views on the locals on their encounters with them.Somehow or the other unfortunately,a few bad apples rubbed our ancestors the wrong way,and these bad experiences are taken to describe the locals.I have been taught this by my grandmother,who revealed to me how my grandfather kept a Malay mistress and she cheated him of his money and disallowed my family from visiting his grave.

"You can marry anybody,but not Malays."she said to me.

"Okay."I replied.I was 10 years old.

I sorta broke this promise when I had a puberty-induced crush on a Malay chick when I hit 13.I refused to eat pork,and I was immediately the outcast during family dinners.Thank god it did not last long.Pork is the meat of kings.

On my second point,the rakyat tend to focus more on the faults on the government rather than the achievements.This can partly be blamed on the mass media."Boring,old" news relating to Parliament get compressed into Page 2."Scandals!Sex tapes!Bribery!" get the front page and Page 3,which lies on the right when we open the paper.We always look at the page on the right first before turning our gaze to the left.

If a BN man is being indicted for corruption,we do not curse his name.We curse the government,because that is who he works for.His crime now becomes the government's crime,eventhough the latter had nothing to do with it.Take for example,Bung Mokhtar.He is arguably the worst MP ever.He made sexist remarks,not once but twice and married another woman illegally.All of a sudden,the public assumes every member of UMNO and BN is sexist and unfaithful.

My point is,for every Bung Mokhtar we have in government,there is a Khairy Jamaluddin.The latter is smart,rational,a proponent of social media(he subtly made fun of Information Minister Rais when the geezer said that Twitter and Facebook are the poisonous propaganda of the West) and is sincere in giving youths a voice(he set up BN Youth Lab early this year).

Stop seeing the government as a single entity,because you are undermining the work of the many other good men and women in Parliament as well.

This is in no way an endorsement of the Malaysian government.I am not a big fan of them either.However,please be able to separate truth from lie.Not everything the Opposition says is true either.If you are gonna hate,please back it up with solid points and reasons instead of plain old anecdotes from "victims".

Oh yeah,fuck you,Bung Mokhtar.