There was an old joke, a very old joke indeed, that we used to tell back in the 1970s. By today’s standards that joke would probably be considered racial but back in those days we were more liberal and less sensitive about ‘racial’ jokes. In fact, never mind whether you are Malay, Chinese or Indian, we would laugh out loud at jokes that ‘poked’ each other’s race.
That is what I loved about the 1970s, apart from the fact that even in Terengganu and Kelantan Malays could join their non-Malay friends at the pub (called ‘coffee houses’) for a few rounds of beer and no one would call them fasiq Muslims or arrest them for ‘crimes against God’.
Sigh…those were the good old days and when you are pushing 64 like me you tend to reminisce a lot about the good old days as ‘dunia kata pergi, kubur kata mari’ (literally translated to ‘the world says go, the grave says come’). I suppose, as they say, when you reminisce too much that is definitely a sign of old age when ‘oral sex’ takes on a new meaning of you only get to talk about it. Sigh…and who says your mind is the first to go?
Anyway, that joke goes as follows:
One Chinese will do business. Two Chinese will gamble. Three Chinese will form an association.
One Indian will drink. Two Indians will fight. Three Indians will form a union.
One Malay will play politics. Two Malays will play politics. Three Malays will play politics.
I know, I know, I know…you will now scream that this is stereotyping. But let’s be honest about it. Forget about that part regarding the Chinese and Indians but is not that part about the Malays true?
The Malays have a saying: Cina mati meniaga, Melayu mati main politik (Chinese will die doing business, Malays will die playing politics). The Malays themselves say this and yet they wonder why the Chinese are economically very successful while the Malays menang sorak, kampung tergadai (win the shouting match but lose their home).
It seems Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud’s mother, Yammy Samad, is now under attack for supporting her daughter who is contesting the Teluk Intan by-election on a DAP ticket. It seems, also, that Yammy is an Umno member and some Umno people are not too happy about this.
This reminds me, yet again, of a few episodes from the 1970s and 1980s (when I used to live in Terengganu) where families were divided because of politics. One episode involved a husband and wife from my kampung. They were on the way to vote when the husband told the wife that they must vote Umno in that election (after voting PAS in all the previous elections before that).
The wife refused and said that he can vote Umno if he wants to but she was going to vote PAS. The husband scolded her and said that a wife must obey her husband. If not he can divorce her. She replied that he can go ahead and divorce her if he wanted to but she was not going to vote Umno.
So he divorced her there and then, on the way to the polling station.
In another episode, a father campaigned for Umno while the son campaigned for PAS. When they came home for lunch the father was wearing an Umno badge on his chest while the son wore a PAS badge on his. This triggered an argument and the father shouted “aku tak mengaku anak” (I disown you) and the son walked out of the house and never came home.
That is how husbands and wives plus parents and children are supposed to act. And now we have a situation in Teluk Intan where an Umno mother supports a DAP daughter in the by-election. This is certainly not acceptable.
What the mother is expected to do is to call for a press conference to condemn her daughter and announce to the world that she is disowning her daughter and that when she dies the daughter is forbidden from attending her funeral and all that. That is the proper thing to do.
So there you have it. Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud’s mother, Yammy Samad, is not doing the proper Malay thing. And for that Umno is going to crucify her. Husbands and wives must divorce and parents must disown their children for the sake of politics. This is how it used to be back in the 1970s.
I know…I make the 1970s sound terrible. Actually the 1970s was not really that terrible because Malays could still enjoy a beer (even Prime Ministers did back then) and we could tell racial jokes and no one would scream and punch you in the nose and my Chinese friends would call me Malaisi (Malay die) and I would take that as a great honour.
Sigh…and then the fucking politicians changed all that…damn them mother-fucker politicians.
