2Malaysia?

Many emerging divides are not about skin colour but about education, safety and economic status.

TO get an idea of what 2Malaysia is about, let’s consider a smaller example: 2KL.

I was bemused when certain trendy-nistas once told me that they would “never be caught dead” in unfashionable areas of Kuala Lumpur such as Jinjang, Cheras or Balakong. For them, “civilisation” in the Klang Valley revolves around the Axis of Acceptable Areas – an arc stretching from Ampang, through to Bukit Bintang-Bangsar-Mont Kiara, before ending at The Curve in Petaling Jaya.

Going beyond that last point into – gasp – Kepong was an unthinkable privation for the sophisticated set (despite my frantic protestations about the great food at reasonable prices there), for it meant going into the untamed, barbaric badlands of Ah Beng’s and Ah Lian’s.

Clearly, there was a feeling of 2KL, a distinction of the cool urbane from the mere urban.

A similar divide exists on Penang island. From the epithets given (jokingly) to two places, the Beginning of the World (at Batu Maung, in the south) and the End of the World (at Teluk Bahang in the north), it seems that the locals regard the western side of the island as being so ulu (wild, remote and rural) that it’s beyond the pale of the urbanised “world” on the eastern side.

Even in the Malay language, the name most associated with the “wild west” is Balik Pulau, or literally, the “back of the island”.

Just as there are prejudices about 2KL and 2Penang, 2Malaysia is also about socio-cultural compartments.

The 1Malaysia slogan is a noble ideal for racial harmony (though not much has been heard of it since the elections) but if we’re honest, our country is moving beyond simple ethnic classifications into more complex and subtle differences.

I don’t want to get into the political debate over whether Malaysia is now divided into two halves of 51% and 47%, or whether the election results were due to a Chinese tsu- nami or a multi-racial urban tsunami. So what do I mean by 2Malaysia?

One example is how we balik kampung for festivals. While people of Peninsular Malaysia have the luxury of going back to their hometowns by car, bus or train via a network of highways, roads and rail, Sarawakians going home for the Gawai celebrations still have to risk their lives on grossly overloaded express boats plying the state’s main highways – the rivers – into the interior.

As a tourist, I have always enjoyed trips upriver on rickety longboats to isolated longhouses in Sarawak; yet somehow there is also a tinge of guilt, of enjoying the exotic “backwardness” of my own nation as a more privileged orang Semenanjung.

In the media, we are “advised” not to use the term “East Malaysia” (unlike in the 1970s and 80s) so as to minimise any feeling of geographic division, yet the dichotomy between West and East was brought sharply into focus with the recent river boat tragedy at Belaga.

Even in the Peninsula, informal partitions into 2Malaysia are happening. We see it in schools, where most urban upper-middle class families (of all races, mind you) are sending their children to expensive private or international schools, in order to better master English (which, whether the politicians care to admit it or not, is seen as the passport that opens doors to the world).

This leaves the less-affluent with what are, in effect, second-choice public schools. In the past, the path of upward mobility via English was available to all, rich and poor, through government or missionary English-medium schools. But as it stands, a de facto segregation of education via class and wealth has been quietly taking hold.

Another social rift is the mushrooming of “gated and guarded” (G&G) housing areas in our major cities.

This separation of people into a 2Malaysia of “safe versus unsafe” neighbourhoods is, I shudder to say, a form of apartheid. That notorious word was used to describe the South African system of racial segregation and discrimination (in Afrikaans, it means: “the status of being apart”) following the ideology of ketuanan orang putih or white supremacy).

But the G&G apartheid is not one based on race but on class. It is an economic apartheid that declares: Security is becoming less of a public service for all citizens from our dear police, and increasingly, a commodity available only to those who can afford it.

Finally, we come to a 2Malaysia based on time. Think of all those commentaries and images (like one of Yasmin Ahmad’s old Petronas commercials) of a nostalgic, mistyeyed “Malaya”, a kind of past Golden Era where kids of all races could mingle freely and forge genuine friendships.

But in the bold new Malaysia, it’s hard for non-Muslims to invite their Muslim friends over to the house for fear of causing discomfort not only with the food and drinks served but with crockery and cutlery too.

The past-present gulf can also be seen in children’s transport. As late as the 1980s, my friends and I could still walk or cycle to school by ourselves safely.

It seems like a forgotten era nowadays, where parents are reduced to glorified taxi drivers, shuttling their children back and forth between home to (the very doorsteps of!) school, tuition classes or piano/ballet lessons, fearing that two minutes or 200m without eagle-eyed supervision will result in a kidnapping.

For our children, cycling or taking the public bus in cities has become as dangerous as going to what, Afghanistan?

While it’s great to promote the idea of racial oneness through 1Malaysia, let’s not forget that there are other 2Malaysia schisms in education, security and community wellbeing opening up.

As we strive to foster racial harmony, let’s not neglect to nurture geographic, economic and social unity too.