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What is something you absolutely despise about your country?

I come from Malaysia, and there are some things that annoy me among my fellow countrymen/women. We are a very materialistic bunch. Maybe it’s a syndrome that most developing countries have but we are obsessed with flaunting our wealth and showing off our latest handbags, cars, jewellery, you name it. Artists in Malaysia (and now everyone else) would so often overdress wearing the latest glitz and the most expensive brands and would not hesitate to show off their shopping haul when they go to London or Paris to social media for the world to see. We are also quick to judge people based on their material wealth: a person coming to work in an Audi gains much more attention and respect from someone zipping down the boulevard in their Perodua Kancil (you can google it if you don’t know what this car looks like). It is a societal requirement to purchase a big, imported car if you have the position to go with it. My boss here in Europe who earns tens of thousands of euros a month comes to work via public transport and nobody gives a fuss. In Malaysia, if you have the wealth then it is an unwritten rule to exteriorise it. Which comes to my next point: We are obsessed with social media and are therefore stuck to our latest gadgets perpetually. We take news from Facebook as the ultimate truth and post viral news without even fact checking or doing some research beforehand, which would often result in someone issuing a contradicting statement a few days later. When a kid got stuck on the escalator recently at the airport, the first instinct of people nearby wasn’t to help the poor boy, but they flipped out their smartphones to capture the incident on video, with the hope of uploading it on social media making it go viral. This sensationalism has also contributed to our disrespect towards the dead. When a fatal accident happens, it is not surprising to see on social media, graphic images and sometimes video of the incident. I find this to be in very bad taste and insensitive to the feelings of their living relatives. Because we are too obsessed with our gadgets, therefore we tend to read real books less. I was shocked to see that in the public transport system in Kuala Lumpur (KL) and in any big city in Europe one thing stands out: people almost never read in KL. Everyone would be hidden behind their screens on Whatsapp, Wechat, Twitter or on Facebook as they take the train. Reading is still considered a nerdy thing to do (which is somehow condescending, beats me) and is therefore not as appreciated as in Europe. We have this unhealthy obsession that everything that comes from the West must be good. We are obsessed with White foreigners and we treat them much better than our own people. We force our children to only speak English at home because we are persuaded that English is THE only way to elevate one’s social status (never mind other skills), which explains why we have many Malaysians not fluent in the national language or speaking it really badly, despite it being an easy language to learn. When asked why they don’t speak Malay properly, they proudly reply that it has no economic value therefore there is no use of knowing it. I have had European friends and colleagues who upon knowing this would cast a surprising glance and look down on us and at our lack of identity, pride and belonging. We value our own people only if they have a fair complexion and this can be seen by most of the models on adverts in Malaysia. For Muslims, they look towards the Arab countries as their source of inspiration. More and more people are dumping the traditional attire for Arab-friendly ones: long robes in place of baju kurung and baju kebaya. People would also pepper their speech with Arabic words here and there (which no one else understands) in an effort to appear more religious and knowledgeable. We are not taught to have and respect different opinions. This might have to do with the brainwashing done by the government, manipulating mainstream media into only allowing good things to come out about them. Therefore, debate is discouraged especially if it involves politics and religion. We are quick to verbally abuse the other side, without taking the time to listen to them, and counter their arguments with solid facts and reason. For this, people are quick to label the opposing side with terms which are supposed to be demeaning: liberal, secular, close-minded, extremist etc. As if by doing that, we could come to a common conclusion. This lack of discussion and openness, I would say is also the reason why our government is not transparent and has no sense of accountability. Abuse of position and power is accepted and us being Asians, we are too polite and submissive to lead a revolution to change things and fight blatant injustice in our system. Our very defined and precise form of Islam shuts out all room for discussion, lest you be labelled an infidel. This leads to a lot of people practising the religion just for its rituals instead of going in-depth into the spiritual aspects of it. I think I can continue much further but for the time being, I’ll keep it to just five. t�_9�A