AMID the doom and gloom that has been visiting this country of late, a ray of sunshine, of sorts, to see a challenging year out: Malaysian women married to foreigners may finally confer Malaysian citizenship upon their foreign-born children.
That right was actually granted 113 days ago, on Sept 9 when, with regard to the automatic rights to confer citizenship onto foreign-born children of Malaysian citizens, the High Court ruled that the interpretation of "father" in the Federal Constitution was discriminatory to women if it was only applied to male parents. But, the court's ruling met with government opposition, and the government applied for a stay of execution on the court's order.
That application was dismissed on Wednesday, and affected Malaysian mothers are making hay while the sun shines and beating a path to the National Registration Department to register their children as Malaysian citizens.
However, the battle is far from over. The government is still seeking to reverse the High Court's decision, and the case is set to be heard in the Court of Appeal on March 23 next year.
If the government is successful in arguing that Malaysian women are of less value to the country than Malaysian men, then the Malaysian citizenship of the affected children may be retracted.
Though quite why the government still has this mindset in the 21st century is puzzling. Article 8 of the Federal Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, and it is in tandem with this that the High Court made its ruling.
So, when the government made that amendment to the constitution 20 years ago, what was its intention? Was it, in keeping with the times and advancements in civilisation, to confer equal worth and respect onto the country's daughters? Or, was it merely to pay lip-service to half the voting population? What the government does next will shape the people's perception of how much or how little their nation loves them.
In not automatically granting citizenship to the foreign-born children of Malaysian women married to foreigners, the government has argued that if it were to do otherwise, the children would hold dual-citizenship, and that is not permitted by Malaysian law.
But that rationale holds true for the foreign-born children of Malaysian men, too, since Malaysia is one of only 25 countries that do not give mothers and fathers equal rights with regard to their children's citizenship.
In fact, unless these children of Malaysian men had mothers from one of the other 24 countries, chances are that they have been automatically granted two citizenships regardless of where they were born, because their mother's country acknowledges the woman's right to automatically confer citizenship on her children.
Should those children therefore be stripped of the right to be Malaysian just because their father found a foreigner to journey through life with? If the answer is no, then why shouldn't it be the same for Malaysia's women? Or does the government hold the same opinion as the least-patriotic social media netizens, that if one has the opportunity, one should just leave the country? Believe it or not, many Malaysians love this country and want their children to also have that love. Malaysia should grant home and sanctuary not only for its sons, but for its daughters, and their children, too.