LETTERS: I READ with great interest comments regarding the clips showing Negaraku being sung in Mandarin and Arabic. Malaysia is home to all Malaysians, regardless of race and religion. So whether we like it or not, we are both similar and different.
Our sense of self is very much influenced by what Professor James Paul Gee (2014) calls “socially situated identity”.
We take on multiple identities in different practices and contexts, and a “core identity” for whatever continuous and relatively “fixed” sense of self that underlies our contextually shifting multiple identities.
The big question is, who are we at the core? What is the essence of who we are? Malay? Chinese?
Indian? Or Malaysian?
Unfortunately, many of us are still Malay or Chinese or Indian (instead of Malaysian) at the core, which results in irrational fear, suspicion and prejudice against others of a different race.
As a Malaysian, I maintain that Negaraku must be sung in the national language, that is, Bahasa Melayu.
But as a Malaysian who is aware of our heterogenous society, I also think that there is nothing wrong with the translated version of the national anthem if it is done for educational purposes.
Linguistically, the dialectical view of Negaraku challenges the notion that there is only one right way of coming to know, thinking about and singing the national anthem.
For educational purposes, facilitating students’ understanding of Negaraku’s functions and historical roots may help them discover how the song reflects them as “Malaysians”. It can also uncover the explicit and implicit values the national anthem serves to propagate.
It provides students with multiple perspectives with which they may be able to relate to. Strictly learning (or worse, memorising) only a version (be it official or translated) of our national anthem potentially limits opportunities to think critically and discover what it means for these students to live in a multicultural society.
We want to produce a thinking generation who will be patriots, those who love Malaysia enough to not only stand upright while singing the national anthem with passion and devotion but also those who will ensure we live up to the meaning of Negaraku.
We should encourage those who take patriotism as a responsibility to reform and to dissent to build a better Malaysia, instead of taking it blindly.
In the context of a multicultural society, we want to produce a generation who appreciates true diversity and unity, our shared similarities and differences, which, by right, should be celebrated (not only food or festive seasons) and respected instead of simply tolerated and accepted.
NADILLA JAMIL
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times