So, in the run-up to the 56th year of Malaysia's independence from British colonial rule, that will be feted as it is every year with fanfare, flags, and generous displays of patriotism... I feel compelled to admit that I actually don't really feel patriotic. Like, in general. I am apatriotic. Not UN-patriotic (I don't go around tearing down Jalur Gemilangs and would never begrudge anyone wanting to celebrate their country's independence, or feeling great loyalty for their country), but A-patriotic: just lacking completely in whatever box that's in me that's supposed to contain things like love and loyalty for the country that has issued me a passport and calls me a citizen.
I just don't really identify with "my country". Why IS it "my country"? Because my one side of my family's ancestors lived here? Because I hold a Malaysian passport and identification card? And what is a country anyway? A shared culture and belief? Since Malaysia's not exactly homogenous, let's revise that: is it the multicultural experiences of many sets of ethnicities? Is it a unified government with a set of founding ideals that has a control over x amount of land up until this or that invisible border?
I know I could try harder to assimilate, and I always wonder whether, if I identified more with Malaysia, I'd feel something stronger for it. As it is now, I'm comfortably comfortable with my relationship with it. I mean I live here, I'm happy, and it's a place on a map that I have made my home for now. But do I love it? Umm. Not really, sorry. I mean I don't hate it either, but I'm just not able to feel something intensely emotional and intangible for something that, to me, is arbitrary and intangible.
A big part of this comes from not having grown up in Malaysia. I was born and raised in Brunei, which isn't that far (if Sabahans and Sarawakians can feel Malaysian - do they really though? Another topic for another day - you'd think a Malaysian living in Brunei could), but it always felt, mentally, so far away. It was this alien place we went to for Hari Raya every few years (and KL, with its hustle and bustle, is about as alien as you can get from sleepy little Brunei).
There's language. I went to international schools, and my Malay is rusty (to say the least). I took local language exams and passed them (even the oral; and I had to talk about globalisation! In Malay! I sometimes wonder if it was rigged) in high school, but I find it difficult to speak in the vernacular. I don't think my thoughts in Malay, so I'm constantly translating in my head before I speak sentences that go beyond basic. (My lack of verbal linguistic ability is not specific to Malay but also covers Arabic, which I studied in university, and which I can read and write MILES better than I can speak.)
There's shared history and culture, or learning about it, or in my case, lack thereof. I didn't study Malaysian history or geography in school. It was only when I moved to KL to work that I appreciated that each state is different and had unique cultures and dialects, and that people generally identified themselves by their states (or neighbourhoods... I still don't think I can ever wrap my head around the concept of neighbourhood pride. When you live in Brunei and 90% of the people you meet live within an hour's drive of where you live, your neighbourhood becomes as much a distinguishing factor as the fact that you have two legs).
I don't know all the words to Negaraku, because I never had to learn it. (I only learned how to sing the Bruneian national anthem as a result of an experimental, miserable-at-first 2 years in a non-international school in Brunei that ended when I won a scholarship to another international school.)
And culturally (if I can define culture in hugely broad strokes as activities and behaviours): yes, there are things that I do that overlap with Malaysian culture (which is itself, again, a hugely broad definition). But there are also other things that I do, and believe, and eat, and drink, and say, that aren't really dictated by or even considered appropriate in my culture.
There's appearance. My mother is crazily mixed and has Arab, Chinese, Dutch, English and Malay ancestry, and as a result, has red hair and looks Caucasian (the first time I heard the term Mat Salleh was when someone asked me if my mother was one). And I am constantly mistaken for Persian, Arab, Chinese (this has happened many times though I'm not sure in what universe an Arab person could also look Chinese), and Eurasian. Sometimes I feel irrationally touchy when complete strangers, who otherwise have absolutely no interest in my life, partake in what I've found is a uniquely Malaysian preoccupation with race. (This is different to when friends, or people who are genuinely trying to get to know me, ask.) I try to get around it by saying I'm Malaysian, but very curious askers will not be deterred, and that response usually leads to "no, really, WHAT are you?". It makes me feel self-conscious and weird, because not only do I feel like I don't blend in, but now I'm being asked to explain WHY I look like I don't blend in. Obviously this isn't the intent of the asker, who has no idea that I reject the idea of race and unfortunately am sensitive about being made to feel like an outsider, but irrational as it may be, that's how I feel.
So... that is the long and convoluted explanation of why I don't really feel Malaysian, whatever being Malaysian means. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, and hope I don't - in this world of arbitrary borders and increasingly paranoid immigration laws, anyone who is a citizen of any nation can count themselves fortunate. But where do you find the roots of patriotism, and how do you begin to love a place more than any other specific place? A shared language or culture? Familiarity? Nostalgia? A sense of belonging?
Because generally, I just... am where I am. My home is where I make it, and I feel like I belong with the people I love. When I was growing up, it was where my family lived, and that happened to be Brunei. Now, it's where my husband is, because we're our own little family of two, and that happens to be Malaysia. The geographic location of the place is just an incidental fact. That's not what makes a place home, to me, and believing that a place is your home is, I think, why people would feel patriotic.
Whenever I think about my apatriotism, I always think of my favourite quote from The English Patient (which I'm going to paste here since I can't think of any other way to end what has become a pretty introspective and extremely meandering essay: sorry). The quote (and the book) is about nationality, countries, national identity, and resisting the idea of being owned by anything - a nation, a person:
We die containing the richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
