Eliza’s Haberdashery

Sharon tagged me, and I’m the fifth to dedicate a post to the nation’s fiftieth Merdeka next year as part of Nizam Bashir’s Independence project.

When I was a child, my cousins and I played games where we could choose our own nationalities. In that game, none of us wanted to be Malaysian - we would all scramble for being American, British, and even French or German.

Something changed as I grew older.

Pride of nationhood seeped in, but it wasn’t due to the Negaraku that we had to sing every Monday at assembly, nor the Rukunegara we had to memorise for exams, nor the stuffy history lessons we had in which the struggle for our Independence was reduced to dates and names and dry narrative. It had a lot to do with the country’s progress and the realisation that - yes, Malaysians can venture abroad and hold their own against citizens from older, more developed countries. By the time I was in my teens, being Malaysian was pretty cool.

But Malaysia - and being Malaysian - is full of contradictions, and a lot of these contradictions have to do with the way the country treats its women, in particular, its Muslim women.

There are more Eves in lofty positions in government and corporate sectors, but even with these achievements and with the capabilities wielded by females, there are Ministers who caution Malaysian women against even aspiring to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Against a policy backdrop that encourages female participation in the economy and the country, the higher number of female graduates in institutions of higher learning makes everyone focus on the future “problem” of getting these highly educated women partnered and married, instead of focusing on the lack of motivation (and academic achievement) among male youth.

With a Ministry set up dedicated to Women and Family and, by extension, a realisation of the importance of the family unit to a country’s social health, there is still tacit support and permission for polygamy without enforcement of the Quranic conditions of a polygamous marriage. A seminar that encourages monogamy, that highlights potential problems of polygamy, gets denounced by religious officials as being blasphemous. My nine year old son has been taught in school by his Ustaz that a Muslim man has the right to take up to four wives, without being told of the implications of this, or why it was allowed in the first place.

Women make up 50% of the country and have equal rights, yada-yada, and yet it takes a Muslim man only a few keystrokes on his mobile phone to divorce his wife, while a woman may need up to seven years to be properly divorced from her husband, should the husband refuse to grant her divorce. In the meantime, he can remarry and rebuild another family, while she has to wait until the divorce is legally settled.

So, while I am happy with being a Malaysian woman (and indeed, I appreciate that as a Muslim female, I am much better off in this country than in others), the disparity between policy statement and practice, the chasm between national ideals and public perception, the lack of justice where family law is concerned, make me want to shake the country by its collar and shout at it to - for goodness’ sakes - take action! make changes! educate! legislate! enforce! so that the problems of a significant portion of this country are no longer sidestepped and ignored.

There is no country in the world without knots and frays, and Malaysia without question has kinks to work out. But it remains, still, very much a home, my home.

Happy 50th Birthday, Malaysia. You inspire love even as you exasperate.

Next honours go to Ted, because I’m curious.