‘Saudara senegara’: the Malaysian that Malaysia made me

As I remember, my late dad would lay down the law of the land: “You must love Malaysia more than anything else.” I never questioned it. Somehow, those words sank deep into me. Malaysia was never just the country written on my birth certificate. Loving her became part and parcel of me.

I am Malaysian Tamil. I grew up in a Tamil-speaking home, although today I speak mostly Malay and English. My favourite food is laksa Kedah, which I ate almost every day in school because my classmate Rozitah’s father ran the laksa stall in our canteen.

Truth be told, I don’t really know what “my culture” is.

My parents never raised us to be “Indian-Indian”. We weren’t forced to practise certain traditions or speak only Tamil. They simply raised us as people, and I will always be grateful for that.

My first neighbours and my first friends, from the time we were practically toddlers, were Malay. Some are still my fast friends today.

Growing up, I would “balik kampung” with them – nothing like eating in their homes, celebrating with their families, playing with their cousins and being surrounded by their aunties and uncles.

Nobody taught me Malay culture. I lived it. And so much of the “adab” that I carry today, I learnt from the Malays around me – from bowing slightly when passing in front of an older person, to “cium tangan”, how to address an elder and speak respectfully, and how respect isn’t just something said but what you show in the way you carry your humble self.

I loved the closeness of Malay families, too. Perhaps because my own family was small, those big families held a fascination for me.

But I never felt as though I was experiencing someone else’s culture. It just felt like Malaysia.

Then in 2018, my friend Elida used two words in a Facebook comment that touched my heart: “saudara senegara.”

I have never forgotten those words. There is something about them that expresses Malaysia better than I ever could. We aren’t merely citizens living within the same borders. We are saudara. We share a home.

Since then, I have looked at Malaysians with that fondness. Even those I disagree with. Those who upset me. Even the obnoxious “neighbour from hell” and those I cannot stand.

Still, saudara senegara.

Perhaps that is why I find it painful when people insist on putting us into ethnic boxes. I have been called a “betrayer of my race” and told that I have “internalised racism” simply because I embrace being Malaysian so openly.

But why should loving what is Malaysian require me to surrender anything?

I don’t become any less Tamil because I speak Malay. I don’t lose my ancestry because I adore laksa Kedah. I don’t betray my community because some “adab” I carry came from Malay families who welcomed me into their lives.

I would have been a tortured soul if I had been expected to live within only one ethnic and cultural identity, because that isn’t me.

My Malaysia is Tamil spoken at home and Malay and English spoken everywhere else. It is laksa Kedah in a school canteen. It is balik kampung and cium tangan. It is taking in delight the cooking of someone else’s mother and never feeling like a guest overstaying.

And maybe these are moments we wish to relive.

A time before we became so consumed with “race”. Before everything had to be separated into yours and mine. Before we forgot that living together is about more than tolerating one another.

Malaysia should feel like we truly belong.

When I think of my country, I don’t feel something intellectual that I can neatly explain. I feel something deeper. There is pride, protectiveness, affection and sometimes even pain, because you can only hurt this much when you love it so.

Malaysia is in the languages I speak, the food I crave, the manners I carry, the friendships I treasure and the way I look at another Malaysian and think, saudara senegara.

It is my “darah daging”, my flesh and blood. Malaysia is in my blood, my breath, and every part of me. And I truly want to pass this down to my children.

Padma Zachariah is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

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