The recent debate on the merits of accommodating Rohingya refugees continues to perplex. If anything, this debate underlines Mahathir’s adage that people often forget.
After all, Malaysia is, first and foremost, an immigrant nation. Unless you are part of an Orang Asli tribe, chances are that your own family line has been a very recent addition to the melting pot of multiracial Malaysia. In fact, I believe that for most Malaysians of my generation, a quick look up the family tree would reveal at least one grandparent or great-grandparent who made that fateful decision to devote their lives to this land that has now become our “tanah tumpah darah”.
My own maternal grandmother was the daughter of a religious preacher from the uplands of Sumatra who eventually settled in Padang Rengas, Perak. Another grandmother was actually an immigrant herself, coming to these shores in matrimony to a local cleric in Kuang, Selangor.
Malaysia is a land built on the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants. Plantation workers, rubber tappers, tin miners, moneylenders, petty traders: the modern Malaysian economy was built on the contributions of those who chose this land to be their own.
And yet here we are, descendants of immigrants, so eager to jump on the most virulent of racist tropes about the Rohingya. And more so, in these first days of Ramadan, when Muhammad himself was a refugee who escaped persecution in Makkah to build a new life and a new Muslim nation in his newfound home that he renamed Madinah.
In the spirit of this holy month, let us together learn to let go of our prejudices, and learn to accept our fellow Muslims – nay, our fellow human beings – with the conviction of love and dignity that our Messenger made his life’s work.