Liberals, nothing more than those passionate in liberating others.

“In the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful.” More than just a sentence, it is an utterance of faith in one omnipotent God, declared by Muslims all around the world before committing even the simplest of deeds. An act so entrenched, it has been taken for granted by those caring only to wet their lips with these beautiful names of Allah, without thoroughly embracing their meanings by heart.

Allah is ar-Rahman, the most Beneficent, the most Gracious. Allah, God of all things living and not, does not discriminate according to blood, family-line, religion, and yes, including race, in awarding His bountiful wealth to a person deserving of what he had worked for.

A person not learned in the laws of God, I could not speak for the many interpretations of God’s kindness. Yet, one thing I do understand is that a number of ways could be used in attempts to explain fairness and equality in various economics terms.

Based on an idea suggested by one John Nash in his 1950 doctorate dissertation in Princeton, the best result achievable by a group of players is when all involved acted in the interest of the group, not of individual preferences. In other words, there is no harm, only goodness, that could come out of sharing, rather than fighting. John Nash may be the one who discovered the theory; the result, however, had been promised by God thousands of years back.

The embarrassing question we cannot avoid but to ask ourselves now is, why do more citizens of Malaysia – in fact, let’s call them the majority – believe so much in the pessimistic view of zero-sum game, that they are afraid to face even the most inevitable challenges of life?

Human beings are created by God from sounding clay, in an array of tones from dark to fair, not for us to shout our claims of which land belongs to who, but to appreciate the differences in us as the glue that has been keeping human relationship from falling apart as God prefers not for one group to feel above another by what granted to them, except only of humility.

With all due respect, I ask, what is a constitution except words written by mortal human beings who did not have the ability to foresee the coming future even if they had wanted to?

Malaysia may be a young country, but based on human time, it had been a while now since we last saw 1957, and the Malaysians that are currently living here are no different from their neighbors except for the limitations put in their way by those easily brought down from vulnerable seats of power.

We are a scared bunch of people. Regrettably, because of our unwarranted fear, not only are we restricting the gains of those we are afraid of facing in a game of strength and perseverance, but because of negative-sum game, indirectly we are putting a constraint to what we can fully achieve too. God is fair, and karma is mean.

I’m proud of 1Malaysia. In fact, why don’t we stretch it further to include 1World?

The challenge now is, to those who have been eating the cili padis, are you too arrogant to defy the law of God for those written by men? Is being Malay, a race, a color of the skin, that is only as pure as the Gombak river, more important to you than being a Muslim, a religion, unchanged by neither time nor weather?  

Wallahualam.

-C-