Malaysians always take pride in what we have lost or something that is not really related to us, but what can we really learn from it. Recently, there is a news surfacing that Jocelyn Yow, has made history as the youngest woman of colour to be the mayor of Eastvale city in California, at just 25 years old. Hailing from Alor Setar, she used to be a student of SMJK Keat Hwa, but subsequently her family migrated to the US.
We also have a Penang-born former journalist, K. Gurunathan who has migrated to New Zealand, has been re-elected as the mayor of Kapiti Coast earlier this year, a role he has held since 2016.
In Western Australia, 60-year-old Malaysian-born Sam Lim won the policeman of the year award, becoming the first non-white to clinch the coveted prize.
Back in 2011, a woman originally from Penang, Helen Chuah took oath as the mayor of Colchester city in Britain. She is the first non-English mayor of the historic town. She began her service in the city as councillor in 1998.
Paul Ng, another Malaysia-born mayor was elected into the office of Canning city in Western Australia in 2015.
I also remember in 2003, Guy Sebastian also born a Malaysian won the Australian Idol, a popular singing competition.
Of course, we are always proud and happy to have our fellow Malaysian-born friends who have achieved success in other parts of the world. But on the contrary, if we were to think about it, why and how did they achieve such success?
In the first place, why did they leave our country, Malaysia and migrated elsewhere? There could be many different reasons people move to another country. It could be due to relationships, family, education, career, business or for many other reasons. But one thing that we can be sure of is that they found a better life and opportunity in those places.
Imagine if Jocelyn Yow, K. Gurunathan, Paul Ng and Helen Chuah did not leave Malaysia, how would their fate turn out to be? Would Sam Lim be honoured with the police force’s top award if he were to serve in the Royal Malaysian Police? Of course it would be very difficult to justify, there will be a lot of if’s and but’s.
But what we can justify is that these group of Malaysian-born individuals have learnt that places elsewhere did not see them as people of colour. They were not judged by their skin colour or where they were originally from. Nobody labelled them as ‘pendatang’, despite they were not born from the respective countries that they are in now. They are evaluated based on their merits, performance and capabilities.
Of course, probably the people in those cities only sees the position of the mayor as a job that has to make sure they run the city well, regardless of where the mayor comes from. Perhaps what they see is if you can take care of everyone in the city, you will be able to take care of our ethnic and religion as well. Who needs somebody of the same skin colour to take care of one of his own?
There may be different opinions, but to a certain extent, Malaysia has not been evaluating performance through merits and capabilities. To a certain extent, whether it is in the public office or in the private sector, ethnic-bias is still present. And this is one of the many reasons that some Malaysians decided to migrate, that causes brain drain.
As much as we feel happy to take pride in the achievements of our Malaysian-born friends, we should really learn the lessons from those cities that the priority of electing public officials is not about race, religion and skin colour. What we need is someone that can work to develop the city, state and country as a whole; without being biased.
While some may think that I am only mentioning a specific race, but no, I am talking about all other races as well. Since I am of Chinese ethnicity, let me simply put that I do not necessarily need a Chinese to fight and advocate for what I need for. It could be a Malay, Indian or a person from any other race that is representing the constituency that I live in, as long as that person does his jobs well. I do not need a Chinese representative that does not do the job.
Although it might be a loss to Malaysia, we should be happy for Jocelyn Yow, as she has proven that Malaysian-born people are as capable as people from developed countries. We should also be happy because we realise that there is a problem within our country, and by realising and accepting a problem, then only we can solve it.
Hopefully many will see these news of Malaysian-born elected mayors as a lesson and hope for our politics to grow constructively. And let us congratulate them and hope we will have the opportunity to hear more of their success stories. One day, we must make them proud of their home country, Malaysia.
This article is published in Kwong Wah Yit Poh in Chinese dated 22 December 2020.