when i was in high school sitting for SPM's moral studies paper (for those who don't know, moral studies is a compulsory subject we have to take in high school and SPM is the state exam we have to take in order to graduate), i remember having to write an essay response regarding my course of action if the country was facing some kind of crisis or might be taken over by other colonial powers (something along that line). the choice, if i remember correctly, was whether i would stay back in the country, fight for it to the very end and risk my own life for my country; or if i would choose to leave the country. we were supposed to write what we'd do and justify our choice by applying the moral values we've learned in theory.
i think it's a no-brainer to assume that, for a state exam like this when our papers would be sent to another school to be graded (most likely a public school) and what with the probability of the graders being pro-government and Muslims is higher than if they weren't, we should be politically correct when answering questions as such (especially when we were from a Chinese private school) -- if we want our A's, that is. being a naive 17 year old, i was like most people around me, attuned to believe that getting straight A's was all that mattered. so it's, again, safe to assume that, in this case the "politically correct" answer would be to stay back and fight for your country. as expected, everyone i knew wrote that -- except for me. i don't know what the heck i was thinking at that time, it was definitely one of those moments when i couldn't really explain why i did what i did, but yes, i wrote that i would flee the country to a place where i would be safe, and only go back when the crisis is over, my explanation being that if everyone were to die for the country then no one would be left to rebuild the country or reclaim the sovereignty of the country. what a smart ass. -.- but to be fair - technically speaking, it's somewhat logical (if you omit the fact that the country probably wouldn't be wiped out completely), however politically incorrect it was for a state exam. (thank god the government wasn't autocratic, or it would've sent the ISA - Malaysian equivalent of CIA - to come for me). but i guess at that time i was just being obstinate and refused to give in to the "societal expectations" (well i can't really pinpoint what it is that i refused to give in to, but it's just the overall "political correctness" that is expected out of us if we were to protect our welfare). besides, i couldn't get over the fact that i would've been hypocritical about it if i had written something i wouldn't do.
why i'm writing this is not so much about the exam that i took dog years ago as it is about the choice that we would make in real life, as opposed to a hypothetical situation. i can't say for sure, but my inkling is that, almost everyone who chose the former decision (to stay back and fight for the nation's sovereignty) probably wouldn't have done so if a coup really did happen in the country. truth is, it is only human nature that we would all flee and fight for our own survival before we would even think about our country. in other words, we would most likely save our own asses first, above all else. call me a traitor or unpatriotic, but it is the truth that this is how most people would react. at least, that was what i thought at that time. that being said, i can totally understand why some of us would write the former response in a state exam. why, i would've done the same thing if i were less obstinate, less rigid and more practical.
fast forward to 8 years after, i find myself changed a great deal. for one, if asked the same hypothetical question, i can't say for sure if i'd still feel the same way about it. that is to say, i wouldn't be so quick to say i would leave the country until it stabilizes. typically in a society, it's the youths who are all gung ho, idealistic and would go all out to fight for their country their ideologies; the older people get and the more education they receive, they tend to be more cynical, skeptical and maybe even bitter, resulting in them the lack of faith and the disillusionment of ideologies. yet for me, it seems to be the other way round. i find myself going from being skeptical to borderline hopeful, believing that if perhaps more people feel the same way and continue fighting for a more progressive society, then it would snowball into something more significant and eventually bring about some change. it's strange how i seem to "regress" to the state of borderline naiveté -- perhaps that's what years of being in the US did to me. (or in retrospect, it could be more due to the fact that i was away from home and me failing to understand in fullness the horrifying reality, as opposed to me being here in the States.)
back to that moral studies paper, i think it was only by sheer luck that I got an A for it. either way, that tiny incident prompted me to think about this, more realistically so than i would have. in real life, how many of us would choose to be sideliners and watch things fall apart through the television in another country if such a thing really happens in the future? the dispute on the word "Allah" that prompted Muslim radicals to firebomb churches seems like an early "symptoms" that we are heading there, if government doesn't take appropriate actions and/or change their ruling strategy. of course, no one wishes that to happen, and so hopefully the incident serves as a wake-up call to everyone, especially the politicians, such that something is done and the country wouldn't go backwards than it already has. but if and when this time bomb really does go off sometime in the future, i can only hope that i do the "right" thing, whatever "right" means according to my moral codes at that point of time.
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