You wake up in the morning to prepare to go to work.
You either drive or take public transport and you see many others like you – diligently going off to work to earn a living. Most of us are in the middle or lower income group. It’s hard work.
What keeps us going is our sense of responsibility to ourselves and our families. We have a duty to provide food, clothing, shelter, education and other cares for our family.
This is our daily routine. This is our life – the life of the majority of middle income earners.
What we need from the more powerful is to make life better for us. If they can’t make it better, we would be grateful if they did not make it worse.
We are not asking much from our political, corporate, social and religious leaders. We are only asking them to help create an environment that is conducive for all us to live peacefully, happily, with dignity and allow us the space to fend for those under our care.
We all want to be united and together help, in whatever small way, to make Malaysia a compassionate, productive, peaceful and happy home for all Malaysians. We want inclusive policies that don’t forget that at the bottom line, we are all human beings with common fears, challenges and dreams.
We refuse to be torn apart by religious or ethnic rhetoric because we know that it will ultimately burn the country down – everyone loses if this happened.
We know that a sense of humanity will transcend other -isms and ideologies. We have seen this in the history of the world.
As Merdeka Day approaches, let each one of us – the helpless middle class – send a message to the powerful elites that we will not allow any of them to let us lose our sense of humanity.
Let’s do it in our own best, polite but firmest way possible.
In this new era of hope in the country, let’s celebrate Merdeka differently from before – let the middle class do something to show that we have transcended the line of ethnicity and religion.
Happy Merdeka!
