A Malaysia Now report about the Penang Chinese Town Hall inviting media outlets to cover a press conference titled "Support the Continuity of the Penang Chinese Chief Minister" in George Town on July 14 has piqued my interest.
It has made me wonder why Ramasamy was not appointed the Penang Chief Minister.
Prof. Dr. P. Ramasamy s/o Palanisamy became the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang in 2008. At that time, Lim Guan Eng was elected as the Chief Minister of Penang. In 2018, Pakatan conquered Putrajaya for the first time in history, and Lim Guan Eng was promoted to Finance Minister.
Logically speaking, Ramasamy, who had been serving as the DCM for ten years by then, should have taken over the CM position that Lim Guan Eng vacated.
However, this was not the case. Instead, a then-unknown person named Chow Kon Yeow, who none of us had heard of at that time, became Penang's new CM.
Why was Ramasamy overlooked in favour of Chow?
It can't be because of race because DAP is a party that has repeatedly said it is committed to meritocracy and a Malaysia for all Malaysians.
It can't be because Ramasamy lacks merit, either. If Ramasamy lacked merit, he wouldn't have been appointed to become the DCM of Penang in the first place.
Other than that, the title Professor and Doctor that precedes Ramasamy's name tells us he is highly educated. He also has ten years of experience as the DCM of Penang.
It can't be because Chow is a person of superlative talent, either. If Chow had such a superlative talent, we would have known about him before he was parachuted as the CM of Penang in 2018.
So what gives?
The irony of the situation is that Ramasamy has been vociferously advocating for meritocracy to be practised by other institutions. He has been known to come out very strongly against the practice of selecting a person for a job based on their race. Just a few months ago, Ramasamy was caught in a controversy for suggesting that the civil service is race-conscious and not merit driven.
I wonder how Ramasamy can clearly see that the civil service is race-driven and not merit driven but not be able to see from his own experience that his party might be race-driven and not merit driven.
What else explains that Ramasamy has never once questioned his party about why he was overlooked in favour of Chow?
It reminds me of a pepatah I learnt once upon a time in school : ‘kuman di seberang laut nampak, gajah di depan mata tak nampak’.
It is easy to pinpoint the flaws of others, but a person of integrity will study their shortcomings rather than be obsessed with the flaws of others.
The most astonishing thing about Malaysia is that although all of us believe that Malaysia practises racism, none of us can pinpoint even one racist person in our lives.
I wonder if it is because if we specifically point our finger towards someone, we are afraid that we will first have to point our finger towards ourselves.
Gandhi said: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
When we set out to change the world without the willingness to change ourselves, we don't want to change the world. We hate ourselves and wish to quarrel with the world.
If we truly want to change the world, the first thing we will do is change ourselves. We will change ourselves until we can love ourselves, and then we will change the world in a way that will allow it to love itself as we love ourselves.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a columnist at FMT, a mathematics teacher in the Klang Valley and a seeker of the meaning of life. So far, there are three things that he holds to be unequivocally true. The first is that the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, the second is that you cannot be happy unless you carry your fair share of the world's weight and the third is that you can never underestimate your ability to take your own side.
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