University Days: The Day I Discovered Malaysia Has No Hope

It was initially just another Wednesday evening in 6th College, University Malaya.

I went for a swim with my friends and came back for another college dinner – fried hypothyroid chicken with sour, half-cooked vegetables.

We had a chat after our meal and made our way back to our rooms.

Along the corridor were anti-semitic posters put up by some Muslim students.

On them were the usual messages of how the Zionists were murdering innocent Palestine children and how the umat could help by boycotting Jewish products ranging from Kit Kat to Coca Cola, if these were even Jewish to begin with.

The posters did not carry any stamp to indicate approval from the university authorities.

A friend of mine wasn’t having his best days of life.

He took one brief look at the poster and tore it off the wall.

It was to be a mistake he would never forget.

Neither would I.

Later that night about 10 pm after the evening prayers, I had a visitation.

There were loud bangs on the door with shouts of 'buka pintu'.

The visitors were not Marfanoid aliens and greenish Martians or horrifying beasts with tentacles but no less terrifying anyhow.

At the doorway were a group of about seven Muslim students clad in long, flowing robes and white skull caps with six-inch beards for completion.

Apparently someone had thought that I was the one behind the removal of the anti-semitic poster.

I was led behind the hostel, where it was dark and secluded.

Thus began an orgy of racial supremacy and religious dominance.

The seven of them surrounded me and started hurling verbal abuses without prior clarification whether I was indeed the culprit.

They said I was ungrateful and unpatriotic and anti-Islam.

I was shoved back and forth and held by my collar.

One of them puffed a mouthful of kretek into my face.

Another challenged me to go back to China and India.

Somewhere between ‘pukimak’ and ‘babi Cina’, the hostel warden intervened and I was finally allowed to talk.

In the presence of the warden, the Islamists were as timid as a mouse and as gentle as a lamb.

I clarified to the warden that I was not the one they were looking for and had nothing to do with the act of removing any anti-Jewish posters.

They then turned their efforts into hunting for my friend and repeated the whole cycle of verbal harassment and threats of violence.

My friend and I were allowed to retreat to our rooms only at about 3 am.

That was the day I knew Malaysia had no hope.