malaysia is a land of pengecut

On my second day back in Malaysia, I attended a networking event for Malaysian students. We were discussing the familiar anxieties that seem to haunt every ambitious young Malaysian: brain drain, employment, whether our brightest minds should leave or stay. Then, someone brought up a data leak involving one of Malaysia's major corporations. The moment the topic appeared, people started looking around, lowered their voices, became careful with their words because apparently representatives from the company were in the room as sponsors of the event.

The irony was almost painful.

Interestingly, the data leak did not even happen at the Malaysian branch. Nobody was making an accusation without evidence, it was not like we were spreading a rumour. We were simply acknowledging something that had happened. Yet somehow, even speaking about a fact became something that required calculation.

I left that conversation asking myself a question that has refused to leave me ever since: what have we been taught growing up in Malaysia that makes us so afraid of naming things exactly as they are?

At what point did we become a society where people instinctively look over their shoulders before speaking? At what point did we become so accustomed to power that we began protecting it before anyone even asked us to? If we are afraid of naming small truths, how many larger truths have we buried because they were too uncomfortable, too inconvenient, too dangerous to say aloud?

Nobody had to threaten anyone in that room. Nobody had to tell us to stop talking. Nobody had to remind us of consequences. The fear had already done its job long before anyone entered the room. The fear was already inside us.

I wonder whether cowardice is something people are born with or something societies carefully cultivate.

Truthfully, I do not think anybody is born this way. Children are remarkably honest creatures. They point at contradictions, ask uncomfortable questions and describe the world exactly as they see it before adults teach them the vocabulary of politeness. Growing up, I remembered the number of times my mom would tell me that I "can't be too straightforward". 

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we acquire another language altogether, a language of survival. We become fluent in speaking around the truth. We learn that there are things everyone knows but nobody says aloud, words that exist but somehow become impolite the moment they describe someone powerful. Eventually, we stop requiring anyone to censor us because we have become remarkably efficient at censoring ourselves. We lower our own voices before anyone asks us to. We replace certainty with implication. We convince ourselves that maturity means understanding the room when perhaps maturity should have meant understanding our conscience instead. Ultimately, we become adults who censor ourselves before anyone else has to do so.

I think about this often because I saw another version of it during university. Throughout my psychology degree, I volunteered to attend course feedback meetings because I genuinely believed universities should be challenged by the students they claim to serve. Every year I found myself making the same criticism. Psychology has become remarkably comfortable discussing the individual while remaining deeply uncomfortable discussing the systems that shape individuals. We were taught attachment theory, personality disorders and emotional regulation, yet somehow conversations about genocide, colonialism, capitalism and gender-based violence always felt like optional footnotes rather than central realities shaping mental health. I kept asking how we could speak about trauma without speaking about the political conditions that manufacture trauma in the first place (listen more to my podcast episode). 

Whenever Palestine entered the conversation, I deliberately used the word genocide because I believed that was the most accurate description of what was unfolding. The response was almost always the same. Staff members who undoubtedly cared about human suffering would gently replace the word with something softer. Conflict. Crisis. The situation in the Middle East. Listening to those substitutions always unsettled me because language is never ever just merely descriptive, it is not just a matter of choosing a vocabulary. Words are not just words.

The words we choose decide what kind of reality we are willing to acknowledge and what kind of reality we are willing to look away from. The moment genocide becomes a “conflict”, the weight of responsibility slowly disappears. The perpetrator (that is Israel) becomes less visible, the victim (that is the Palestinians) becomes reduced into a statistic, and the urgency of human suffering becomes softened into something that sounds more neutral, more comfortable, more acceptable. Yet neutrality itself can become a form of violence when it demands that the oppressed carry the burden of being precise while everyone else is given the comfort of ambiguity. Cowardice like the university staffs I worked with, ultimatelty I believe, protect the comfort of those who have the privilege to remain untouched by the violence itself.

Perhaps that is why I have become almost obsessive about language. Words matter because they decide whether reality remains visible. Naming something accurately is an ethical act before it is a political one. 

Calling genocide as a genocide, 

corruption as betrayal of public trust, 

a sexual predator as a sexual predator, 

racism as racism, 

and exploitation as exploitation.

All of these should not be treated as acts of bravery or radical; how radical is being honest these days?  

Yet honesty has somehow become revolutionary in environments where everyone has learnt to dilute reality until it becomes palatable enough to coexist with power. I understand that there are moments when silence is necessary for survival. There are journalists facing imprisonment, activists facing intimidation and ordinary people whose safety genuinely depends on choosing their battles carefully. Survival is not cowardice. Fear is not shameful. But there is a profound difference between silence imposed by danger and silence chosen for convenience. When someone enjoys the privilege of speaking yet deliberately chooses softer words simply because accurate language might jeopardise comfort, reputation or career prospects, I struggle to interpret that as anything other than moral cowardice.

As I reflected further on that conversation during the networking event, I realised something that disturbed me even more than the hesitation itself. Nobody in that room had actually been threatened. Nobody had instructed us not to mention the company. Nobody had warned us that consequences would follow. The fear existed independently of any immediate danger. It had already settled inside us long before we entered that room. I began wondering whether this is how societies reproduce obedience across generations. Eventually, people no longer require censorship because they anticipate censorship before it arrives. Power no longer needs to silence anyone because ordinary citizens willingly perform that labour on its behalf. We become frightened of shadows that no longer require bodies because fear has already convinced us that the shadows must be real. We inherit caution so thoroughly that we mistake it for wisdom.

Perhaps some people at that table simply wanted jobs. The company representatives were potential employers after all. Graduate recruitment is competitive and everyone wants to leave a favourable impression. I understand that impulse because economic insecurity has a remarkable ability to negotiate with our principles. Yet I cannot ignore the uncomfortable possibility that this is precisely how institutions reproduce themselves. Young people quickly learn that opportunities belong to those who make powerful people comfortable. They discover that careers often reward diplomacy more generously than integrity, and after enough repetitions they begin mistaking strategic silence for emotional intelligence. Eventually they enter the workplace already fluent in the language of self-censorship. Nobody has to explicitly instruct them to protect power because they have already learnt that power tends to reward those who never question it directly.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether Malaysia has spent generations educating us into fear. We have watched activists investigated, journalists harassed, academics disciplined, whistleblowers punished and ordinary citizens threatened for saying what should have been obvious. Governments change yet the lesson remains remarkably consistent. Speak carefully. Know your place. Do not embarrass those above you. The result is a society where people become extraordinarily skilled at identifying what should remain unsaid. We congratulate ourselves for being diplomatic when often we have simply become afraid. We celebrate neutrality without acknowledging that neutrality almost always benefits whoever already possesses power. We tell ourselves that avoiding difficult words keeps the peace while quietly accepting that someone else will continue paying the price for our silence.

I often wonder what kind of adults emerge from an education built upon fear. Were they once children who instinctively recognised injustice until enough authority figures rewarded obedience instead? Were they students who learnt that asking difficult questions made classrooms uncomfortable, that challenging teachers invited punishment, that questioning institutions was interpreted as disrespect? If cowardice becomes habitual early enough, adulthood merely perfects the habit. We become professionals who know exactly how to produce reports without conclusions, statements without accountability and conversations without consequences. We become adults who instinctively search for the least offensive vocabulary rather than the most truthful one. I cannot help imagining that many of the people who now hesitate to name oppression were once students who also hesitated, and somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, they mistook fear for maturity.

This is perhaps why I have become increasingly unwilling to compromise my relationships for the sake of social harmony. Over the years, I have lost friendships because I insisted on naming oppression where others preferred ambiguity. Every single time it hurt because these were people I loved and respected, yet every single time I noticed something even more frightening than the possibility of losing them. I noticed that the longer I remained in environments where everyone constantly softened reality, the easier it became for me to soften my own convictions. Cowardice is contagious because humans naturally imitate the moral standards of the rooms they inhabit. Spend enough time around people who consistently choose comfort over truth and eventually compromise begins feeling reasonable. I realised that my greatest fear was never standing alone. My greatest fear was waking up one day and discovering that I had become someone who instinctively looked over my shoulder before speaking honestly.

Some people will undoubtedly read this essay and conclude that I am self-righteous. Perhaps they are correct. Perhaps I do sound morally demanding because I genuinely believe morality demands something of us. Advocacy that never requires sacrifice eventually becomes branding. Convictions that cost nothing eventually become aesthetics. The people I admire most have almost always surrendered something meaningful in pursuit of justice. They have lost jobs, friendships, reputations, safety and sometimes freedom itself because they refused to compromise on naming reality as they understood it. Their courage reminds me that principles only become visible when circumstances tempt us to abandon them.

Ironically, I went to study in the United Kingdom and solo travelled to over 13 countries, in the search of courage, only to realise that courage had always existed much closer to home. I found it among Rohingya refugees in Malaysia who continue demanding dignity despite relentless hostility. I found it among Malaysian activists willing to risk imprisonment, journalists who continue investigating corruption despite intimidation and ordinary citizens who refuse to surrender their conscience simply because fear has become fashionable. I found it in the history of people who fought for our independence despite knowing the personal cost of resistance. Courage has never belonged exclusively to any nation, ideology or institution. It belongs to those who continue speaking even after calculating what honesty might cost them.

Perhaps that is why I cannot accept the argument that naming oppression is somehow too radical. The people living through oppression rarely possess the luxury of soft language. Survivors of genocide do not experience genocide as conflict. Victims of sexual violence do not experience their perpetrators as merely controversial figures. Communities stripped of dignity do not experience systemic discrimination as unfortunate misunderstandings. Precision matters because reality matters. Every time we deliberately choose a softer word than the truth requires, we quietly ask victims to carry an additional burden so that everyone else may remain comfortable.

I no longer want that comfort. I no longer want friendships sustained by strategic silence or professional relationships dependent upon selective honesty. I no longer want to participate in conversations where everyone already knows the truth yet waits for someone else to bear the responsibility of saying it aloud. If that means people consider me difficult, confrontational or politically inconvenient, then so be it. I would rather spend my life learning how to become braver than spend it mastering the vocabulary of fear. Malaysia deserves citizens whose backbones are stronger than the systems attempting to bend them, and I refuse to believe that our national character must forever be defined by the instinct to whisper truths that should have been spoken loudly all along.

Will you die for your country or will your country kill you first?