I was born in the year 1991, the same year Wawasan 2020 was coined. So I grew up watching big things being built. KLIA, Sepang Circuit, and KL twin towers, then the world's tallest tower. To a young child, Malaysia was the greatest country. In schools, we would dream and draw pictures of flying cars and space travels.
But the thing about growing up too fast (as some of you call me uncle) is that your beautiful dreams get shattered. You become aware of the problems that plague our country. The crime and corruption, racism and hate, scandals and injustices and discriminations.
Run, they told me. To Singapore, Australia, UK or US.
Run and never come back. You're still young. A better life awaits you.
But I said I want to stay and change this nation.
Run, they said. Ah boy, you still young. This country cannot save wan.
When you old like us you will know cannot wan.
But what is "cannot wan"? In these two and a half years with TFM, I have seen many "cannot wan"s.
Alex is a 13-year old from Peralihan. Half the time he was absent from school, and the times he was present he sat quietly at the back of the class. It was only after marking his exam papers did I find out he was illiterate. And I spoke to his BM/BI teachers, and they said memang macam tu. Some students cannot do anything wan. And the Peralihan class had 50+ students, so I left him behind.
This year he happened to be in my class again. And I thought, let's try something new. After assigning the class homework every day, I would sit down with him and talk to him. He would just shake his shoulders at me. And every day I would say, Hey do you want to learn something? If you want to, I'll teach you how to read. And finally he said yes. And so I taught him simple sentences. And later on I found out he didn't know the letters of the alphabet, I would sit with him in class, writing the same thing over and over again.
Before the final exam, he came to me with a sheepish smile, and a skip to his step, and ask me "Cikgu, tulis mana dalam ujian?". He cannot follow the actual syllabus, so I tell him to just write whatever sentences I taught him in his exam and I'll grade him based on that. Many of the sentences are still full of spelling errors. But here's a kid, who never opened his mouth, never showed any enthusiasm for studying, taking the initiative to ask me what to do in his exam. Even after the exam, when every other kid is just messing around in school, he comes to me with his pen and crumpled exercise book and waits for me to teach him something new. A kid that every teacher wrote off, a kid that every teacher said cannot do anything.
So bring on all the "cannots", all the impossible cases. Because I see in front of me, a generation that chose to stay and fight, and every single day turning cannots into cans, the impossible into the possible. I see an unstoppable force, standing up to the problems that plague our nation and say "NO MORE!".
Alex dared me to dream again of the impossible. And this is my dream. That one day Malaysia boleh will stop being a joke said out of irony and sarcasm. Because one day, Malaysia Boleh, will really mean Malaysia Boleh. But we are no longer the children of tomorrow. We are the present. This is our time. The time to do more than dream.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently... The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
