My parents always took care to ensure I was in a multiracial, multicultural educational and social environment. That was an incredibly important consideration for my education.

It was easy to understand why.

Growing up in Johor, my father’s two best friends then were Chua Jui Leng and Gurdial Singh Nijar. His family conversed comfortably in Malay and English. During his teenage years at the Royal Military College, he was immersed in a multiracial and multicultural environment with Jui Leng and thrived. He won the award for best all-round student and then won a scholarship to Cambridge. He served in the foreign service for several years after graduating to serve his state scholarship.

He summed up his attitude towards race in his proposed message for the Royal Military College’s students in 2057 which is as follows:

“I hope the Royal Military College of 2057 will have found its way back to the vision of its Founder and its mission as set out in its original Charter. Above all that its putras are representative of the multiracial, multireligious, multicultural and geographically diverse country that is Malaysia; that all who pass through its portal will be Malaysians first to lead the country with honesty and integrity towards nationhood.”

His experience made him sure of four things where my education was concerned: a culturally diverse environment was preferable to a monoracial one, foreign exposure was important, and my primary language was to be English. The last was that we identified as Malaysians and not by the colour of our skin.

Despite all of them being Chinese, my mother’s family was teeming with diversity from the religious side. Partly from conviction and partly from marriage, there were Christians, Muslims, agnostics, and free-thinkers. Interestingly, nobody discussed or talked about their faith. Perhaps we had no time for it between our feasting, mahjong, card games and family visits.

My kindergarten was at Calvary Church, Bukit Damansara. It was where most of my father’s family and extended family sent their kids. Nobody ended up Christian despite a couple of years there and despite our music lessons being held in the church. After that, it was Sri Kuala Lumpur, then a domestic private primary school, where we were taught in English. Back then, Sri KL, as it is now known, were not as big and established as they are now. And back then, I was one of a handful of Malays (there were five of us) out of a school of around eighty to ninety students. I was in an English-speaking Malay minority, predominantly urban Chinese environment.

That changed when I attended Bukit Bintang Boys School in Petaling Jaya for my secondary schooling. I was then in a Malay-majority and Malay-medium school. Given my educational trajectory, I struggled. It was disorienting and challenging to acclimate, and for at least a year, I felt like an outsider. It did not help that my Malay, written and spoken, was terrible, and I was the rare lamb from a private school in a public school setting. It was usually the other way around. But I realise now I don’t do usual or linearity very well. After a couple of years, I found my feet, my posse and became a public school boy.

During my secondary years, my father mulled sending me to his beloved Royal Military College. I later asked him why he did not send me there. He replied the RMC had deviated from its original cause: It wasn’t racially diverse enough, the management was different, and the education had deteriorated from robust critical thinking during his time to rote learning during my time. That is how I did not end up there but went on to Taylor’s College, then Bristol University, which were all multicultural, racial, religious, etc. environments, where the Malays were always a minority.

Save for my secondary school years, I have always been in a Malay minority environment. And the Malays in those environments tend to possess qualities like I had – urbane, educated, modern, liberal, widely exposed to a variety of cultures, broad-minded and generally articulate. These are not absolute qualities but relative ones.

But the irony out of all this discussion of Malay minorities and majorities is that I have never felt like I was a Malay, as the government insists I am. If you ask me what race I am, I will tell you I am Chinese/Malay because my father was Malay and my mother is Chinese. If you ask me how I think, I’d tell you I don’t think or behave typically like either race. But even then, that’s not how I think about myself – a Chinese/Malay – because my parents raised me a Malaysian. I have always thought of myself as Malaysian, which transcends race and in doing so, has the capacity to unite them.

It therefore came as a shock during a conversation with my father during my pupillage when he reminded me that I was Malay. It must have been either before I started or soon after, because this advice was one of those ‘pre-legal practice’ sounding pieces of advice he gave me.

“Fahri, whatever work you are given, make sure it is done. Do it competently and hand it in on time. Just do your work. If you do that, they will think you are good. But if you give a bit more effort every time you do your work, say two to three per cent more, they are going to think you are great.”

“Ha? You mean just doing your work gets people thinking I’m good?”

“Yes.”

“And I do bit more and then they think, I am great?”

“Yes.”

I thought that didn’t seem right. Was the bar to greatness so low?

“Really, dad? Why is that?”

“Because you are Malay, Fahri. Or rather, you will be seen as one. Your name. Your legal status. My name. My legal status. You are legally Malay. And because of that, society will judge you as one. Professionally, the Malays are not highly regarded. That is why it is important that, at the very least, you do your work competently and meet your deadline. That’s the basic. If you can do more, well, Alhamdulillah. Use that to your advantage.”

I was stunned. It was the first time my father made me aware that I was a Malay and seen as one. Up to that point, I never really thought about it. Never bothered about it. It was unspoken, undiscussed and assumed, and so it lay beneath the surface of my awareness.

But it was true. That was the reality he wanted me to anticipate. Throughout my working life, especially in my early practice, I found my father’s truth confront me in another’s tone, in their surprise that I spoke English so well, or wrote so well, in their genuine shock that I was capable of sophisticated ideas and thoughts that escaped others.

I was also delighted to find his outlook expressed in Tun Zaki Azmi’s book, in his first chapter about education, under the subheading, Meriktokrasi.

Saya masih ingati pengalaman pertama saya ketika melaporkan diri bertugas di pejabat Presiden Kanan Mahkamah Sesyen Kuala Lumpur, Hakim Ng Mann Sau sekitar tahun 1970an. Saya bersama beberapa orang rakan yang lain telah di tempatkan di bawah penyeliaan Hakim Mahkamah Sesyen iaitu Kadir Kassim. Saya masih ingat pertanyaan Kadir Kassim sambil menunjukkan tangannya kepada kami, “Why do you thnk you are here? Because you are all Malays. Remember, you and I are not great unless we prove ourselves to be so.” Kata-kata ini adalah pengajaran pertama saya ketika mula menceburkan diri dalam bidang guaman. Kita bukan seorang yang hebat sehingga kita berusaha dan membuktikannya.

Tanpa Prejudis, Zaki Azmi, Bab 1, mukasurat/pages 39 – 40

Not that I minded being underestimated or having lowered expectations placed upon me. I enjoyed it and learned to savour it. There was far more room to do as I pleased in such an environment. If I did something silly or stupid, it was expected. If I did something not silly or stupid, it was lauded. Got it.

My father and I never had another conversation about us being Malays again.

There was no need to. It was enough. Work diligently. Give it that little bit extra. And be aware and mindful that my heritage could inhibit my career. And that we must cultivate sufficient good qualities, temperaments and attitudes to transcend the limiting racial and religious perception imposed upon us by our culture, traditions and society.

If enough of us commit to this, we will be on the journey to the Malaysia we wish for.

But in fairness, these are things that are easier said than done.