IC, but I'd rather not
ID cards are controversial in Britain, but Malaysia has been a Big Brother state, I mean, has had Identification Cards (IC) since before I can remember. Yesterday I went to renew mine, at one of the ubiquitous government municipality buildings (the ones that look like they were designed by the incurably neurotic).
If you harbour any doubts about Malaysia's alleged secularity, dispel them now: one of the mandatory fields to fill on the ID card information form is agama, religion.
The woman at the counter took my form and poked at her keyboard. "Your details same from last time yah? Address and everything?"
"I think so," I began to say, but she interrupted me. Looked from the new form to the computer screen, and back to the form.
"Your religion is on the system as Buddhist."
That was from when I was 12, and my parents filled in my ID card details while I explored the cobwebbed corners of the registration office.
"Um," I said. "While I agree with many of the intuitive moral tenets of religions, and think that as a code of ethics by which to live one's life, one could definitely do worse than e.g. Christianity's 'Thou shalt not kill' or Buddhism's 'Perform good and wholesome actions', I'm leery of associating myself with a religion per se - I'd say I'm a passive agnostic, and I'm areligious rather than atheist, so, um, when I describe my religion as "N/A" on the new form, I think that's the best way to put it," I didn't say.
"I leave you as Buddhist ya? How can halfway change your agama."
"Um," I said.
She shot me a disapproving look - this nondescript Malay woman swathed in her tudung, with her left hand judiciously gloved to avoid direct contact with the unclean non-Muslim infidels of the world, and I saw, in her eyes, that there was no room for an identity not steeped in devotional servitude in the name of morality - let alone any single word to adequately encapsulate my identity in those terms. I thought I'd done pretty well with N/A, but apparently denominational identity is for life. I gave up. "Yeah, Buddhist, ok."
And that was that. She guided my thumb to the sensor (with her gloved hand, because I am an unclean infidel and the infidel areligious germs may spread through contact, oh no), and then sent me off, clutching a receipt that proved three things to me: 1) Malaysia is bloody well not a secular country, 2) Categories of identity are presumptuous by nature, and 3) It will forever irk me to think that when the government census trawls the database for 'Chinese Buddhist females' my name will be there, a silent testament to the perils of adopting unconventional stances in life.