Malaysian Perspectives on Migration, Identity, Queerness and Belonging in New Zealand
Malaysian Perspectives on Migration, Identity, Queerness and Belonging in New Zealand
One of the questions that has occupied much of modern society is how we create a better world. We debate policies, advocate for change, challenge systems of power, and search for new frameworks to address inequality, loneliness, exclusion, and social fragmentation. Yet despite our best efforts, many people continue to feel disconnected from one another. Communities remain divided, trust continues to erode, and a growing number of people struggle to find a genuine sense of belonging.
Listening to Kyle Tan reflect on these questions offers a different perspective. Rather than beginning with institutions, governments, or policy reform, he begins with something much more fundamental. He begins with love.
For many people, the word 'love' is an uncomfortable one. It often sounds too emotional, too personal, or too idealistic to be taken seriously in conversations about society and social change. We are comfortable discussing evidence, outcomes, systems, and accountability, but we rarely ask what role love might play in shaping the kind of world we want to live in. Yet perhaps that discomfort itself reveals something important. Perhaps we have become so accustomed to analysing problems that we have forgotten to ask what ultimately holds people together.
Kyle’s reflections suggest that one of the great losses of modern life is not simply the erosion of community but the gradual disappearance of a more holistic understanding of love. In many traditional philosophies, including Chinese philosophical traditions, love was never understood as a purely private emotion. It was expressed through relationships, responsibilities, respect, care, reciprocity, and the ongoing work of maintaining connections with others. Love was embedded in family, community, and social life. It was not something separate from society; it was one of the foundations upon which society rested.
Modern societies often approach these same concepts differently. We separate them into categories and disciplines. We talk about wellbeing, social cohesion, mental health, family dynamics, leadership, and civic responsibility as though they are independent subjects. In doing so, we gain analytical clarity, but we may also lose sight of the larger picture. What was once understood as an interconnected whole becomes fragmented into individual components. The language changes, but so does the way we understand ourselves and our place within the world.
This fragmentation extends beyond academic theories. It can be seen in the way people increasingly relate to one another. Conversations become organised around differences rather than commonalities. Individuals are grouped by race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, political beliefs, or professional identity. While these identities matter and often reflect important lived experiences, they can sometimes obscure a deeper truth. Beneath these categories, human beings continue to seek many of the same things. We want to be understood. We want to be accepted. We want to feel that our lives matter to others. We want to belong.
As migrants, queer people, and individuals navigating multiple cultural worlds, the speakers in the conversation describe this search for belonging in particularly vivid ways. Migration often forces people to question assumptions they once took for granted. It reveals that culture is not universal but contextual. Practices that seem normal in one society appear unusual in another. At the same time, migration can also reveal unexpected similarities between people. Values that seem different on the surface often emerge from shared desires for connection, dignity, family, and community.
Perhaps this is why Kyle returns repeatedly to the idea of remembering. He is not advocating for a rejection of modern knowledge, nor is he suggesting that we abandon social progress. Instead, he is asking whether there are forms of wisdom that have been overlooked or forgotten. In a world that often prizes innovation, perhaps there is also value in remembering what previous generations understood about relationships, responsibility, and care.
This perspective also offers an interesting challenge to many contemporary approaches to social change. Much activism is understandably focused on resistance. Resistance has an important place in society because it exposes injustice and creates opportunities for transformation. Yet resistance alone cannot tell us what kind of future we are trying to build. It can identify what is wrong, but it cannot always articulate what is worth preserving. It can challenge harmful structures, but it cannot by itself create meaningful alternatives.
The conversation suggests that social transformation requires more than opposition. It requires a positive vision of what it means to live well together. It requires a language that speaks not only to rights and responsibilities but also to relationships. It requires an understanding of humanity that is not built solely on critique but also on connection.
What makes Kyle’s reflections compelling is that they are ultimately hopeful. They suggest that, despite the divisions in contemporary society, a common thread runs through human experience. Regardless of culture, race, sexuality, nationality, or background, people continue to long for recognition, belonging, and genuine connection. We may describe these desires differently, but they remain remarkably universal.
In many ways, the question Kyle poses is not simply a philosophical one. It is a deeply practical question. If we want stronger communities, healthier societies, and more meaningful relationships, we must ask ourselves which values can bring people together. Policy plays an important role. So do institutions, education, and social reform. Yet none of these can replace the human capacity to care for one another.
Perhaps that is why the conversation continually returns to love. Not because love is naïve, sentimental, or disconnected from reality, but because love may be one of the few ideas large enough to hold together everything that has become fragmented. It reminds us that beneath our differences, identities, and disagreements, there remains a shared human desire to be seen, to belong, and to matter.
At a time when much of public discourse is focused on what separates us, there is something quietly radical about asking what brings us together. Perhaps the answer is not something new that we have yet to discover. Perhaps it is something old that we have simply forgotten. Perhaps the challenge before us is not to invent a new way of being human, but to remember what it means to love.
Full Podcast: Malaysian Perspectives on Migration, Identity, Queerness and Belonging in New Zealand
