So very interesting to see privilege (or the notions around it) seems to be measured around material wealth, and not the cultural competence in navigating a certain system without it. https://twitter.com/ezzatyhasbullah/status/1321225130744422403

I wouldn't go as far as denying a personal success, but if one takes a step back to reflect on the conditions that enable success - this is not merely spatial progress from rumah flat to a middle class housing to mark some kind of started from the bottom now we here.

Her case is a typical example of intergenerational mobility that was facilitated by government scholarships - the kind that gets your mother to pursue your higher education in the UK and to return home, to be able to secure certain kind of jobs.

Oftentimes, in the discourse of success, the idea of working hard-deserving it, earning it, becomes the dominant narrative. Yes this is true, but what's also true is...

To have the mental ideas - the length and width of possibilities of what constitute success in tertiary education and beyond, and most importantly, the routes/the hows to achieve these successes. These are aspirational qualities, that are nurtured thru having cultural competence.

It also requires a familiarity to identify what constitutes a relative privilege e.g. the symbolic capital of overseas education for instance. But how do you fully grasp these things and the potential benefits they'll bring?

And no, privilege is not automatically cancelled/erased at the point of working hard, proving success, therefore justified. What we can do is actively acknowledging the kind of privilege we have in achieving something. This is not a privileged/not privileged, or yes/no thing...

But a continuous self-reflectivity of 'will I be able to achieve this without x,y, and z?', 'what if I wasn't there?', the 'what ifs' of being on the other side, of not being something you are/were.

And privilege should not be reduced to the question of haves/have nots, but the ability to recognise, mobilise and utilise certain advantages into accomplishment. This is what we need to talk about more. Because privilege becomes productively effective in that sense.