When Merdeka was granted half a century ago, we inherited a number of items of unfinished business, the most critical of which was the urgent necessity to create a united Malayan nation and, soon afterwards, a Malaysian nation.
The late Tom Harrison, the famous curator of the Sarawak Museum, described Malaysia as “a tangle of peoples” in an article published in the Malaysian Outlook, a small journal I edited in Australia in 1963, in a fit of patriotism. “Konfrontasi” was in full swing then, and, given the dangerously unpredictable and volatile behaviour of Bung Karno of Indonesia, our future as a nation was by no means assured.
Harrison was not thinking so much about the Malays, Chinese and Indians of the Malay peninsula, but rather the often forgotten peoples making up the many different tribal and ethnic groups with their many different customs, religious beliefs and languages inhabiting Sabah and Sarawak. Almost overnight, they found themselves the citizens of a new and, to them, somewhat vague political creation called Malaysia. The Kadazan Dusuns, Bajaus, Punans, Penans, Kayans, Muruts and various others, I fear, still remain very much outside our consciousness, even after more than four decades of Malaysia. Need I say more about this serious lapse of memory? What national unity are we talking about without them?
When the British government responsible for the administration of these two colonial territories decided to bring to an honourable and dignified end of their stewardship and allow the sun to set on these, the last remnants of their Eastern Empire, the newly-proclaimed state of Malaysia took on not only additional responsibilities for her new citizens, but also assumed a new character and identity. National unity with which we had been preoccupied all those years before and since Merdeka took on a new urgency.
Young Malays of my generation, growing up under colonial rule, saw Merdeka as a great opportunity to bring about change, with courage, compassion and wisdom, and rectify those aspects of colonialism that we had considered repugnant to our sense justice, pride and dignity.
Creating a truly united Malayan nation was the number one item on the national agenda, one that was inspired by Tunku Abdul Rahman’s exemplary personal example of inclusiveness in which race was nothing more than an accident in the larger scheme of things Malayan, and later, Malaysian. Tunku saw strength in diversity and did everything possible to drive home the need for all races to unite as one and to show their love and affection for the country of their birth. Those were the early days of independence when the Constitution absolutely guaranteed the citizens their rights. The people felt they belonged and had full confidence in the institutions of government which remained largely unsullied. The same cannot be said of many of our national institutions today.
Looking back now over the last 50 years, we have achieved a great deal in material terms, far more than the most bullish among us would have dared to imagine. If material progress were the only measure of success in creating unity out of diversity, then we could reasonably claim to have arrived. But, have we? Or are we just postponing the evil day by papering over the cracks and glossing over issues that divide us, while ignoring the legitimate concerns, demands and aspirations of our people for a rightful place in the Malaysian sun.
The time to rediscover and re-establish our sense of Malaysian-ness is now and this can best be done by allowing the people of each community, large and small, the freedom to retain their cultural practices, traditions and values, always recognising that with freedom there is a corresponding responsibility to contribute to national unity. In matters of culture and language, people can usually be relied upon to decide for themselves. All cultures must be treated as Malaysian, and celebrated as such. They must not be politicised.
We must, for a start, accept cultural diversity, in the fullest sense, as an article of faith. Merely tolerating the cultural traditions of the other races is simply not good enough anymore for a country that, after 50 years of independence, is still groping for that elusive Malaysian identity. Our aim should be to achieve smooth and seamless integration that will stand the test of time as an essential prelude to achieving the essence of Malaysian- ness, that state of being that defies definition or description, but captures our imagination as nothing else can.
The role of education in nation building and in bringing about social and economic change is not in dispute. We have seen what investment in education has done for thousands of our people, of all races, particularly the Malays who have, within one generation, completely transformed themselves in social and economic terms.
On the debit side, the thousands of unemployable young men and women have hampered efforts to develop and improve our human capital. Our decision to downgrade English more than three decades ago has completely rendered our young people ill-equipped for employment in the new knowledge-based industries. The more serious overall consequence of our policy of neglecting the most important international language makes Malaysia a much less competitive investment destination for the higher-end technologies that could help Malaysia to leapfrog up the knowledge and value chain.
The application of some aspects of the New Economic Policy has not helped in the process of human capital development because by our depriving many non-Bumiputeras of equal educational opportunities and by discriminating against them in public sector employment, there is still today an overwhelming sense of alienation and injustice. I have always subscribed to the view that you could only justify a policy of positive discrimination if it was implemented in strict observance of the aim and spirit of that policy which was, in this case, principally to alleviate the poverty that afflicted many millions of people of all races in our community.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. When it became evident that the spirit of this great social experiment was being violated blatantly to serve the interests of the few politically connected breed of self-proclaimed Melayu Baru instead of improving the lot of the disadvantaged, the NEP tragically lost its legitimacy. But I digress. The point I am making is that unfair policies whether social or political detract from our efforts to develop and enrich our human capital with the result that the essential spirit of common heritage and shared values, of being part of an important national initiative is lost in the politics of discrimination. There is no evidence to suggest that people will give of their best, make sacrifices, and be loyal to the country of their birth when they are made to feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are second-class citizens.
National unity must be predicated on equality of opportunity, justice and equity. Anything less is unsustainable. Fifty years of Merdeka still finds us groping in a tunnel of darkness for that elusive, overarching spiritual experience that defines the essence of “Malaysian-ness”.
It would be unfair to blame the government entirely for the present state of race relations in our country. It must, however, admit that it has not always been energetic and competent in dealing with problems that are largely associated with official policies that are seen as Malay-centric. Policies affecting education, language and culture tend to generate a highly-charged emotional response, and are always divisive. Change has to be managed with compassion and imagination.
A word about our international competitiveness. A stable political system is a prerequisite as is an efficient and incorruptible bureaucracy. We need to ensure a ready supply of trained and trainable human resources, hence the need for investment in developing our human capital. But above all else, we all need to operate in an ethical way, fight and reduce corrupt practices so as to be able to attract investments to sustain our national economic development. Corruption adds a cost to doing business, and it is in our interests to reduce it so that that we can improve our competitive position.
In summary, therefore, the future of Malaysia, given its racial and cultural complexity, depends on our ability to encourage and promote unity in diversity, focus on similarities and values that unite us rather than harping on differences that divide us. We have our work cut out for us as we seek to bring about a convergence of interests as a basis for developing mutual trust, and respect for diversity in all its manifestations.
(First published in my New Sunday Times column in September 2007. It is reproduced, with due acknowledgement, and thanks to the NST.)
Well.Umno would not listen to such idea or proposal to look for similarities among our diversified people of race.culture and religion.Umno has decided long time ago to go for malay supremacy or ketuanan melayu with Islam as the supreme religion.You can see what they are doing,or going all out doing with full force to achieve these two objectives.Umno is not giving even an inch of leeway to all those who oppose them. Hence I find these blocks or walls created by Umno ,pretty tough for others to work or cooperate with Umno to create racial and religious unity and harmony in our diversified country.On the contrary,should Umno and even PAS have people unity in their respective agenda in the early independence or creation of Malaysia,malaysia current political racial and religious problem would not have happened like what’s happening right now.Umno knew it then and knows it now that they need to safe guard its best interest or self best interest to manipulate and exploite its own race and religion .Umno leaders past and present knew/know that generally the humble malay folks are pretty sensitive to its own race and religion and have been creating various sentiments to arouse and keep these humble folks focus and glue to Umno as its the hero and protector of the malay race and islam.This is not true as projected by Umno but the harm and damage have been done.To undone it,it needs more than a herculean effort,can PR do it ?
Those who are old enough recall growing up with other races freely and uninhibited.
The truth of the matter is unity in this country has a simple solution. So long as the rules are made clear and cases of bigotry dealth with in court of law, left to our own devices we will unite.
There is no real history of violent conflict between the races. Culturally, left on our own, we can accomodate each other quite easily.. In fact we have done so for a few century before we got independence.
What it takes is just liberal democratic education of everyone, freedom of expression and a court of law to discourage discrimination.. Given that and so long as economic well beings of everyone is taken care of, we will unite..
Our divide is like much that is wrong with the governance of this country – a waste of our inherent assets – our tolerance, our moderation, our tendency to avoid conflict and violence, and our abhorence of violence.
Its why the govt excuse of extremism of demonstrators and protestor is so manufactured because we were not so before, its not who we are. Our civil disobedience is a by-product of abuse of our natural assets like our forest, our streams, oil. etc..
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/press_statements/press_release_clarification_regarding_rohaizat_othman.html
Please print out the above clarification, translate it into Malay, Chinese and Tamil and have them posted up throughout Permatang Pasir. Then wait for Rohaicheat to lose his deposit on 25th August.
This a good well written article by Tunku Abdul Aziz (“Tunku”). “Untangling the peoples of Malaysia”, “Unity within Diversity” – and even Najib’s 1 Malaysia – is but an aspiration, a hackneyed and often repeated political slogan that has no correspondence with and in fact contradicted by reality, laws and policies. After 50 years of independence these concepts have, on the ground receded further and further from, instead of being nearer to from the professed objective.
We know the factors contributing to disunity. However how does one raise much less address them when to do so always incurs the risk of being accused of sedition??????
One such as alluded to by Tunku is the implementation of the New Economic Policy when he comments, “the application of some aspects of the New Economic Policy has not helped in the process…..there is still today an overwhelming sense of alienation and injustice”. The seeds of that germinated from abandonment of the Malayan Union, the constitutional provision of Special Privileges (derived from the so-called Social Contract) since amended as perennial from its original 15-year renewable tenure during Tun Dr Mahathir (TDM)’s watch.
Another is the communal/racial nature by which the main backbone political parties of the ruling coalition (since independence) are predicated: UMNO for Malays, MCA for Chinese and MIC for Indians, so that it is a profound contradiction that when politicians fight for the interest of one race that their party promotes to secure their votes, they can still make the hollow and diametrically contradictory claim that they are not acting against the interest of all Malaysians of all races!
TDM makes an apology for this when he said “It is no good blaming the politicians for perpetuating racial schism. Some of them who tried to ignore racial loyalties simply failed politically… For various reasons the races preferred to stay separated…. Those who reject racialism simply lost popular support. But those who embrace racialism won”. – see paragraphs 13 and 14 of TDM’s take in his Chedet’s blog on subject “Malay Unity and Malaysian Unity” here -http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2008/09/malay-unity-and-malaysian-unit.html
Yet another is found in TDM’s comments in para 17 of same thread in chedetblog, and I quote verbatim – “Then came the resurgence of Islam worldwide. The Malaysian Malays began to adopt Islamic conservativeness especially with the dress code. This tended to push them further apart from the non-Muslims who saw this as an attempt to differentiate Muslim Malaysians from non-Muslim Malaysians..”
This “resurgence” in TDM’s words (since the time Ayatollah Khomeini Islamic revolution in Iran) has created a feeling of greater “separateness” from others affected not just the constitutents of UMNO of the ruling coalition but also that of PAS and, to lesser extent, PKR of the Opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR). So even if one discounts last 50+ years of Malaysia political history and look forward to the next 50+ year of Malaysian future (even under PR, if it should win the GE), it is sanguine to hope that the spectre of Malaysian Disunity will not equally haunt!
Is there a solution by TDM? Not really. TDM in para 24 obliquely attributes problem of disunity to “weak government” (Quote) – “The trend is obviously against Malaysian Unity. A weak and unstable Government with its crude attempts to win over the different races through giving in on all demands does not help. Every time it gives in to the demands of one race it simply antagonises and pushes the other races further away.”
Now most will agree that the government under TDM was authoritarian and strong and yet it was that administration more than any other that, by its constitutional amendments of article 153, vigorous implementation of NEP and vigorous Islamisation policies to counter the winds of resurgence blowing from West Asia, that, by TDM’s very own premises of what causes national disunity, has laid down all the seeds and foundation of Malaysian Disunity.
Further reference is made here to my quote of TDM’s apologic remarks, “It is no good blaming the politicians for perpetuating racial schism. Some of them who tried to ignore racial loyalties simply failed politically… For various reasons the races preferred to stay separated…. Those who reject racialism simply lost popular support. But those who embrace racialism won”.
This is a weak and pathetic apology for failure of political leadership. Yes we all know that the very objective of politics is to lobby, campaign and persuade constitutuents for votes to high office in order to secure power – and that to do this one has to keep in close touch with the tempo and pulse (aspirations, concerns, as well as insecurities) of one’s contitutency.
Hopwever a slavish pandering of one constituents’ insecurities – nay, even aggravation of these insecurities) for the securing of votes to the derogation of the wider agenda of national harmony and national interest represents to me the characteristic of a failed political leadership.
Ask yourself what does the term “leadership” imply – what is a the chief attribute of a leader?
To lead is to organise, conduct guide, go first (as captain) of a group. Go where? The answer must be to where the society and nation is emplaced on the next higher platform of organisation of societal and national affairs – that transcends race, religion and is promotive of collective Malaysian interests.
There are of course risks of the nature highlighted by TDM – ie losing votes of one’s constitutents.
However, a balance must be struck between the conflicting imperatives of keeping in tandem with the pulse, aspirations and sentiments of one’s own constituents, on one hand, and, on the other hand, inspiring and leading them beyond their own insecurities and shortcomings to another plane, symmetrical and promotive of wider national aspiration and interest of all Malaysians structured around unity within diversity.
To continually wallow deeper and deeper in quagmire of internecine and inter -racial/religious sniping and conflict – which is the story of the last 50+ years of national development since independence – in order just to get votes and stay in power can hardly be termed “higher” in relation to the organisation of societal and national affairs.
Instead of guiding inspiring followers to drop old undesirable habits of minds to switch to and support higher objectives, to pander to debilitive old habits of minds for slavish garnering of votes is failure of political leadership, ie political bankruptcy.
Malaysia still awaits the Stateman – the national Messiah.
He is either not yet born and taking a holiday somewhere (away from politics).
eaits
“…..He is either not yet born OR taking a holiday somewhere (away from politics)…”
Jeffrey, that was a first-class fine piece of oratory. Words beautifully crafted and apt. Congratulations! Only the last sentence, I don’t agree. To me, the Messiah is already born but probably still running around without his pants. Yes, among this new young generation will come a Messiah. Not the present batch of rubbish.
Unity was in god progress..until Mahathir took over.
It took 22 years by Mahathir … applying…”to divide and rule”…..killing UMNO…killing Tunku’s legacy…established his UMNO BARU….with him as first member…to wipe out true history.hoping 100 years from now….his name will live forever…know in history,,and Tunku is a nobody.This vicious ungrateful man…hates Tunku for expelling him…and it takes another crook like Harun Idris to pull strings and get Mahathir back to UMNO….and the rest his history.
His most vicious and cruel political act was creating an issue to jail Anwar for 6 years…which later proved innocent.
His said…”I can play dirty politic too”…and proved every word of it.
He does not play dirty politic.
It is inborn in him…to be dirty and cunning..so much so Musa Hitam resigned as DPM to avoid him. 3 other DPM did not agree with him…speaks volumns of his dictatorial character. Mahathir must have lots of secrets to tame Musa Hitam..and so the present UMNO lot…all dare not touch him.
“UMNO is corrupted to the core”…said it all.
Mahathir said..”I am a doctor and I cure people”
Go see the results.
Under him thousands of companies went bankcrupt…and almost all are Chinese.
Did he cure or kill?
He said..”As long as everyone is not happy…that’s good” This can be true…if we are united and can speak freely as Malaysians. This is good only for his personal success….to divide and rule.
Did he said that for a program to unite Malaysians? No…it is the start of going backwards.under him.
He is a true racialist.
Besides building white elephants and huge buildings…he lead us to the International arena …to confront USA daringly….leading all to cannot see…cannot talk massive corruptions.
Lim Kit Siang keep exposing…and when he is cornered….out come another great act…like confronting Royalties…and limiting their powers. This act somewhat protects Malaysians and he got great respect and support.
He was a hero. What a great act!
Yes….Mahathir is a great actor..tonque twisting like a snake…is his best weapon..and within few short years.. .he already made himself a Dictator.
He said ..’Money is power. Money can buy up a country”…warning Malaysians about foreign investors..foreign government intervention..but in actual fact…his style is accused others before being accused for doing the act…stealing and using tax payers money and country’s wealth.. to buy up hundreds of cronies..and all UMNO and BN ministers.
Reading Tunku Aziz message….I knew Malaysians can be united under Mahathir…but he chose to disunite us further back. He chose to be champion of one race….and let MCA MIC do the same….to divide and rule…yet these two puppets cannot make decisions…or get approval to help their own races too. MCA and MIC should have pulled out from BN long long ago..but the leaders are all corrupted..and money trully bought their loyalties to Mahathir.
They sold the souls of their own race to enrich themselves.
I read so many hundreds of message…concerning unity….and not one stop to think…53 years…even if you train animals..with low IQ…..they can unite.
Merdeka Day means nothing….as long as a Malaysian Malaysia is not accomplished.
It is a yearly…UMNO propaganda show….wasting millions.
When one can steals so easily…and declared as legal commission…….one takes money…not hard earned….and spend like nobody business.
Mahathir is so used to stealing so much…just look at the way he travelled when he was PM…like a King…did as he like…whenever he liked.
And judge him… these 5 years…after retiring.
You can see the real Mahathir.
In short….Malaysian can never be unite under UMNO…….no matter how hard they try..as all are corrupted and afraid of Mahathir..to expose them.
And cannot change because changes really mean they admit how wrong they are..and UMNO do not admit any wrong doings.
Najib.being cornered… is asking for a chance. Khairy is asking Malaysians to forget the past.
What a joke!
If Malaysians do not vote strongly for a change in government…to give others a chance…Malaysians mentalities and characters must be trully weird and selfish.
ekompute, thanks, re your statement ‘the Messiah is already born but probably still running around without his pants’, – chasing women or men??? :)
1Malaysia is a great concept BUT its being run as a mere lip service. I find that PR politicians have made a big mistake in heckling it. They should have supported it and then challenge the PM to live up to it. Make that his promise. If he does not then he is a failed leader.
When can Malaysia be one?
Instead of Malaysia as “a tangle of peoples” , UNITED MURDERERS NATIONAL ORGANIZATION has made her a tangle of UMNO snakes and scumbags!
//the Messiah is already born but probably still running around without his pants//
Which one? So many of them…
http://www.web-insolite.com/ttlesphotos/streakers2/equipeexib.jpg
monsterballssgoh on August 20th, 2009 09:36
Unity was in god progress..until Mahathir took over.
It took 22 years by Mahathir … applying…”to divide and rule”…..killing UMNO…killing Tunku’s legacy…established his UMNO BARU
————————————–
Monsterballss.. you were NOT sure what UMNO baru stands for….here is your answer!
“UNITED MURDERERS NATIONAL ORGANIZATION”
pakatan led state. not really reform local council performance and working efficiency.
i had make complaints to mpkj through e.aduan but almost 1 week, they fail to take any action.
i do not know why they take so long to take action or they not going to take any action?
the problem can be solve in one day if they seriously go to ground and have a look. but they not. maybe they need a month .
i hope state government should look more serious to restructure all local council performance system. if not, i do not see any change between BN or pakatan adminstration
as a citizen , i hope selangor government can study and standardized All selangor local council requirement/guidelines especially in building department.
if the requirement/guidelines are same , this will reduce corruption.
I don’t agree with TB Sim analysis on MCA heading towards a meltdown asking OTK not to involve the chinese community and MCA in his cause to bring all those involved in the PKFZ scandal to books. I want to tell this TB Sim that this is not about the chinese community and neither is it about MCA. He got it all wrong. It is about exposing injustices, corruptions, etc and this form of evil has no respect for any race, creed or persons at all. As a chinese, I support OTK not MCA!
The police should also re-open the Altantuya murder case, Kasitak Gaddam corruption case ect
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/10farus/Article/index_html
wesuffer’s comment is an example of why you need a proper public issue tracker. It’s only a couple of weeks’ work to adapt one from the public domain for a competent IT worker.
Although it has to be said, if the local government staff are no good, it would be quicker to put a page up saying “Abandon all hope. We are useless.” If they’re a mixed batch, it would very quickly show who was pulling their weight and who wasn’t.
I thought Nizar handled himself impeccably during the Perak coup. He seems to have disappeared off the radar recently. Maybe you should have set up ‘perakinexile.org’ as an alternative platform. Maybe I’ve just been exposed to a lucky set of news about him. I’d hope one of the first things a PR government would do is to lower the voting age from its ridiculously high present level, in the hope that that would encourage the messiah to put her pants on and take her rightful place a little sooner.
As a chinese
Hello.
This is Malaysia.
Can we help you?
encourage … put her pants
ROFL… I didn’t mean anyone in particular…
One has only to visit the market or pasar malam to see that ordinary Malaysians get along very well – maybe the suffering folks realise that their neighbours are not the enemy but the enemy is in Putrajaya – from ministers who can challenge the MACC to investigate him for abuse of power to others who have bled the nation dry like PKFZ.
So if you want a checklist of how we stand after 52 years of nationhood under the same political parties, this is something I wrote in 2005.
http://malaysiawatch.blogspot.com/2005/07/vision-2020-or-malaysia-dreamin.html
Things were simpler then. People generally were less educated and more gullible. China still has her doors shut to the world and information technology does not even exist. And very importantly, there were no umnoputras then. If efforts were made then to unify the people of malaysia, we could well be tasting the fruits of unity and success now.
But Mahathir saw it fit to create umnoputras during his 20+ yrs as pm. That must be his single greatest contribution to the mess in the country and hence complications now facing all of us. Umnoputras are greedy and corrupt. That is common knowledge. When LKS in response to a challenge in the Dewan to show proof of corruption amongst the umnoputras pointed to the front row occupiers on the other side of the dewan no one rebutted him. Those who were there basically remained nailed to their seats and were silent. That shows the extent of the umnoputra problems.
With the emergence of china, chinese the world over (not just in malaysia) naturally would like to take advantage of their chinese roots for economic gain. It would be harder now then before to tell chinese in the country to junk their language and culture like what indonesia did to indonesian chinese decades ago (of course chinese there form only about 5%(?) of the indon population).
And every argument put forth by the umno gobermen could be countered easily via the Internet and would quite definitely be so countered. Alternative ideas and views whether voiced by malaysians or by foreigners are always available at the tip of one’s finger. Therefore pursuading people becomes a much harder task for the umno gobermen.
Openness / transparency and actual results are what people of today look for. Persuasion and sloganeering (and songs about unity) now have very limited (if any) effects. But maintaining openness / transparency and showing good results means no corruption. That would not do for umnoputras because that would remove the foundation of their power, wealth and existence. Which is also to say, do not hope for change to happen within umno or to come from umno.
To complete the unfinished business, malaysians must look to alternative government who are brave and sincere enough to act with complete openness and who are results oriented.
Going on nationwide road-show to promote some dubious onemalaysia idea is really meaningless and pointless. It only makes me wounder how much the umno gobermen spends on the road-show. Personally I distrust umno and therefore I fear that an otherwise say rm20,000/ show project could balloon to rm200,000/ show.
Thekadazan,dusuns,bajaus,punan,iban,kayan,murut,dayak and various others,I fear,still remain very much outside our consciousness,even after more four decades of Malaysia…..Tengku Abdul Aziz……….Yeah Tengku you are absolutely right.These ethnic people who are the majority of Sabah and Sarawak before Malaysia are now the minority and are classified as others or “lain lain”.These two states are the biggest losers since joining Malaysia.They lost their majority status ,they also lost most of the forests,lands,oil and gas to west malaysian.In Sabah,almost all sabahan owned big company including Sabah bank bhd are now own and control by west malaysian.Most S&M business are control by west malaysian.Most top civil departments are headed by west malaysian.Most sabahans now question why on earth we joined malaysia for when after more than four decades,we not only lost most of our natural resourses,our lands and our own companies and most of all. lost our own identity .We now even have lost our pride,when Umno keeps promoting the supremacy of melayu and Islam and classified us as others or “lain lain”.Politically speaking we sabahans are now under the mercy of Umno,KL who would make decision for us.Based on this political scenario,I think Sabahans are better of without malaysia.
hahahahaha….Thanks wanderer.
Inspite of my non stop spelling and grammar mistakes made with my one figure typing…you seem to understand my message.
UMNO BARU….are murderers and corrupted crooks….no doubt about it.
Truly in the first decade Malaysia was a piece of heaven on earth. Then came a virulent cancer from Kerala that destroys paradise and create a monstrosity of greed and lust.
This cancer is still alive and is breathing hate and lies without fail. He believes that Malaysia should prostrate before the god of money for material wealth and being greedy is good. To hell with morality and ethics.
After 50 years of existence Malaysia is in a terminal state.
We can always look back with nostalgia how the past was better than present. To some extent they were. But to say that during Tunku’s time, Malaya, and then Malaysia, was less Malay centric was not true. Malaya and later Malaysia was Malay centric from day one. Non Malays were at most tolerated and even till today the mentality stays the same. If it is not Malay centric, Singapore would not have come in and left. The Malay leaders during the initial years have never accepted a cosmopolitan Malaysia. Of course subsequent leaders further accentuate it.
If you look about you, it is difficult to untangle the peoples of Malaysia now, especially in the peninsula.
In Sabah and Sarawak, the people in the interior are more separated as they live largely within the same community.
In West Malaysia, the cities and towns are really quite integrated with modern housing and flats where all the races live together and share the same traffic jams.
I would suggest that the one issue that tends to create tension among the races is religion and since Islam is the official religion, the enforcement of its laws has created problems especially with discovered conversions at death and the conversion of minors. Apart from that, most Malaysians are able to get along quite well – most problems tend to be generated by politicians and the MSM
Hello frankyapp,
If more people, especially the leaders of the various ethnic groups in Sabab and Sarawak were to realize what you succictly put, they would have collectively shown their middle finger to the UMNO/BN.
But then when they are so fond of the position, wealth, titles and the sham of power they have relinquished all their responsibilities to the UMNO/BN.
These shameless leaders who don’t see the suffering of their own people do not deserve to be looked upon as leaders. They and their cohorts should be given the boot in the next General Elections.
Though I am not from Sabah or Sarawak, I really feel sorry for their plight and sufferings. To read that after 4 decades most of Sabah and Sarawak are under developed without even basic ameneties such as piped water and electricity, it is really amazing what a bunch of suckers those leaders have been. These leaders have abandoned Sabah and Sarawak to be plundered by the UMNOputra robbers from Peninsular Malaysia.
Pairin Kittinggan and his relatives should be ashamed of themselves for licking the shoes of the UMNO goons just to be accorded some respect. What is RESPECT when you do not deserve it? When you as the leader of your own ethnic group can’t even voice your displeasure about the racial profiling and religious harassment and intimidation.
Hope the younger and future generations of Sabahans and Sarawakians would undo the collosal damage that these ungrateful leaders had wrought on their beautiful and resourceful nations.
Mukhriz Mahathir suggested sometime ago that government forms should remove the column for reporting race. Muhyiddin made the same suggestion recently and Mahathir Mohammad announced agreement to it almost immediately.
It might appear that the three of them wanted race not to be a factor for consideration by government servants, in whatever application the official form was intended. But TDM clarified that Chinese name are easy to detect. As for Indian names, they were either Hindu or Christians, so unless they are Muslims, they cannot be mistaken for Malays. TDM did not say that Indian Muslims by their very name would give the impression that they are Malays, without having to prove the other conditions listed under Article 160 of the Constitution. Indian Muslims would not have to perjure, or lie in the form on their race to gain the special treatment under Article 153 or NEP. TDM was racial opportunists working for the interests of those similar to him in anthropological term, and facilitating them to enjoy the privilege meant for Malays, but asking Malays to bear the brunt of indignity to have to rely on special assistance as though the Malay race could not survive on its own, even after careful nourishment for half a century.
There is no need to remove the column on race in government forms. If race plays an important factor in government policy, it is important for the applicants to supply information on race, but also proofs that they are entitled to claim such privilege, not just by the sounding of their names.
Only when unequal treatment on race is practised in government administration should the column on race be removed. To be race blind, names of candidates should not appear on the answer scripts so that the examiners would not be influenced while marking the papers.
Singapore did not come in and left..as said by one.
Tunku asked LKY to leave…..when racial problems heated up…in Singapore with Chinese killing Malays and vice versa.
One reads and know next to nothing..guided by whoever the writer wants the reader to be.
One who lived through the events…need not read so much to know much more.
Sabah and Sarawak have been short-changed, and I hope the voters will do ‘RATIONALLY’ and not “emotionally”, like what DPM has said.
Please don’t make a fool of yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that you are the most stupid and sweeping fellow in this blog. I am sure you have not heard of LKY’s memoirs (two volumes probably too heavy for you to carry). So I heard it from the horse’s mouth. Yes you lived through that period dreaming and chasing skirts. A real stupid old fart.