By Dzof Azmi
1Malaysia is great in theory, but to achieve ‘one-ness‘, there should be a clear goal and our leaders must show us the way to a better place.
THERE was a story in the newspapers last week of a woman in Langkawi who came back home to find her puppy missing. A neighbour had confronted her and told her that it had wandered into his house, so he had killed it. The lady was obviously upset, but said, “What they did was wrong but I understand why they did it. It‘s the culture and religious beliefs.”
I‘m not sure exactly what she meant by this, but I assumed she felt that some cultures and religions frown on having puppies gallop cheerfully through the living room. However, it seems to me the gap between loving and caring for a bounding puppy and strangling it to death with a wire noose is too wide for anyone to accept as being normal deviation.
This was also in the same month the press was abuzz about 1Malaysia. It was interesting to note that the chat was more about what it was in the first place, than what its merits were. Unusually, instead of giving us a show-all, tell-all press circus from the outset, the Prime Minister has instead chosen to tease us by slowly revealing what he has in mind.
Our Prime Minister‘s personal website is www.1malaysia.com.my (explicitly differentiated from one run by the government or a ministry), and he has a lot to say about the idea. 1Malaysia is composed of eight underlying principles, but up to this time, only five have been revealed.
They currently stand at “Culture of Excellence‘‘, “Perseverance‘‘, “Humility‘‘, “Acceptance‘‘ and “Loyalty‘.
I‘m going to focus especially on the fourth: “Acceptance‘‘. This is the only point that he has noted with policy implications. Firstly, he makes it clear that acceptance is not tolerance. Tolerance is something you have to accept because you have no choice, and he is talking about embracing something positively.
He means this in a racial sense. He wants to get “the best of the Malays ... of the Chinese ... of the Indians” in order to create something larger than the sum of its parts. He also touches on policy, for example by saying that “financial allocations must reflect the need across ... all racial and ethnic lines”, and that “limits are not set because of your ethnic background ... (but) because of your own personal ability”.
Although it is still a work in progress (a phrase I have often used for the state of our nation), there are a few things that strike you immediately about 1Malaysia. First, they are all principles that are so general that I think everybody can accept them at face value. This works both ways: you have universal acceptance, but because they can be interpreted subjectively, people may not implement them in the same way or to the same end.
The second thing is that they describe an approach rather than a target or goal. It doesn‘t really say anything about where we are heading, but it tries to put in place how we get there.
The principle of acceptance is in keeping with the Prime Minister‘s idea to “break away from operating in the ethnic prism”. Will we see a day when all Malaysians are treated in the same way, to the same laws, regardless of race, colour or creed? Or, as some newspaper editorials have suggested, does the concept of 1Malaysia imply unity but does not undermine Article 153 of the Federal Constitution on Malay rights?
Maybe it‘s just an opportunity to throw fresh light on an old topic. There are issues of unity that go beyond official government policy. I think there are attitudes ingrained in us as to what it means to be a race as opposed to a nation.
For example, I have explicitly been told that it is not wise to make Malay TV shows that have non-Malays in them because Malay viewers don‘t want to watch non-Malay actors. On top of that, they don‘t even want to hear non-Bahasa Malaysia languages, because they will change channels as soon as it happens. They even have statistics to support this.
As a result we have shows with wholesome Malay casts speaking nothing but Bahasa Malaysia that cater for exclusively Malay markets – because that is what the public wants.
But why should we accept this as a status quo? Why shouldn‘t we push the boundaries and reach beyond ourselves? As I wrote last year in an article titled A ghostly glimmer of hope, I have worked for a show that had a mixed race cast, crew and writers. It wasn‘t because it would be good for the ratings or because we had a policy to do so, but because the producer was trying to source the best Malaysian talent available to him. I would like to think it paid off because the ratings last year were so good that they commissioned a second season.
You lead not by following what others say you should do, but by breaking the mould and pointing to a new direction. 1Malaysia is not enough to change the country without leaders who know how to show the way. It must be done with conviction and inspiration so we become better in spite of ourselves. We want leaders who take a stand, even if it is unpopular, because it will take us to a better place. We want leaders who inspire and unite our citizens. We want leaders who know how to get the best use of the people they lead, whoever they are.
Live as one country, love as one nation, regardless of race, colour, creed – or species, even.
__________
Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi‘s theory is that people need both to make of life‘s vagaries and contradictions.
Source: http://thestar.com.my (26 April 2009)
