It’s business as usual in ‘race-soaked’ Malaysia

FMT:

It’s business as usual in ‘race-soaked’ Malaysia

Our parliamentarians must get their act together and push for ‘Malaysian’ first, only then Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban etc.

02 Mar 2024, 8:00am





­­The country’s latest parliamentary session opened this week, and our new King gave a measured warning on how the 222 parliamentarians should behave. No politicking, His Majesty said, and he told the MPs to focus efforts on improving the lives of their constituents and not concentrate on the interests of their political parties and themselves.

Yet, the very next day, the Dewan Rakyat continued exactly where it left off.

Opposition MPs staged a walkout when the prime minister wanted to congratulate the new King, and thank the past King for his service. While the optics were terrible when these MPs left the chamber while congratulations were being offered to the King, they claimed that they did it to protest the “tyranny of the majority” because this government does not follow procedures. For the naked eye, it’s just them playing politics.

For us citizens who voted for these Members of Parliament, it is like “the circus is back in town”. They shout over each other, make nasty unsubstantiated allegations that are cloaked in parliamentary privilege, they stoke racial fires with snide comments about Bak Kut Teh being named a national heritage food, and we hear the screams of despair from the Speaker of the House. It simply makes you wonder if our lawmakers actually do anything useful in parliament.

This week has also been fraught with more racial polarisation.

The director-general of Tourism Malaysia was demoted by the minister in charge. The ex-DG is a Malaysian Malay, and the minister is a Malaysian Chinese. Opinions were deeply divided. The discussion was not about the efficacy or the need for the tourism industry in Malaysia to be revitalised. Instead, the debate was about whether a minister can remove a senior civil servant from his position.

And then, as always in our racially soaked nation, the narrative turned ethnic. Analysts commenting on the issue noted that non-Malay Malaysians were lauding our tourism minister for his proactive and “revolutionary” stance. On the other hand, Malay Malaysians were lamenting about the indignity of demoting a senior civil servant, and suggesting that the minister was abusing his authority.

No one thinks about what is good for the country, but rather sticks to the old narrative that we must maintain “racial harmony” and not rock the boat. Some non-Malay analysts even chided those who thought the minister was doing a good job by saying that his actions were a real blow to race relations in our country.

Citizens do not really know of the effectiveness of this tourism director-general or if the minister was right in removing him. But we can see that the tourism industry is flailing, and needs a shot in the arm. More needs to be done. But that’s not the concern. It’s about race.

In other news, we had the managing director of the Malaysia Aviation Group, which operates our national airline, claim that Malaysia Airlines’ decline was because of the 1972 decision by the Malaysian and Singapore governments to break up Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, into Malaysian Airline System and Singapore Airlines.

So, Malaysia Airlines declined while Singapore Airlines thrived and became one of the best in the skies? He goes on to argue that “we set up MAS to fail on the very first day”. Can the MD not remember how in the ’90s and 2000s, Malaysia Airlines competed with the best airlines in the world and often won awards.

I refer to politics and governance in our country as a “soap opera”.

Very little truth is admitted. The entire setup is about preserving the status quo. Our premise as a nation is not about unity in diversity, but only about holding on to racially motivated narratives.

Successive governments have continued with this complex race-based existence. No leader, political party, or coalition has the will or desire to actively invite the population to integrate and see ourselves first as Malaysian, and then only identify with our racial background.

The reforms that are needed never seem to materialise because of political and racial considerations. Every move to find balance, and to create a singular Malaysian identity is thwarted at its infancy. We have a national unity ministry, but, aside from engaging in what are “easy non-confrontational” activities, they do not initiate immersive and holistic programmes to bring our diverse people together.

Some governments around the world that also deal with a multiracial population have interceded and created interventionist policies for their education system and housing arrangements to ensure that people of diverse backgrounds actually learn to live and work together harmoniously.

Here, even a suggestion by a Malaysian Chinese minister, albeit seemingly unnecessary, to list new villages in Selangor as a Unesco World Heritage Site caused a huge furore. Instead of seeing it as another opportunity to get listed on the world map, some people were hell bent on talking about the dark history of the new villages where some Chinese once supported the Malayan Communist Party.

Again, this dialogue took sinister racial undertones.

So, until our parliamentarians get their act together, and start instituting laws that bring about racial understanding and unity, and push for the notion that we are “Malaysian” first, only then are we Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban, etc., our nation will remain on a slippery downward slide.