Understanding politics in Malaysia is an arduous affair. The ‘multi-racial’ and ‘multi-cultural’ version of Malaysia portrayed in various popular media literature belies the intricacies, complexities and sensitivities of our shared historical or contemporary socio-political narratives. This is as yet to take into account the wilful distortion, misrepresentation and outright perversion of these narratives through systemic indoctrination by institutions of power, simplifying and reducing our very complexities into neatly organised socio-racial categories - ripe for exploitation in a society where alienating the ‘others’ produces profitable political outcome. This oversimplified versions of ourselves not only belittle our shared history and identity, it robs us of our boundaries for tolerance; Reducing our collective imagination to a pale shadow of but a few colours, destroying the diversity of culture, religion, language and gene pool that interweave this landscape since the beginning of its history.
We nitpick on our differences, finding ever smaller taxonomy to squeeze into, simultaneously amplifying its significance. From heavily entrenched categories like race and religion, to smaller subdivisions like linguistic group, tribe/clan faction, peninsular/Borneo dichotomy and countless more just to name a few. While the necessity or implications of such arrangement leaves significant room for disagreements, it cannot be denied that this national obsession has completely consumed our collective psyche. Hogging up much needed grounds for constructive nation building enterprise, forcing us into fruitless impasse every corner we turn.
The landscape of Malaysia is one scarred with veins of chasm, an island separated by plateaus of largely exclusive ecosystem. Each evolving its own micro ecology; minor apex predators carving out their little dominion, oblivious to the shifting macro continents inching ever closer and the winds of change that beckons. The culture in this land is that of insecurities, finding solace in building walls instead of bridges, each community seeking to define itself by what it is not, instead of what it is. Emphasising the differences and exaggerating the weaknesses of the ‘others’, we amplify the exclusive elements in our identity and devalue those that are inclusive.
Malay-Muslim first, Malaysian second
Chinese first, Malaysian second
Indian first, Malaysian second
Why is it so difficult to be Malaysian without throwing in extra identification markers? Would we lose sight of who we are without those markers? Is the common denominator so meaningless as to be rendered void without those markers? Or are we asking too many questions before we even embark on our quest. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Confucius. In our case, let us start with two:
Firstly, a thorough re-reading of our historical documents, both ancient and recent, is required to reconstruct a collective national consciousness. The numerous effort injected into rediscovering our shared past by historians, social/political/legal activist and commentators most cherished would hopefully unearth charms buried in our past to shine a way at our future for the current generation to build their aspirations upon. But digging into our past would certainly unearth skeletons of resentments that we must confront with courage and solidarity, because these are the shadows of our deeds, and they will continue to haunt us and keep us from true deliverance. We must come to terms with our demons; liberate ourselves from the shackles of distrust and ignorance in order to advance as a whole, complete nation.
Secondly, a thorough review of our legal documents, both fundamental and derived, is necessary to restructure our civil society based on values of inclusivity. This must be done to reflect the country as a focal point of divergent versions of truths, and when these realities collide; tolerance is the only tenet capable of cushioning the impact. But tolerance must not be confused with submission, as the latter involve a certain degree of reluctance and surrender – the first step towards resentment. True tolerance is not an exercise of concession or compromise, but liberation of the mind from assumption of popular truth and of universal morality. This must be reflected in our legal documents.
In an asymmetrically divided society, tolerance for minority sentiments comes as easily as submission to majority repression.
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