The return of the Liberal Party to power in Canada after nearly a decade under the Conservative Party and the inauguration of Justin Trudeau as new prime minister have brought widespread elation to Canadians.
This writer can recall the time as a student in the late 1970s in Canada as the country was in the grip of Trudeaumania when the current prime minister’s father, Pierre, held that office.
The sense of pride Canadians had then with a leader who was the antithesis of the dour, white old men that Canadian prime ministers had been before was palpable. The staid Canada of old had suddenly turned exciting, sexy even.
It is not difficult to imagine that the same sunnier era in Canadian politics is back. Trudeau himself said as much on election night.
Canada, always living under the long shadow of its superpower neighbour, can once again stand tall, especially when contrasted with the dispiriting public discourse that passes for politics in the United States.
Canadians, then and now, like to compare themselves favourably with the US by celebrating their multicultural nation as a colourful mosaic against the assimilative ethos of the American melting pot.
This is by no means a semantic construct. Canadians have been truly wracked with guilt when the photo of the body of the Syrian boy washed ashore in Europe caught global attention.
The baby’s family had tried to
join a family member in Canada earlier.
Many Canadians blamed conservative ex-prime minister Stephen Harper for attempting to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments by taking a hardline stance against Syrian refugees and playing up public antipathy to some Canadian Muslim women wearing the niqab.
Unlike the US and perhaps more akin to the situation in Malaysia, the notion of Canada as an ethnic mosaic is perhaps one borne out of necessity given that Canada is in any case officially bilingual, in a nod to the French-speaking province of Quebec, which had twice voted narrowly to stay within Canada.
The tensions of Canada’s multi-cultural society inevitably get reflected in its politics, with the Conservative Party, now in opposition, more inclined to the melting-pot analogy in the US in terms of policy towards ethnic minorities.
Although we in Malaysia do not couch our own interethnic relations in the same way the Canadians and Americans do, we keep reminding ourselves that ours is a multiracial and multireligious society, indicating that we perhaps subconsciously accept our nation to be more a mosaic rather than a melting pot.
But, that is open to debate. Although those of a more liberal bent in North America will tend to be more accepting of cultural, ethnic and religious differences and therefore favour a mosaic over a melting pot, the politically conservative may believe it possible to meld everyone in a pot to create an indistinguishable and homogeneous national identity,
Malaysians of different political persuasions seem less clear cut. This is reflected in the ideal held up by some of us encapsulated under the concept of a “bangsa Malaysia”.
But, underlining the tensions and divisions in Malaysia, perhaps as unbridgeable and permanent as those between English- and French-speaking Canadians, the only way the “bangsa Malaysia” concept can be accepted by a cross-section of Malaysians is by leaving its definition malleable, and therefore, meaning different things to different people. Even so, the idea of a “bangsa Malaysia” can prove controversial even to those who pay lip service to it, from communal standpoints.
Which is why its most recent iteration under the 1Malaysia banner is so brilliant by also remaining flexible about what it means and entails.
A mosaic or a patchwork producing a colourful, multi-hued Malaysian quilt is perhaps the most practical and best that we can hope for as a nation.
The writer is a Kuching-based journalist