THERE’S a great deal of issues that Malaysians must understand and appreciate about national unity.
National unity is essential to maintain a harmonious and functional society. It forms the basic building blocks of societal stability that contributes to nation-building.
No nation can survive socially and economically, what more enjoy political stability, if there is continued social unrest. A nation can be built only on a foundation of peace and harmony. Only through this, a country is able to have progress through economic development.
Robust economic growth helps a nation to achieve elevated standards of living, thus alleviating poverty and income disparity. In short, it brings happiness to the people.
Truth be told, national unity is no longer about tolerating each other in a multiracial and multicultural society.
We have to get past this elementary level of merely accepting the existence of other races. We have to admit that tolerance for each other in terms of race, religious belief and culture is sometimes skin-deep. Many Malaysians still group themselves with their own kind and carry prejudices against others.
Hence, the newly created National Unity Ministry has a lot to think about. For many years, it was an insignificant department known as National Unity and Integration under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department — with a limited budget but an abundance of diverse and dedicated government employees and groups of people.
Nevertheless, there’s a pressing need for Malaysians to truly understand unity in diversity, a slogan that was bandied about by previous administrations.
It’s rather disheartening to see there wasn’t enough injection of ideas and messaging to make the people appreciate unity in diversity.
What appeared to have been blasted are conventional messages in the form of TV public advertisements — images of diverse races of men and women garbed in ethnic and traditional dresses, waving the Malaysian flag and singing patriotic songs. I honestly think we need more than just superficial messages like these.
What we really need is education on cultural intelligence that calls for empathy from all Malaysians for each other’s feelings and insights. And, cultural intelligence that strengthens one community’s ability to accept and respect the differences in beliefs and practices.
Cultural intelligence encourages diverse races and religious adherents to function well within an environment of religious and cultural diversity. In a nutshell, a cultural intelligence that calls for a diverse society to appreciate others, to act in a civil manner and to be inspired and motivated to overcome disputes and barriers.
In 2012, while serving the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, who took charge of the National Unity portfolio, I was shocked to find many contentious issues, as countless as it is now. With racial altercations occurring in hot-spot areas and inter-religious discords, Malaysians appeared to be divisive. And worse, ugly politics reared its head as it was more about expediency than uniting the people.
While some racial issues required incessant mediations for the people to come to their senses, it proved equally difficult to defuse the tension between religious adherents. Everyone wanted to say their piece. The cacophony of racial and religious slurs on the ground and online was deafening.
Since we are still mired in contentious unity and integration issues, the ministry must continue engaging diverse communities to blur those racial lines. It needs to continuously educate Malaysians to accept differences, ultimately to rise above prejudices and embrace each other.
C’est la vie.
The writer, a former NST journalist, is now a film scriptwriter whose
penchant is finding new food haunts in the country