STILL A LONG WAY TO GO
Sin Chew Jit Poh
2009-08-20 12:14
If it is already our common consensus that Malaysia is a
multi-racial country, then we must agree that the country has to
show multi-elements: multi-cultures, multi-educations, multi-economy
and multi-politics.
It is inevitable to have stronger and weaker groups among
diversity. Thus, policies to help the weaker group are indeed necessary
in certain historical period.
But the problem is, they always exceed the proper limits in righting
a wrong, making the acts to help the weaker racial group to turn out
as the acts of pressuring other racial groups. Eventually, it leads to
polarisation, resulting in mutual suspicions, distrust and exclusion
among racial groups.
Contradictions and conflicts brought by racial group-oriented policies
can always be seen and it is already an undeniable and unavoidable
fact.
There has never been true equality in human society from the times
of feudal empire until today.
After the First World War, many nation-states were formed but the
struggles among racial groups have never stopped. Instead, there is
a tendency of getting worse.
After the racial riot in Xinjiang last month, Turkey’s Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan described it as genocide for Muslim Uighurs. But
in history, Armenians, who had lived in Turkey for centuries, were
expelled when Turkey was transforming from an empire to a modern
country. It was a true tragedy of genocide.
Similar examples can also be found in other nation-states. The word
of "threat" has become the byword to "rationalise" their uncivilised
acts. For example, Armenians were expelled as they were seen as the
potential threat for the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire. As for Jews,
they were killed as they were seen by Hitler as a threat to the purity
of Aryan Germans.
Today, there is the rise of "region-state" under the irresistible
trend of globalisation. It seems to have challenging the old idea of
nationalism, as well as the status of nation-states. But many ruling
classes are still surviving on the symbol of "nation" or those who wish
to seize power still refuse to give it up as their weapon. In order
to extend or to seize power, the simplest way would be to constantly
create divergence, split and fear among different racial groups,
making a polarisation in the country.
>From this point of view, the "One Malaysia" concept is good. But the
condition is, "one" is no referring to monopoly, but the unity of
diversity instead. It is a progress to drop the column in official
forms that require race information. But the key is to abolish racist
policies in order to remove the root of polarisation.
It is still a long way to go. We need to put in more efforts if
we wish to create new history other than in terms of ideology and
racial identity!