Article Corner: (5 parts installments @10) Speech by Dato’ Mohd Zaid Ibrahim – Melbourne 2013 “The Path to Unity” Ladies and gentlemen, 1. I was six when Malaya became independent. I wasn’t yet old enough to understand what that meant, or why self-determination should be so important to so many people. Like others my age I was swept up by the euphoria that had possessed my elders, but I could not reason why. 2. It was only much later—when I was a young student, such as you are—that I began to think about nationhood; about independence and the duties they implied. These are the duties required of us beyond our obligations to ourselves, our families, our friends, our clans and even that which we are so proud to call our “race” and our “heritage”. 3. We have a greater duty to society and to our country as a whole, and the true test of the strength of our independence lies in how much each individual is able to fulfil that duty according to his or her means, desires and abilities. 4. This is a test that we have failed repeatedly in the 50 years since the formation of Malaysia. We have failed it because we have not truly understood it. We have not understood our duty to our fellow-citizens, nor our collective aspirations and dreams as a nation. We have not understood the terms of our Constitution as it was laid down at Merdeka. 5. Today, we do not speak about the “dreams” and “visions” of our Founding Fathers, as other nations do. We talk only of conspiracies wherein the enemies amongst us seek to strangle our sovereignty. We wail at the death of patriotism. And every day, we are reminded that there are “Bumiputera”, and that there are “Others”, and never the twain shall meet. 6. This is due to our inherent racialism. I do not mean “racism”, but rather the tendency to interpret social reality through the lens of ethnic origin. You may choose to call it “communalism”. You may even call it an “ethnically-structured worldview”. You may choose whichever euphemism that helps you sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that you have offended no one, for these are sensitive times we live in. 7. But what you may do is not always what you should, and the problem of racialism in Malaysia is an old one. A cursory reading of our history will show you that the genesis of Malaysian racialism lies in the consequences of colonial immigration. 8. The British were, after all, obliged to manage ethnic relations involving a native population supplanted by various waves of immigrants from China and India, whom they had themselves uprooted for the sake of increasing the supply of labour in the colonial economy. 9. Thus, the original premise of Malayan independence was based on the ability of the Alliance Party to continue the British practice of “keeping the three major races happy”. This is a euphemism for “balancing the interests of the Malays, Chinese and Indians”, which itself is a euphemism for “keeping them from one another’s throats.” 10. The racialism, and racism, that so many of us condemn today has always been a feature of our multiracial history. To say that things were “better” in the old days, or that the “races were closer together” is to paint half a picture. To say that each of the races is represented at the political table is to ignore the fact that such representation is possible only if the races are kept firmly separate. https://facebook/MalaysianIndiansMustUnite (Click Like and Show Your Solidarity Support For UNITY :D)
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:30:57 +0000
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