Reclaiming the race debate
By Deborah Loh (The Nut Graph)
THE national unity debate is an unresolved one, but one that Malaysians must not tire of if they are to prevent race relations from being hijacked for political ends.
Recently, Malaysians showed they haven't given up. Over 400 people attended a public forum on race relations by British anti-racism activist Dr Aneez Esmail on 16 June 2009 in Kuala Lumpur.
The multiracial crowd at the public forum (Lead pic on home page © jpnin.gov.my)
Questions and comments from the floor came fast and furious, and at the end of the forum Aneez said he could sense that Malaysians had a "huge desire to talk about race" but that they were "constrained" in doing so.
But what is constraining us? And why hasn't the debate gone beyond the rhetoric of Malay Malaysians being under attack by everybody else, about the unfairness of the New Economic Policy (NEP), or about the ills of vernacular schools?
Aneez spoke at the public forum and a subsequent roundtable on 18 June, both organised by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Institute for Ethnic Studies (Kita). One theme emerged consistently: that for a paradigm shift to happen in the race debate, the concept that every individual has "multiple identities" must be embraced.
Avoid singular identifiers
"You are never just a 'Chinese' or just a 'Malay'," Aneez told the public forum. "Just as I am more than just a British citizen, and more than just a Muslim. My multiple identities are shaped by my experiences, my work, and a variety of influences.
"The danger of defining ourselves by a singular identity locks everyone into fixed positions," he said.
A classic example is Datuk Ahmad Ismail's singular identity description of Chinese Malaysians as immigrants, against another singular identity label of Malay Malaysians as natives of the land.
"The debate is not about who came here first, but the political value attached to this claim. The race debate has become about singular identity polemics because there is political legitimacy and economic value when you define yourself according to race. Ethnic identity has been hijacked by politics and is now difficult to separate," said Kita's Assoc Prof Dr Ong Puay Liu, who presented on identity issues at the 18 June roundtable.
Aneez Esmail
But the political and economic value of using singular identity labels is short term; it fractures the nation in the long run. Whereas embracing the multiple identities of each person will uncover more commonalities.
"A rich Malay [Malaysian] will have a totally different life experience from a poor Malay [Malaysian], even though they both have a singular identity as Malays. The poor Malay will have more in common with a poor Chinese or a poor Indian [Malaysian]," said Aneez.
As such, when talking about racial unity, the layers of identity within a single person — gender, religious belief, sexuality, marital status, income level, personality, work experience, as some examples — must all be taken into account.
What results then, is a humane approach towards national unity and institutional policies, like affirmative action, that emphasises needs over race.
Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/reclaiming-the-race-debate
