The spirit that binds our people
By John Teo (NST)
As with any nation, the majority, of course, rules while the minority follows but if overall peace is to be maintained, the majority must always care that the minority is not unnecessarily alienated to the extent the latter looks for relief even in an undeserving and unpromising alternative government.
AS another Merdeka Day approaches, my wish is that all Malaysians ponder and reflect anew as to where we collectively as a nation are headed. We must do so with real honesty and humility.
The euphoria felt by many Malaysians over the unexpected results of the last general election is now more or less dissipated. Malaysians were energised by what they thought democratic change had brought about: the capacity of the ordinary voter to effect change by the mere act of voting.
Like many Malaysians, I was caught up in the euphoria. I started to believe what I had always wanted to believe: that once enough of us wanted something badly enough, the nobility of our collective would triumph above everything else. Imaginings about new beginnings and endless possibilities stir in our hearts.
Alas, reality always intrudes and settles into our collective consciousness with a thud. I plead guilty to temporarily giving in to the romanticism that resides in all of us.
Individually, we are all different but I honestly fear that far too many of us cling on to romantic ideas and idealism far longer than is good or healthy.
We need to ask vital questions of ourselves and relate our answers to the collective good. Do we hanker for change for change's own sake? Is change always for the better or can it also be for worse? Or do things stay the same the more they seemingly change?
One of the saddest outcomes of all the changes — real or imagined — of the past year or so is how the matter of our supposed Merdeka social contract is again being bandied about. It is as if nothing has really changed since Merdeka in 1957 and Malaysia Day in 1963.
What really do Malaysians want of their nation? Is it not settled that we are to be guided by the tenets of the Rukun Negara to build a nation based on the principles of a parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy, with Bahasa Malaysia as our national language and Islam as the official religion but freedom of religion for all Malaysians?
If it is generally accepted that that is exactly what we have all been working towards for the past 50-odd years and that great progress has been achieved in that regard, is it not time we moved further afield? We are justifiably proud that ours is a society of easy tolerance and effortless acceptance of differences. We are where we are because of the big hearts and magnanimity of all Malaysians.
Malaysians who are big-hearted enough to accept that "Tanah Melayu" will not be the exclusive preserve of Malays. Malaysians who are big-hearted enough to agree that the fruits of our collective labour will have to be shared with a certain degree of equity for all. Malaysians who are big-hearted enough to share responsibility by all in the political governance of the country.
I think that is the very essence and immutable spirit of our Constitution cemented by the underlying understanding of our social contract.
But if we are to progress as a nation, we must accept that ours is a living Constitution. Our Constitution has undergone countless amendments but the social contract underpinning it must remain.
I believe part of the social contract includes the so-called bargain that the Malays, by virtue of majority of numbers, will control the political levers of power while the Chinese, being economically dominant, will control the economy.
The advent of the New Economic Policy added to the changing social dynamics of the nation. The Chinese and other non-Bumiputeras have never begrudged Bumiputeras playing a more dominant role in the nation's economic destiny.
In the true Malaysian spirit of magnanimity, I do not sense any particular angst among the Chinese over their gradual loss of control over key cabinet economic portfolios in government. I believe what matters above all to them is that the economy continues to be managed ably and sensibly, no matter who in fact manages it.
In the spirit of change for a better Malaysia, the non-Bumiputeras will naturally come to expect to have a more meaningful say in the country's political governance, not necessarily meaning governance related exclusively to the economic domain.
As with any nation, the majority, of course, rules while the minority follows but if overall peace is to be maintained, the majority must always care that the minority is not unnecessarily alienated to the extent the latter looks for relief even in an undeserving and unpromising alternative government.
There is work to do to arrest any growing trend of minority alienation from our governing polity. The government under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has lately made commendable efforts in that direction, largely through substantive economic liberalisation.
It can yet easily do more. We may take a leaf out of what such Commonwealth countries as Canada and New Zealand are now doing in appointing prominent minority individuals to the largely politically symbolic post of governor-general.
In our case, the exemplary precedent of Malacca's first Malaysian governor being Chinese has sadly never again been repeated in any of the four states with appointed heads of state.
Any hurtful revisiting of our settled social contract may be stopped in its track by the highly symbolic and reassuring act of reviving such a precedent, at once re-establishing the spirit of magnanimity that has so unfailingly bound our nation together thus far.
