Turn 1Malaysia Into Action Plan
by Kee Thuan Chye, Malaysian Digest
Vision 2020 wallowed in abstract rhetoric. No wonder even its proponent, Mahathir, said last month that from the way things are going, it may not be achievable. He tried to blame the current government for not employing the right strategies, but the real pitfall is Vision 2020 had no action plan to begin with.
If Najib wants to avoid the same trajectory for 1Malaysia, he could ask Idris to come up with an action-based program for it, like the latter did for the ETP. But this of course would call for supreme boldness on Najib’s part. And it would depend on how sincere he really is about 1Malaysia.
SINCE Prime Minister Najib Razak first gave us 1Malaysia in 2008, we have heard differing interpretations of what it stands for, and also expressions of confusion over what it actually means.
The prime minister himself has not been clear in explaining it. But that has not stopped Malaysians from using it across the board. Contests have sprouted, capitalizing on the catchiness of the slogan, and on radio and TV, it is uttered with glibness by all sorts of individuals, which just makes 1Malaysia appear more suspiciously like a slogan than anything more.
Lately, some quarters have been seeking clarification of its true meaning. Among them are the Umno clubs of California and Moscow. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has frequently been asking for a thorough explanation of 1Malaysia, recently wrote in his blog that it was a “confusing concept” and that it meant “different things to different races”. To make it worse, the different race-based interpretations are in conflict with one another, which further compound the problem.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, in a recent interview with the Chinese daily Sin Chew, echoed the point about people not knowing what 1Malaysia means. He, too, said that it had created confusion, and that it “misleads the people into believing that [achieving unity] is a matter of simply repeating a slogan”.
Unless for some reason Najib wants to keep the different races divided in their interpretations of the concept and thereby maintain the confusion, the sensible thing for him to do would be to spell out 1Malaysia in concrete terms. Now, how can that be done with what is now essentially abstract rhetoric?
Well, his minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Idris Jala has come up with a concrete formulation called the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). In it, he repeats to the point of overstatement that the ETP “is not a plan, it is an action-based program”. By which he means a goal is identified, the action plan to achieve it is proposed, and an end-result is expected. This makes for a workable blueprint in which key target areas are tackled and objectives spelt out.
Why can’t this be done for 1Malaysia? Instead of being a nebulous idea that sounds somewhat nice and is supposedly intended to unify Malaysians, why can’t 1Malaysia be turned into an action-based program? A program complete with the identification of goals and action plans to realise them?
So far, Najib has made a few mentions here and there about the aims of 1Malaysia but he has said virtually nothing about how he intends to achieve them. As a citizen, I know precious little about the concept beyond what I heard from Idris Jala, when he addressed the National Congress on Integrity organised by UCSI on Sep 16.
He said 1Malaysia was about moving towards “accepting and celebrating our differences”, not just “tolerating” them. The key to achieving unity is the celebration of our diversity. He gave this formula:
Unity = Diversity + Inclusiveness
He said 1Malaysia called for society to undergo “behavioral changes” to move from tolerance to the celebration of diversity, and for us to “exhibit 1Malaysia values in our everyday lives”.
There could have been more to that, but he said time constraints at the event did not permit him to go deeper. So, unfortunately for people like me, despite the little explanation he gave, 1Malaysia still sounds like nothing more than an abstract idea.
After all, how do we exhibit 1Malaysia values in our everyday lives when we are not sure what those values are, apart from their having to do with accepting differences and celebrating diversity? Even in intellectual terms, “accepting differences” and “celebrating diversity” are open to huge, intangible possibilities.
Idris gave one example from the world of football. He said the black British footballer John Barnes distinguished himself as an England player but the English did not put him on a pedestal, whereas the Dutch lionized Ruud Gullit even though he was of mixed ancestry.
This was not a good example, actually. Barnes was a good player but he wasn’t great. He was certainly not in the same league as Bobby Charlton or Bobby Moore or Gordon Banks. As for the celebration of Gullit as a Dutch icon, that’s just a simplistic illustration of achieving unity through such a means. Yes, it’s a start to look beyond race when we hail our heroes, but more than that, achieving national unity surely calls for a more concerted program.
1Malaysia could well be an action-based program if it identified problems like racism and set a related goal to eliminate it, complete with an action plan to bring racists to book, including mass media that invoke racial hatred.
On the constructive side, it could set a goal to build racial unity, complete with an action plan that details measures that would bring the different races together to learn about one another so they can accept their differences, and also to live and work together.
It could entail – I’m merely quoting examples – the creation of a single-stream education system, even a reform of the entire education system in order to depoliticize it; the complete removal of the category of “race” in all forms, official and otherwise; the closing-down of single-race agencies and institutions; the opening up of equal business and employment opportunities to all races; the organizing of projects to educate the masses on the celebration of diversity. Whatever fits the principles of acceptance and diversity.
Also important would be an action plan to educate the 1.3 million civil servants to embrace the program so that they exhibit the 1Malaysia values in the daily dispensation of their official duties.
If these – and more – could be formulated – and implemented – we could see a real transformation. We could see Malaysian society undergoing behavioral changes.
Otherwise, it’s just talk, and that hardly ever helps. The evidence is plain to see. It has been more than two years since Najib came up with 1Malaysia, but racial tensions have actually intensified. Politicians and civil servants have been guilty of making racist remarks, publicly and behind closed doors. Read comments in blogs and social media and you’ll see educated Malaysians of all races vying for the Racist of the Year Award.
