The problem with Malaysians isn’t race or religion

By admin-s On Dec 3, 2018

Elijah Hee, Free Malaysia Today

Mariam Mokhtar recently called for the removal of race and religion markers from Malaysian identity cards, or MyKads, in order to foster national unity.

Her call is nothing new, as some people believe it is the differences in race and religion that divide us and cause racial and religious tension.

Back in 1947, the Perlembagaan Ra’ayat (People’s Constitution) proposed by the left-wing Putera-AMCJA (Pusat Tenaga Ra’ayat and All-Malaya Council of Joint Action) stated that all citizens of Malaya were to be identified as “Melayu”.

Several decades later, the Bangsa Malaysia concept was proposed by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was prime minister at the time. Under this concept, Malaysians would identify with Malaysia, speak Malay and accept the Federal Constitution.

While I too hope for racial and religious harmony, I beg to differ. In my opinion, racial and religious differences have to come with other factors in order to lead to conflicts and tension. Those factors would be our attitudes towards those who are different from us. Simply wiping out the race and religion markers from our MyKads, and even from our birth certificates and the national census, is not going to solve the problem. Our differences in terms of culture, language and way of life are here to stay.

Closing down vernacular schools (e.g. Chinese and Tamil schools) is not really a way to foster unity as racial problems do crop up even in national schools. Not only do we have “Malay gangs” and “Chinese gangs” fighting each other, we also have certain teachers telling students of other races to go back to their ancestral homeland, or insulting students of different races with various derogatory remarks. We were all born and raised differently; it makes no difference whether we have race and religion markers in our MyKads.

I worry that if we do away with these, it may open up a Pandora’s Box where a forced assimilation process may occur, as happened in Indonesia during Suharto’s dictatorship, in the name of creating the so-called Bangsa Malaysia. Not only would everyone be forced to speak only Malay and English, with other languages such as Chinese and Tamil banned, the potential for different cultural practices might be suppressed or even banned as well.

Such a situation would only happen in a fascist or fascist-like state and would be very inappropriate in a democracy. It would also contravene Article 152 of the Federal Constitution which states that while Malay is the official language, other languages are free to be taught and used in non-official purposes.

There would also be a possibility that everyone would be forced to use similar names, which has happened in Indonesia and Thailand. Ethnic differences in personal names would be wiped out. Even if an assimilation process similar to that of Thailand during Plaek Phibunsongkhram’s first premiership (1938-1944) took place where less force is used compared with Indonesia in order not to violate Article 152, the next generation of non-Malays might still abandon their ancestral languages and even forget their own roots and history. Are we going to wipe out the identities, languages and cultures of the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia and the Bumiputera in Sabah and Sarawak as well?

Furthermore, despite the forced assimilation in Indonesia, racial riots eventually erupted in 1998 before the downfall of Suharto. The US is another example of how assimilation does not solve racial problems. Even though the people all speak English as their first language due to slaves from Africa centuries ago being forced to give up their native languages, racial tension persists until today, especially in the Deep South. This is despite the abolition of slavery after the Civil War. Racial tension in the southern US gave rise to the “Southern Strategy” adopted by the Republicans in the 1964 presidential election, which explains why certain Republican politicians such as Donald Trump ran on racist and xenophobic platforms.

I kid you not. Among the ethnic Chinese, despite their difference in ancestry – Hokkiens, Cantonese, Teochews, Hakkas, Hainanese and so on – they are only identified as “Chinese” in official data and unite under the same language, Mandarin, in Chinese schools and formal settings. After all, Chinese schools have been banning the use of so-called dialects so that students will only speak Mandarin, English or Malay. As a result, the younger generation, with the exception of the Cantonese, are abandoning not only their ancestral languages which are perceived as “dialects”, but their cultures and identities as well. (Cantonese remains strong due to the popularity of Cantonese films from Hong Kong.)

Removing the religion marker from our MyKads is not going to help, either. We will still be practising different religions. The religion marker is mainly to help the government conduct its census. It makes no difference to whether religious conflicts will occur. Forcing everyone into the same religion would also contravene Article 11 of the constitution on freedom of religion. Religious tension will continue to occur as long as there is no tolerance and mutual respect. This has absolutely nothing to do with the religion marker on our MyKads.

Having all of us identify only as Malaysians might further encourage xenophobia, where foreigners or immigrants face discrimination and hatred simply because they are not Malaysians. With the influx of migrant workers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and so on, as well as students and other immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, and even refugees from Myanmar (mainly Rohingya), xenophobia is brewing among Malaysians against these people. If race and religion is dividing Malaysians, don’t you think nationality would divide humankind as well?

Instead of wiping out race and religion markers, we should accept and embrace differences to foster mutual respect and tolerance. In some parts of the world, people of different ethnicities and religions live together like brothers and sisters. In the Albanian village of Malbardh, whenever there is a wedding, there must be witnesses from both the Muslims and the Roman Catholics in the village. Albania is one of the few countries in the world where Muslims and Christians live together peacefully without significant conflict.

There is no problem whether you want to take pride in being a Malaysian, Malay/Chinese/Indian/Iban/Kadazan or other races, or as a Muslim/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu or others. In fact, I do not even see it as a problem for Muhyiddin Yassin to identify himself as “Malay first” before being Malaysian. This is only a matter of self-identification and pride. We just shouldn’t be racist, religious extremists or xenophobic as such identifications are not a licence for us to discriminate against others who are different from us.

If racial and religious differences need to be wiped out from our MyKads in order for us to achieve unity, does it mean that we need to wipe out the gender marker as well to curb discrimination towards women? Discrimination is basically everywhere. It exists in different forms against different kinds of people, including discrimination against disabled people, poor people, arts stream students, blue-collar workers, the LGBT community, and so on.

In short, the problem is not race and religion. It is our attitude towards those who are different from us.