It is most ironical and tragic that the government’s nation-building objectives had come under a cloud on the occasion of the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary — whether the Barisan Nasional government is still committed or has abandoned the objective of creating a Bangsa Malaysia.

After the denunciation of the Bangsa Malaysia concept and objective by the Johore Mentri Besar, Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman at a Umno Johore conference in early November last year – a run-up to the “fire-and-brimstone” Umno and Umno Youth general assemblies the following week — the Federal and State Governments appear to have distanced themselves from the Bangsa Malaysia objective.

Let us not forget history. The Bangsa Malaysia concept was proclaimed in Vision 2020 in 1991 with the objective that it be achieved within three decades in 2020 with the emergence of a people entirely Malaysian in perspective, transcending ethnic, religious and cultural differences

This was how Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who proclaimed Viksion 2020, explained the Bangsa Malaysia concept at the time:
This is the report from the Star (Sept. 11, 1995), which carried the front-page headline “ESCHEW ETHNICITY’, with a secondary headline of “PM: Be proud of being Malaysians”:

“Kuala Lumpur – Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysians should reduce their strong sense of ethnicity in order to achieve Bangsa Malaysia.

“He said citizens should be proud of being Malaysians and work together instead of being preoccupied with ethnic origin.

“‘Bangsa Malaysia means people who are able to identify themselves with the country, speak Bahasa Malaysia and accept the Constitution,’ he said at a dialogue with the Malaysian Students Executive Council of the United Kingdom here yesterday.

“The Prime Minister said to realise the goal of Bangsa Malaysia, the people should start accepting each other as they are, regardless of race and religion.

” Dr. Mahathir said certain quarters may condemn him for wanting to achieve Bangsa Malaysia and not struggling for the Malay cause as he did during his early years in politics.

“He said when he was fighting for the Malay cause per se, he was young and his thoughts were that of an inexperienced politician. Read the rest of this entry »

This year is a the 50th Merdeka Anniversary for the nation.

There are two ways to celebrate the half-century of nationhood – in a lavish expenditure of public funds in fireworks, extravaganzas and pageantry or to celebrate it in a meaningful manner to instill greater national solidarity and sense of purpose in the nation’s journey to achieve a Bangsa Malaysia and a fully developed nation status.

Parliament, as the highest political forum in the land, should set the national example to celebrate the half-century of our nationhood in a meaningful manner, with Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class or political beliefs standing up for fair, just and progressive nation-building policies to create towering Malaysians and to stop Malaysia’s loss of international competitiveness.

The most meaningful way to celebrate the country’s half-century of nationhood is to seek a national consensus as to what had gone wrong with nation-building and how we can learn from the mistakes and failures of the past decades so that we can be more successful in the next 50 years, in particular on the following issues:

Firstly, National unity — why after nearly five decades of nationhood, race relations in Malaysia is “not good, fragile and brittle”, as publicly admitted by the Prime Minister recently. Racial and religious polarization have never been more serious today than in the past five decades.

The introduction of the national service training programme in 2004 is testimony of the failure of the national education system to create national unity in the country — and this is no surprise when the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein is the very symbol and cause of such polarization with his racist keris-wielding histrionics at Umno general assemblies. Read the rest of this entry »