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.
“Dr. Mahathir said, in future, there would be no nation in the world which would have a single ethnic group as its citizen. “‘People have a high degree of mobility and no nation will have the purity of a singular race with the exception of probably Japan and Korea.”
“Dr. Mahathir said while a citizen of a nation may associate himself with the country, he would not be readily prepared to give up his culture, religion, or language.
“‘Previously, we tried to have a single entitybut it caused a lot of tension and suspicions among the people because they thought the Goverment was trying to create a hybrid.
“‘There was fear among the people that they may have to give up their own cultures, values and religions. This could not work, and we believe that the Bangsa Malaysia is the ansswer,’ he added.”
On 7th August 1996, in an interview with the Editor-in-Chief of with the Utusan Melayu Group, Johan Jaafar, on race relations in Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir said:
“PM: Zaman berubah. Kalau dahulu tumpuan ialah kita kepada asimilasi. Di mana-mana negara juga tidak ada lagi usaha untuk ‘asimilasi’, bahkan di Amerika Syarikat mereka sering bercakap berkenaan dengan ‘roots’ asal-usul mereka. Jadi kalau kita sudah terima bahawa itu tidak mungkin, kita perlu cari jalan lain untuk merapatkan perhubungan antara kaum ini. Seperti kata De Bono, Lateral Thinking, kalau kita tidak boleh merentas satu jalan maka kita pergi ke jalan lain untuk sampai ke matlamat yang sama.”
In an interview with TIME magazine for the December 9, 1996 issue, which carried Dr. Mahathir as the cover story, the then Prime Minister said:
“TIME: You recently said that efforts to assimilate races have not been successful and it was time to try something else. “Mahathir: The idea before was that people should become 100% Malay in order to be Malaysian. We now accept that this is a multi-racial country. We should build bridges instead of trying to remove completely the barriers separating us. We do not intend to convert all the Chinese to Islam, and we tell our people, the Muslims, ‘you will not try to force people to convert’.”
I had at the time commended Dr. Mahathir for the evolution of his thinking on nation-building for Malaysia, for this was one of the cornerstones of the DAP political struggle when we were formed in 1966, to establish that Malaysia is a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation and that the only viable and successful nation-building policy must be one based on integration and not on assimilation.
Many DAP leaders had to pay a heavy price in terms of loss of personal freedoms or being persecuted in courts for courageously defending and upholding the rights of all races, languages, cultures and religions in a multi-racial Malaysia.
In the sixties, seventies and eighties, when there were political forces trying to impose and implement a “One Language, One Culture” nation-building policy, the DAP was the only political voice and force in Parliament and in the country to declare its uncompromising opposition.
There is no doubt that if there had been no DAP in the last three decades, the attempt to impose a “One Language, One Culture” Policy in Malaysia would have been taken to extreme lengths with disastrous results both for national unity as well as development.
Mahathir’s public acknowledgement that assimilation had not and cannot be a successful nation-building policy is a vindication of the DAP’s political struggle for a Malaysian Malaysia.
The question on the occasion of the 50th Merdeka Anniversary is whether the Johore Mentri Besar Ghani Othman’s rejection of Bangsa Malaysia now holds sway in Umno, Barisan Nasional and the government.
I am quite disturbed that the objective of Bangsa Malaysia has been conspicuously omitted in the Royal Address, which is the government policy speech,
I call on the Prime Minister to explain whether a policy decision has been taken by the Federal Government to acquiesce to the objection of the Johore Mentri Besar who had claimed that there was no justification for the concept and objective for a united and single Bangsa Malaysia or a Malaysian race, when the constitution provides clearly for Malays as “the pivotal race” — or to backtrack from an open commitment to achieve a Bangsa Malaysia under Vision 2020.
Has the Cabinet and Barisan Nasional Supreme Council endorsed the abandonment of the concept and objective of Vision 2020 for a Bangsa Malaysia, cold-storaged it or have they reaffirmed that Bangsa Malaysia remain the unshakeable and unaltereable objective of the government, nation and Vision 2020?
Or is the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council just hiding their heads under the sand like ostriches, avoiding the issue altogether?
If the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Barisan Nasional Supreme Council are not prepared to reaffirm Bangsa Malaysia as the national goal and Vision 2020 objective, then what is the meaning and purpose of the 50th Merdeka Anniversary celebrations?
I call on all MPs, whether Barisan Nasional or Opposition, to stand up in Parliament in this debate to declare loud and clear their categorical support for the Bangsa Malaysia objective of Vision 2020 and repudiation of Ghani Othman’s subversive thesis to destroy the Bangsa Malaysia concept. Let everyone in Parliament, every political party represented in Parliament, stand up and be counted in full support of the Bangsa Malaysia objective.
I hope we will not end up with a situation where only DAP MPs dare to openly support the Bangsa Malaysia concept and objective for Malaysian nation-building while Ministers and MPs particularly from the Barisan Nasional component parties fall silent on the matter, one by one.
[Speech (12) on Royal Address debate in Parliament 22.3.07]