Happy Chinese New Year to all Malaysians.
The biggest challenge in the Chinese New Year and in all ethnic and religious festivities for this year is to restore the National Compass lost after six decades of nationhood.
The Rukun Negara was an attempt to adhere to the National Compass to ensure that we do not deviate from the founding principles the nation’s founding fathers entrenched in the Malaysian Constitution — constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, rule of law, an independent judiciary, Islam as the official religion of the country, good governance, public integrity with minimum corruption, a clean and honest government, meritocracy, respect for human rights, an end to the various injustices and inequalities in the country, a world-class economic, educational, health and social system, and national unity, understanding and harmony from our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-cultural diversity.
But we have again deviated from this National Compass after six decades of nationhood to the extent that people who do not endorse the five principles of the Rukun Negara could be appointed as Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy.
We must restore the National Compass, or we will not only descend from a first-rate world-class plural nation to a second-rate mediocre country, we stand the risk of becoming a divided, failed, and kleptocratic state on Malaysia’s Centennial in 2057.
Malaysians, regardless of ethnicity, religion or region, must not give up the Malaysian Dream for Malaysia to be a world-class nation in various field of human endeavour.
This is why all Malaysians should support the new effort of the Anwar unity government to restore the National Compass in the new Malaysia Madani concept to build a Malaysia where all Malaysians can feel proud, whether in the country or any part of the globe.
(2023 Chinese New Year massage by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Penang on Saturday, 21st January 2023)