13 April, 2008
We, who care about the future of this country, must make a conscious decision, on a personal level, to reject the idea of race as a defining factor, and embrace instead the values and virtues underpinning the very essence of Malaysian-ness.
By Tunku Abdul Aziz, NEW STRAITS TIMES
THERE comes a time, in the life of every nation, when in a remarkable and totally unexpected twist of fate, an event occurs that will influence the course of its history.
March 8, 2008 marked the departure from what had, until then, seemed like an immutable law of nature that had decreed that race-based politics was to be our eternal cross to bear.
The infernal curse, mercifully, has been broken to the delight of those of us who have laboured so tirelessly in so many different ways for greater racial integration in national politics.
The first hesitant, tentative step has been taken. While it is tempting to put the champagne on ice, this could well turn out to be just that, one step and no more.
And it would be prudent to contain our exuberance. There will be time enough for celebration. However, for now at any rate, much remains to be done.
For a start, we who have begun the process of changing the political landscape have to clear quickly the tangled undergrowth of prejudices of a lifetime that have been allowed to shape and define our social and political attitudes.
We must never again, by design or default, revert to type, with policies perceived, rightly or wrongly, to negate efforts at national integration and sustainable overall development.
We, who care about the future of this country, must make a conscious decision, on a personal level, to reject the idea of race as a defining factor, and embrace instead the values and virtues underpinning the very essence of Malaysian-ness.
It is only then that we can truly claim to have achieved a level of political sophistication and awareness based on reason rather than raw emotion.
To me, race is an accident at best, and not worth a face-off with the police at Dataran Merdeka merely to draw attention to your plight or unhappiness, and certainly not worth dying for as far as I am concerned.
The nation, ah well, that is something else. Our first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, the truly great Malaysian that he was, asked very little of us -- nothing more than our love and loyalty to the country, without equivocation, and by implication to do the right thing by the country of our birth or adoption.
Our experiments, admittedly out of practical necessity, with the politics of race have failed us because they are completely inimical to the interest of society.
The prime minister in the aftermath of the electoral shambles has promised to accelerate the pace of reforms that failed to take off by and large, on his own disarmingly honest admission.
If these reforms are not to remain unfulfilled promises, then special focus groups should be appointed comprising respected citizens with non-party political credentials, and no personal hidden agendas to push.
This inclusive approach involving individuals with specialised professional interests in the judiciary, the Attorney-General's Chambers, police, Anti-Corruption Agency, Immigration and Customs, will greatly assist the government in understanding the extent of public concerns on the ground about many of our institutions.
The focus groups should complete their work within a month and come out with no more than 10 recommendations for reform for the government to consider and decide whether more detailed reviews will be required, in which case other mechanisms could be set up.
As I was preparing to write this piece, I was delighted to see that Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, the Regent of Perak had waded in with his proposals for much-needed and long-neglected reform of the judiciary.
Much as I admire his readiness to lend his considerable stature and influence to the debate, I cannot but feel that he, as a very senior member of a ruling family, the next in line to the ancient Perak sultanate, should busy himself with his traditional royal duties in Perak.
For his own good, he should be persuaded to stay out of issues which are likely to attract political controversies that could embroil him in unnecessary public debates on the proper "constitutional" role of someone in his position.
I feel, in a perverse sort of way, totally vindicated. Some months ago, I wrote in my column how unimpressed I was with the manner in which the operations of KLIA, particularly those relating to security, were being handled.
What really made me bristle with anger on that occasion was the fact that a Palestinian engineer had been able to scale two perimeter fences without being picked up by the KLIA surveillance cameras. That security lapse at the much-touted "World's No. 1 Airport" was all the more difficult to come to terms with.
A few days ago, a Bangladeshi passenger on his way home to Dhaka managed to carry a fruit knife on board the aircraft undetected by the state of the art X-ray equipment manned by what looked like, sounded like, security officers but were obviously automatons in uniform.
And to top it all, on Thursday, departing passengers were treated to a shoot-out, with the police nowhere to be seen, five people wounded, and four armed robbers RM3.5 million richer. A nice night's work that lasted less than five minutes.
They must have known a great deal about the lackadaisical approach to security such as the absence of armed police about the place and the non-operating surveillance cameras. The robbers did not even bother to cover their faces.
To add insult to injury, all the newly minted Transport Minister, Datuk Ong Tee Keat, could manage to blurt out, with great authority by his reckoning, was: "We will be more attentive to security and safety measures... the area was not under Malaysian Airport Holdings Bhd's jurisdiction."
Nothing earth-shattering about that maiden statement on KLIA security, and you will not believe it, we have all heard it before from his illustrious predecessors and successive top boys of MAHB; only this time, the minister was trying to upstage them by transferring the territorial responsibility to the police.
MAHB should stop the blame game and get on with it.
The prime minister once said something about first world infrastructure and third-world mentality. Could he have been thinking specifically about the security arrangements at KLIA, I wonder?
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