JULY 15 — Malaysia is a country blessed with the richness of diversity in terms of ethnicity and culture but, to a certain extent, entangled in conflicts as a result of its own diversity.
On April 12 when I was still in the US, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture on human rights that featured Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University. As the hall was completely overcrowded, my friends and I had to sit in another hall to watch his broadcasted speech.
His speech revolved around democracy in the US that is under attack due to racism. “Value gap” was the frequent concept used to explain the situation whereby people think that everyone is equal but some matters more.
According to Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., when President Barack Obama was historically elected as the first African American president of the US, some felt that the rights and the position of the white people were undermined.
Unfortunately, some view the significant leap of democracy as a zero-sum game, for the rise of African Americans certainly equals the fall of the white people.
Therefore, once there is some form of progress in race relations, the value gap within the society is reasserted and possibly, further strengthened. The value gap that keeps widening will corrupt the characters of the people, and eventually undermine their democracy.
When I look back at Malaysia that is undergoing various reforms after a change of government, it is unfortunately still troubled by ethnic conflicts, particularly those that are fanned by politicians.
Recently, PAS said that the appointment of three non-Muslims to the top legal posts will undermine the ‘legal welfare’ of Muslims. Not long ago, the use of Mandarin in the official statement issued by the Ministry of Finance is perceived by some as undermining the position of Malay language, even though the National Language Act 1963/1967 has stated clearly that translation of official documents is allowed.
Diversity in Malaysia looks rather fragile and the value gap in Malaysia is huge. One group will feel threatened whenever there is some form of progress towards equality.
The huge value gap was created and strengthened for several decades under the then BN government which was an expert in fanning ethnic tensions for its political survival.
Imagine how pathetically worse our ethnic relations could be if BN is still in power, whereby lackeys such as Jamal Yunos can still mock our democracy whereas PAS, with BN’s overt or covert support, can continue playing its religion card unscrupulously.
A change of government is definitely a good start to eventually change people’s mindset. Several instances above, however, remind us that there is still much work to do.
With the new and bigger space for dialogues created after a change of government, I believe that all of us, particularly the youth, must push the new government for more substantial reforms. Also, by using facts rather than merely emotions, we can firmly reject extremists’ calls that are detrimental to the fundamentals of our democracy that is undergoing repairs.
Equality improvement is not a zero-sum game. Let us work on narrowing the value gap together after fighting so hard for the opportunity to fix past mistakes.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
