IN a multicultural country like ours, managing race relations is an important aspect of governance.

Of late, we see a deluge of issues, some not even remotely race-related, yet managed to be successfully spun into them for political or other reasons.  

With the rise of such issues, we see a parallel increase in the number of organisations championing those causes – ranging from vernacular education, freedom of religion to consumption or banning of alcohol.

These add to the noise that often drowns out a certain topic. Politicians, responding to this noise, often either pander to the most convenient path, the majority, or remain inelegantly silent for the issue to blow over, only to add to the brewing cauldron of unresolved issues, making solving them all the more difficult. 

Every administration has been keen to assert its own branding and distance itself from its predecessors, and thankfully, conventional wisdom has guided successive administrations to a mostly moderate, centrist position despite their individual political persuasion. 

Yet, if continually unchecked, this could present a problem for the country in the future. 

While we have a National Unity Ministry, it has limited funding, reach and machinery. 

Moreover, national unity permeates and affects nearly every facet of our everyday life – commerce, education, work, culture and so on. It has an impact on politics, national harmony, economic stability, foreign direct investment and national competitiveness. 

Building and sustaining national unity is not the responsibility, therefore, of a single ministry or minister. It is the building block upon which other successes should build from. 

The National Unity Blueprint should form part and parcel of every ministry’s key performance indicator.

This would make it a key thrust of the mainstream national plan, rather than a peripheral one.  

This would also enable this agenda to use the formidable and often underutilised government machinery, one of the largest, proportionally, in the world.  

A good starting point could be the local councils, under shared purview of the state governments, with additional oversight provided by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.  

Local councils are almost a microcosm of the federal government, mirroring most of its functions on a smaller, municipal level, involving such areas like health, infrastructure maintenance, community development, security and disaster relief. 

Local councils also run community leadership programmes and help the state governments coordinate village and town development committees, joint management bodies and resident groups, grassroots level administration, which would have the widest community reach for fostering unity programmes. 

These programmes could dovetail as the end mile portion of various other programmes that are already in place with the police, Rela, Rukun Tetangga, various faith organisations and youth clubs.  

The programmes need to be updated and boosted with community and private-sector support.

The government’s tendency of overwriting plans and injecting them with the branding of the government of the day – from Vision 2020 to Keluarga Malaysia – should be avoided and at the very least, duplicate, wasteful programmes should be left out. 

Instead of recreating the wheel, more synergy should be encouraged as we have more things in common than what sets us apart and, therefore, should be easier to foster unity than division.

Common social goals like poverty eradication, quality education, health, creation of jobs and strengthening the local economy can be easily energised as tools for unity.  

Keeping the focus on these universal values and pursuits rather than divisive politics, religious polemics and hijacked agenda, would bode well for keeping positive national discourse and help Malaysia stay grounded in the middle. 

It will take time and effort to undo the damage done and build a strong, united generation but it would well be worth the effort to live in such a future rather than constantly wishing for Sarawak’s enviable community relations onto Semenanjung, or reminiscing about the past that could never return. – January 19, 2022.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.