ON December 1, 2018, civil society grouping OHMSI hosted our Second in Series of the late TS Tan Chee Khoon Lecture and made three Public Integrity Awards.

I would say that integrity is the most expensive word of the 21st Century. In fact, when I studied the word “dignity” during my doctoral journey, I discovered that it was only about 70-years-old. It was only born after two world wars, as an individual concept which defines both persons and personality.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights post war further clarified and articulated what that full meaning of human life and values meant; even if it is still not quite fully understood.

Our Integrity Award therefore recognised three outstanding Merdeka Malaysians who have lived a public life of Integrity. This year, for the first time, after more than a decade of existence, we were convicted to announce our TCK Public Integrity Award because of the nation elected to migrate from May 13 to May 9.

We consequently have a Pakatan Harapan government and experience the imperative of migrating towards new governance of Malaysia 2.0!

We also agreed that given dramatic changes of May 9; it was time to identify all such great Malaysians. We also gave each guest a T-Shirt which declared our migration from May 13 towards May 9. Let us therefore go out and celebrate to exorcise that ghost of about 50 years ago.

Whither integration with integrity?

The dangerous moments of Malaya, on May 13, 1969 are still haunting us, and rather unfortunately, it is idiocrats who are the ones too young to understand the real trauma of that race-related wrongdoing.

The New Malaysia 2.0 cannot be realised if we are not careful of three important factors of ACT, my acronym for action. If good, honest, and righteous Malaysians, regardless of age or birth place or faith or ethnicity, do not argue against race-based human rights, we are no different than the Zionist Israeli State.

Malaysia has to move ahead, and it is not determined by the International Convention for the Eradication of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) alone. We may not need the ICERD per se. We needed Article 153 at Merdeka, but now it is obvious that our policy execution has gone awry; and it is time Malaysia changes directions before we implode.

Both Sabahans and Sarawakians in the countryside do not have basic amenities like good clean water, roads and drains, and basic education. How can Malaysia then be integrated with integrity?

OHMSI is therefore focused on this, which is our integrity agenda for which we give Integrity Awards. We need more Malaysians like our Integrity Award winners, to make Malaysia a truly developed nation-state, a politically and culturally mature one.

OHMSI therefore prioritises two activities of importance and value to Malaysian society. Through our NCOI Series, we highlight core issues and concerns facing the nation-state in terms of integrating the nation-state with constitutional integrity.

The second is our late Dr Tan Chee Khoon Lecture Series wherein we invite credible Malaysians who lead a life of personal and public integrity to speak up and teach us about this very concept.

Our next and 8th NCOI will be over the May 11-May 13, 2019 weekend, explicitly to review the May 13 phenomenon, 50 years after that bloodbath. – December 8, 2018.

* KJ John worked in public service for 32 years, retired, and started a civil group for which he is chairman of the board. He writes to inform and educate, arguing for integration with integrity in Malaysia. He believes such a transformation has to start with the mind before it sinks into the heart!