Transcending racial, cultural and religious barriers.

Look around and we see people in the political arena who put on a show of leadership through various issues and causes, purport to represent certain quarters and in doing so willingly scatter lies and half-truths to achieve their aims. Of course, there are those who genuinely fight for the rights of the downtrodden.

Especially in politics, it is so interesting to study the individuals who, despite their supposedly maturity which ought to be a necessary requirement in leadership, hurl curses and arouse their followers to racial, cultural and religious fervour.

Sometimes, the followers are to be blamed for being so easily led astray. But then that is human nature; being easily influenced by words and the person espousing the ideas and falsehood, especially when that person is of the same race and religion as his followers. Great is the guy who can get people from other races, cultures and religions to follow his ideas and opinions. Just as great are the people who are able to transcend such racial, cultural and religious influences to join someone to achieve even greater heights in whatever endeavour.

Especially in a multi-racial country, and the number of such countries is increasing as immigration of people occur frequently due to easy transport and better acceptance of talented people from other countries, national leaders must be able to transcend racial, cultural and religious differences and limits. Only when leaders are able to achieve such an open-mindedness can they be acceptable to every citizen in a country. If such leaders constantly are thinking of their original race's welfare and giving only his race preferential treatment, they can be assured of reducing support and popularity among the citizens. In Malaysia, racial parties are losing popularity as the citizens become aware of the unfairness of the policies of leaders from such racial parties. Racial parties are certainly on the way out. How can a country be really united in the true sense of the word when the leaders are always thinking along racial lines and hiding truths from the public as well as preventing their being questioned with the Official Secrets Act. (Imagine having the privatisation of its highways under the Official Secrets Act. It certainly sounds fishy.) The increase in the number of educated people, through educational institutions and the internet with easily available knowledge and understanding have mentally developed sufficiently to appreciate justice and righteousness for all human brothers and sisters.

A few years ago, we rejoice in the election of the first American Negro as the President of America. It was a moment of celebration for mankind as humans recognise the truth that all man are of the human race. It is not the member of which race who was elected but the most capable, respected individual in a country. In this aspect, Malaysia is still far behind although there are signs that people are becoming more and more truly educated. Recently, we saw a protest when a capable woman of a minority race was chosen to head just a department. The protesters claimed that heads of departments must be held by a person of the majority race. So much for the maturity and mentality of those people. Of course, it could be due to immatured leaders posturing a master race concept. These poor people forgot what happened to the Japanese with their World War One or Hitler with his Second World War. People who believe in a master race cannot be a true believer of God for God created all humans equal.

Education and understanding are important in the fight against racial, cultural and religious discrimination. Thus, it is essential that governments take education to every nook and corner of their countries, to every rural district, ensuring that schools in those areas are given all possible financial assistance to equip such schools with sufficient and proper facilities so that no child is deprived of excellent educational opportunities, no matter where he or she is located. In a country like Malaysia which ought to be rich with its many natural resources can easily implement such a development.

Unfortunately, due to reasons best known to the politicians, such a possible development never come for the rural poor. Instead, politics seems to be determined to use the excuse of improving the lot of the poor majority race to actually enrich only a small group of the majority race. And this small group of enriched politicians are still shouting the same racial cries in the hope of enriching themselves even more without much thought to the rural poor except the time before another election. Apparently, racial politics is more about enriching politicians and their cronies. Sad to say, there does not seem to be a way out as the number who are still easily led astray by racial and religious incitement is still considerable.

Therefore, the only hope which exists is the rise of multi-racial or truly Malaysian represented parties to replace such racial parties. As citizens, we have to play our part to ensure future leaders transcend racial, cultural and religious barriers.