Politicians and their communal thinking.

Malaysia is supposed to be moving towards developed nation status but from the looks of it, it is only slogan writing that had improved.

We hear of a proposed gathering by the Trengganu government which belongs to the same political party as the federal government which has been trying to get the support of all the citizens with its 1Malaysia. Apparently 1Malaysia is good for the country as for once the citizens are not going to be divided along racial lines in the all its policies, giving aid to those truly in need of them regardless of their racial background which ought to be the case if all Malaysians are to be united as one people. In this there ought to be no opposition from any right-thinking person as governmental aid should certainly go to deserving citizens.

To understand the matter clearly, perhaps I need to go backwards to the earlier policies where race is the factor for governmental aids. When race is the factor for aids, there are those who are even Malay millionaires who get discounts for houses with the amount discounted put in as added costs to houses bought by citizens of other races. The rich Malay need no such aids and therefore can be considered undeserving. So, there can be said to be unfair to certain groups of Malaysians.

So, we have this state government coming from the same party as the federal government which is organising a gathering of only one race with the purpose of uniting that one race only and indirectly bringing up a racial tragedy as a kind of celebration of sorts, a tragedy which had been quite often used as a threat to the other races by the present government at one time or another. Is this another threat to the other races, a threat that that racial tragedy could be repeated should the 1Malaysia gives rightfully equal treatment to all its citizens?

Since that Trengganu government has not been reprimanded by the same federal governing party, does it mean that it is alright to have two opposing poicies; one to fish for votes from the certain races and the another to continue with the division of the races and rule style that they have been practising till this 1Malaysia policy was proposed.

Looks like the politicians are anxious to continue with their powers by using all sorts of tactics to gather support. As i can see, the ordinary folks of all races are united as a people, friendly with each other, working together and in fact are in agreement that all citizens ought to be treated equal.

And when the gathering was condemned by a majority of Malaysians, there was this politician who tried to hide the actual intention of the gathering saying that there is nothing wrong in a particular race gathering, which is true if the gathering is merely to talk on a subject particular to that race but it has the May 13 tragedy, a national tragedy involving every race, as its theme. This man was so racial in his comments that he even had the temerity to tell the Malaysians Chinese who are citizens of the country to leave their own country. He ignores the constitutional rights of these citizens.

Another thing that politicians claim is that Malaya belongs to the Malays alone simply because it was once known as Tanah Melayu. People who say such things do not understand or know history. It is a fact that the original people of Malaya were the Orang Asli. The Orang Asli are neither the Malays nor the Chinese or the Indians. So this land was not originally 'Tanah Melayu' ('Malay Land') for the original people could never have called it that. The earliest migrants to this land could have named it 'Tanah Melayu'. Of course, the later migrants excepted the name given to the land as they did not foresee any problems. Whatever it is, it has to be admitted that, except for the 'Orang Asli' every other citizen must have originated from a migrant. This is an undeniable fact and politicians should not use it to stir up racial problems.

The thing is, why most politicians being educated and possessing of knowledge sufficient to understand the country' needs and development should resort to racial division to garner power when more developed countries than ours have shown that power is possible to those who really can get the country to develop and progress satisfactorily. When can our politicians be politically matured sufficiently to put their efforts into truly developing the nation for its citizens? Perhaps the fault lies in the voters, for when voters can be swayed by racial and religious issues, we will always have politicians posturing themselves as champions of a particular race. Forever, we can only get community leaders and not national leaders who can thinks of the welfare of all communities in a country.

With so many community leaders who cannot progress to national level leadership, how can our country ever achieve developed nation status? What development can there be when these community leaders think only of their own community. It will be some kind of lop-sided development.

It is a dilemma to find ourselves moving backwards economically as other one-time so called less developed and more troubled countries such a Indonesia, Singapore, China, Thailand and the Philippines progress. That despite the fact that our country has so natural resources. This could be due to the fact that we do not think as a nation but as fragmented communities.