The New Malaysia Narrative — fostering discourse of Good Political Governance & Social Justice in Malaysia
美佳之窗 His Window 88 (Oct - Dec 2019)
Text by Clement Chong
On September 14th, a forum entitled ‘New Malaysia Narrative’ was held at Mega Chinese Methodist Church. It was a 6-hour long event, and the successor of a previously held forum organised by Chinese Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Malaysia in May 2019. The aforesaid forum with the title of ‘New Malaysia Old Politics’ was to celebrate the evolution of a new Malaysia, twelve months post GE14.
The event kicked off with a short opening speech by Bro Jacob Lee as Chairman of Laity Board of CAC followed quickly by a speech by YB Steven Sim, the incumbent Deputy Minister for the Youth & Sports ministry. His speech touched on the subject of Christians who are invested in politics. He too once believed that politics was dirty and that it was not for us as Christians but of course this is not the case as the answer to clean politics, he says, is not no politics but is rather clean politics. It is difficult as Christians to avoid politics because the Bible says that Jesus is Lord, that implies that nobody else (prime minister included) is Lord, and that in itself can be taken as a political stance. He also explored what it was like to vote for Jesus when He is finally King; there will be good news for the poor, there will be good news for freedom, and there will be restoration to human dignity. He then ended with a message to the young, ‘let no one deny you in your youth, go forth in power.’
After a brief tea break, the forum resumed with three esteemed guests, Professor Tajudin, Dr James Chin, and Dr Lee Kam Hong. Each guest was given time to speak before opening the floor to questions from the audience. Professor Tajudin was first to peak,giving the audience a much needed fresh perspective.
As an architect and academic, Professor Tajudin made sure to emphasize that he was speaking as a public intellectual
and not on behalf of UCSI. He spoke about not being accepted by his own faith and race, and therefore understanding how it is like to be the minority. He has 4 key values for all the issues that we face:
- Wilful ignorance – knowing and accepting that we do not know everything
- According dignity to all – respecting and loving everybody regardless of race and religion
- Leaving your ‘self’ – leaving the many roles you have made for yourself as a person, whether it be a father, or a professional; the true spiritual self knows no identity
- Feeling love and empathy – to feel the pain of others not from his or her own culture, and to extend a bubble of compassion from the self to encompass the other into that extended bubble
He ended with a short but meaningful sentiment, ‘We should not be One Malaysia but One-Many Malaysia!’
The next guest was Dr James Chin, the Inaugural Director of Asia Institute, University of Tasmania, and a proud east Malaysian. His speech gave us an interesting perspective from a very different part of Malaysia. It was revealed that the Sabahans and Sarawakians do not feel that there is a change since the new government took over. The locals there are different than over on this side of Malaysia and they would like to be left to their own devices. They do not want the politics of race, religion, and royalty to be brought over and they want the indigenous people to be respected. They are also upset about the people born outside their land being given residency in their land. This is leading to the rise of state nationalism, ‘Sabah for Sabahans’, ‘Sarawak for Sarawakians’. To sum it up, the east Malaysians want to be a part of the new Narrative, but want to be recognised as different, as unique.
Next to take the stage was Dr Lee Kam Hing, a historian and the deputy vice chancellor of New Era College. In his speech, he gave a perspective based on looking back at the past history. In the past, race and religion was used to compete for power and money. Today our history is being altered to depict a Malay homeland and a community of immigrants, to show a history that is dominated by Malay or Islam. The political consequence of this is the division of the nation. However, contrary to popular belief, history is not fixed, it is a construction of the past and thus can be changed when new evidence surfaces. The Christian presence has been an integral part of Malaysia’s history, contributing to the society knowledge and information and being amongst the first printing presses in Malaysia (the first Malay books being published by Methodist Publishing House - MPH). Dr Lee alluded that as a nation, ‘we need to recover a shared past if we want to have a shared future’.
After a short break, the moderator, Philip Koh, a highly experienced Advocate and Solicitor for the High Court of Malaya gave a short summary as well as some of his thoughts before introducing our next speaker.
YB Michelle Ng, the Selangor State Assembly woman for the seat of Subang Jaya spoke about why she took on the political journey and the challenges she faced along the way. She took this journey because she wanted to make the change that she wanted to see in Malaysia. ‘People are considered righteous by actions and not faith alone,’ and she wanted to act on her beliefs. She says that as Christians we are called to serve and our role is to meet people’s needs. There are things that are common to us despite our differences, and we are all humans with human needs. It is powerful when we meet these needs because we are telling our neighbours that we are meeting you at your most basic needs regardless of race and religion, and that is our shared identity. She ended with a simple thought for us to ponder upon, ‘Look for commonalities and work from that to build the Malaysia we want to see.’
The forum was then brought to a close, with participants and speakers heading to the foyer to enjoy a lovely dinner. In the end, the forum brought many different perspectives to what is essentially the same topic of New Malaysia, and gave all the attendees a lot to think about on their slow drive home.