BANGSA MALAYSIA - WHY IT CAN'T BE A REALITY

One of the aspiration of Malaysia is to create a single identity, that is Bangsa Malaysia. Currently, although born in Malaysia, we are currently classified as Malays, Chinese, Indians, Sabahans, Sarawakians and others. Even within these classification, there is a reclassification, that is bumiputra and non-bumiputra. A lot of criticism have been levelled against these discrimatory terms but since the establishment of the New Economic Policy in 1970 by our government, it has been an accepted term since it was classified to give the bumiputras a edge over the others which was then considered a backward group, so that they could also bridge their socio-economic gap with the non-bumiputras.

Most Malaysians need to realise that they are all mostly emigrants for other lands except for the pribumis, who are the natives of the soil. But since the natives or pribumis as classified by the government, do not have great desires and expectations, they still maintain their native desires and tradition and live in the remote areas of the country while most of them prefer to keep themselves in isolation from the other races living in Malaysia.

This matter had arisen as a result of the Mentri Besar of Johor, Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman had on last Sunday while opening the Johor UMNO Convention had questioned the need for the people of different races in Malaysia to be ethnically diluted or mixed up merely for the Bangsa Malaysia concept which he deems was still "hazy" in its meaning. In the meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak informed while closing the UMNO Johor Convention today that the Bangsa Malaysia concept is the state of an individual's mind and does not infringe on Malay special rights and privileges,and that the Bangsa Malaysia was a concept and had nothing to do with the Constitution or national policies, while it does not evaluate someone by his skin colour, race or religion. When asked to comment on GERAKAN President Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik's statement that Johor UMNO was going against the government policy, Najib commented that the government will review its policies from time to time but our focus on the concept of Bangsa Malaysia is being a state of mind and we need to avoid 'polemics' when discussing on this issue. He stated further that if we debate on this issue it will only raise many questions and will not benefit anyone and if we were to amend the Constitution on this, it will create unrest. While closing, Abdul Ghani stated that this concept was widely termed but brought about the concept of pluralism, which was equality without a core base.

After having understood the intentions of the government, it is clear that BANGSA MALAYSIA is just a 'fairy tale' and will face a uphill task to be implemented since the Malays, who seem to claim as a superior race in Malaysia, will not want to lose its current fringe benefits.

In actual fact, Bangsa Malaysia should enjoy all these fringe benefits since they are the real benefactors of our society.

It seems that another problem have been just created. Where will this end.