Essay Reports on Professor Horowitz Seminar
Title: Managing Ethnic Conflict: A Comparative Perspective: Constitution on severely divided society
1.0 Summary
Conflict had always happened in places where there is domination of a single majority race and discrimination against the minorities. This kind of phenomena had happened, not only in the Asia, and the Middle Eastern countries, but even in developed and highly educated countries like in Ireland, in which the Unionist that mostly was protestant clash with the Nationalist which was Roman Catholic. The event had cause about 3,254 people lying died. In other cases like the Bosnia, ethnic conflict had even developed into a stage where ethnic cleaning was implementing by the Serbs majority towards the Croats and Bosnian minority. Others than this, the Cyprus Dispute was another case of ethnic dispute. Although these entire example had reached a stable political condition, but true conflict resolution had far from over. It was noticed that these entire example have one same common characteristic that is all these state have a heterogeneous community that is more than one type of people that practised different culture, religion and background living together in one geographical territory. This different races of people may have common needs for example the national economic pie, geographic area that was involved in religious holy site dispute causing tension and competition between ethnic community. Constitution was then drafted and implemented to set as a fundamental law and order to safeguard the interest of the minority people to prevent any kind of ethnic clashes beside that guarantee the need of the normal citizen.
Things was similar with that in Indonesia in which their community society was extremely diverse from the one extreme to another base on religious, geographical different. One thing the Indonesia had done practically quite well is that they had avoided making a whole new constitution, their action to Not To make a new constitution after all the political turmoil. This had prevented Indonesia geographical archipelago from separating. The consequence of making a new constitution after a political turmoil in a rush manner had caused things like what happened in Iraq to happened. It turn out that the new constitution turns out to gain majority support from both the Kurds and the Shia Muslim but the new constitution was overwhelmingly rejected by the Sunni Muslim. A unbalance constitution had formed, and this had caused a tension between the ethnic groups.
So now is the question of “what is the best practical formula to make a constitution for a severely divided heterogeneous society?”
The main function of a constitution is to guarantee the rights and freedom of each citizen in the nations. Mostly political party in the heterogeneous society is building on ethnicity line. This was to prevent domination by one race of ethnic. The question now is how? There are practically two options for this answer. First, forming a coalition that includes all political parties including the extremist left and right. Or, second, which forms a coalition in by the more secular kind of people excluding any form of extremist.
There are two types of theories that were used to manage the political matter in heterogeneous society. First, is the Consocational Democracy Theory. That is by forming a political party that include all the parties in a nations, and that party once they won the election will divide their parliamentary seat according to the proportion, this was called the Least Proportional Candidation. For example if A got 10% of the votes and B get 20% of the votes then according to Least Proportional Candidation, B will get twice more representative than A in the Cabinet. In the Consociational Democracy Theory major decision by the government is made by making consensus among the parties that formed alliances, beside that the minority people that join the party may also have veto power over the majority that have bigger party in the coalition. In these sense the rights of the weak and minority is guaranteed. No matter in whatever matters, including the budget was also divided according to proportional. Minority group autonomy was also guaranteed in religion and traditional custom matters. This theory mainly rejects majority democracy that is simple majority concept.
The second theory that was applicable in some heterogeneous society is the Centripetal Theory. The basic concept of this theory is to encourage compromise. This theory does not reject majority democracy which the Consociational Democracy Theory had done. According to this theory, politician tends to push politics to the centre. Politician in this had the ability to manipulate votes through electoral engineering. This theory had also rejected electoral proportionality, because it is believe that practicing it will create more divide among the society. In this theory candidates from one ideology or ethnic lines will tend to draw votes from citizen that ethnic origin that was totally different from the candidates.
A2 moderate politician will push politics to the middle and try to find consensus with the group B2 moderate. This action will cause A1 and A2 to split and B1 and B2 to split. What happen next is that A2 and B2 will then form an alliance and gone for the election. While on the other hand A1 and B1 in order to gain their support from their grassroots supporter will begin to be more extreme than before. For example below
2.0 Critics of Consociational Theory
Under the theory of Consociational Theory, it is believed that all people was brought under one roof, including the extremist, the main problem remain that the natural human behaviour of lust for power. The problem arouse when the largest party which representing the majority of the population in the society gain power and try to rule the state. In this case why does a large party will grant a small party representing a minority of the population veto power? Moreover the leaders are confident that they could control the security of the state without fearing the minority uprising.
3.0 Critics of the Centripetal Theory
In the Centripetal Theory state that it does not reject majority democracy in other words, if a party won a 51% of the votes, the party will get all their representative in the government. In other case, this will not guarantee the welfare and rights of the minority that gain lesser votes in the election.
4.0 Can both these theories could be adopted?
It’s a tough question because different states have their own demographics facing different kinds of problem. The main difficulty of drafting a constitution in a heterogeneous society is that the majority want to rule by the same time the minority want guarantee from the majority but sometimes things could be turn the other way round. What if the constitution is to protect the weak majority from the strong minority? For example in Malaysia Article 153 of the “Malay special Position” is to help the Malay in the field of economy and education.
In addition both of the theories could not be fully recognised as applicable because normally the people that draft the constitution for the nations are model bias. Lawyers especially are responsible of drafting the constitution, in which they will refer to others nation’s constitution as role models. The problem arouse when the policy maker refer to another state constitution that have a totally different social background in education level and society demographic status. For example, the constitution of American that mainly stated that every human being are equal in education and but in Malaysia that may not be totally true. Government Matriculation Programme are only opened for 10% non Bumiputra. Different states need different constitution to guarantee the basic rights of their citizen.
Beside that constitutional maker maybe historically bias. Constitutional maker maybe in close contact with their former colonial master, and refer their formal colonial master constitution.
My Point of View.
In this place I will like to voice out my opinion about Malaysia Constitution in a heterogeneous society like Malaysia. The most controversial about the Malaysia Constitution that concern about ethnicity, is no other than Article 153 regarding the Malay Special Position. The main reason of the establishment of such an article was mainly due to the backwardness of the Malay in economic and also education sector, this was reported in the Reid Report during the independence of Malaya as stated by Rahman in the Sunday Times[1](2008)
“Written records of the inter-party discussions of the Alliance leaders indicate that the Constitutional provisions on the 'special position' were understood more as a protective measure for the Malay community which was then socio-economically disadvantaged.”(pg 1)
The Article 153 was also intended to stay for a permanent period of time, if the Article was to be amended only when the Yang Dipertuan Agong thinks there is a necessary to review the article. When the Yang Depertuan Agong thinks does is time for the article to be reviewed? This was never known. Even if the article had the consent of the Yang Dipertuan Agong to be reviewed it could only be amended when there is a two third majority in the parliament and also have the consent in the Council of Rulers[2]. So it is very hard to amend the Article 153.
But in the context of Malaysia society, this kind of seemingly unbalance kind of constitution was practically balance. This article had save Malaysia from a lot of ethnic conflict. What could have happened if Malaysia doesn’t have the Article 153, and citizen of all race was seem equal?
To answer this question, we have to turn to Indonesia to make a comparison.
Percentage of national economy controlled by ethnic group
For my opinion, during the independence period of Malaya, the British had controlled much of our national economy. After the independence, the Chinese community had started to take over Malaysia economy and control much of the economy activity in Malaysia. Under the supervision of the government according to Article 153, the Malay which are the majority population in Malaysia are more economically weak in comparison to the Chinese Malaysia had gained economic benefit allocated by the government narrowing the distribution of wealth among the different ethnic groups under the New Economic Policy of 1970. The huge gap of distribution of wealth between the Chinese and Malay had caused the May 13 racial riots in 1969. If the government does not intervene, things like what have happened in Indonesia in the 1990 could happened, which 10% minority Chinese population taking control about 90% of Indonesia economy. The unbalance distribution of wealth among the rich Chinese and poor Indonesia is significant. This kind of situation had caused ethnic riots, and ethnic tension happened between the Chinese and the Malay people in Indonesia. So the provision of Article 153 was a must in order to secure Malaysia Malay community rights by the same time taking care of Malaysia minority interest.
Beside that, if we turn to China earlier this year in Tibet. Young Tibetan is starting to create unrest in the city, destroying shops which were owned by the majority Han people. The question is why? All these while, after the capture of Tibet by the Chinese, there is no strong unrest, why now there is? The reason lies again in economic factor. When China started to open up their door, tourism had started to flourish in Tibet, where most of the shops was owned by the majority Han people, in which mostly of the workers employed by the Han employer was Tibetan. This had created a situation which the Tibetan feel that the Han people had taken away their wealth of their homeland. Tibetan will think “this is Tibet, I am a Tibetan, I should be the boss. Why in my hometown I am still a worker and all my wealth is controlled by people from outside?” This situation had created an unequal distribution of wealth among the Han people employer and the Tibetan employee. This had to be mentioned that the Tibetan does not have any kind of constitution protection from the government. So the economy situation in Tibet is a totally open capitalist open market without government intervention, in which the strong Han people will outperform the Tibetan economically.
My second point of view is concerning about my question to the professor. My question is base on the election result that Malaysia have during the last election, it shows that the MCA which represent the Chinese, UMNO that represent the Malay and MIC that represent the Indian had lost terribly to the opposition. Is this proving that Malaysia society is now intellectually mature enough to vote beyond their own race? Or does it shows emotional votes by the citizen? The professor reply is that Malaysia today is now still voting within ethnic lines and the solution for Malaysia in ethnic conflict is not to votes beyond ethnic lines, but is to seek cooperation between different political parties that representing different ethnicity.
His answer, was quite a confuse to me. All these while from the year of Tun Hussein Onn until now politician is aiming that one day Malaysia society will be mature enough to votes beyond ethnic lines. This may solve the ethnicity problem that was haunting all Malaysian for the pass 51 years since 1957. Malaysia citizen dream of becoming a truly Malaysian is that there will be no Malay, Chinese or Indian but only Malaysian. But since the professor suggested that if voting beyond ethnic lines is no longer the solution for Malaysia ethnicity problem then what is the solution?
There is another which the Professor had mentioned that education level of the society may not mean that the society are more open to others ethnics understanding. He states that education level and the toleration of others races does not correlate with each another. In some of the society although their mass population is highly educated but their education had trained them to think narrowly in ethnic toleration, and emphasis more on self race supremacy or another example is the German race during the world war II Hitler period, Germans are so proud of themselves that they refer themselves has the great Aryan race and look down at others ethnic races. This is true, for example in Arab states, normally their education system train their future generation to hate Israel in school. As noted by Professor Dan Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University(2004) “over the years, generations of Israeli Jews were taught a negative and often delegitimizing view of Arabs.”[3](pg1).
Turn the view back to Malaysia. Malaysia education system is quite distinct because they are two main educational system co-exist in Malaysia simultaneously. First, is the educational system designed by the Malaysia government which was used by the National school which main portion of the student is Malay, Chinese national school which main portion of the student is Chinese and Tamil National School which their main portion of the student is Indian. Second type of education in Malaysia is the, Chinese independent school system in which they does not follow the Malaysia education system, their certificate is also recognised by others states except the Malaysia government.
In different school, the future generation of the Malaysian society is very hard to mingle with each another. understanding among races truly was limited. The government that vision to create a truly Malaysian society want to combine all the three different types of national school under one national school that was named the “Vision School Project”. This project was facing huge, feedback from the Chinese community especially the Chinese educationalist, due to the fact that they distrust the government, their argument is that once they combined together, slowly Chinese education will be destroyed and assimilated to Malay, and the future Malaysia Chinese will be a truly “Malaysian” with the price of loosing their mother tough and culture values.
Different school will feed their young generation different knowledge. Ethnic based education will cause more or less bias among themselves ethnic group due to lack of ethnic understanding. From primary school 7 years old to 18 years old, one child may only exposed to only his or her own races of people, this inevitably had caused ethnic understanding to be extremely limited. If we turn to Singaporean, Thailand or Indonesia. What the government did is that they had destroy all the ethnic based schools and establish only one type of school that is the national school, learning one main national language. This had caused minority to loose their own ethnic identity by destroying their culture, language and education for the sake of nationalism.
In Malaysia on the other hand, Chinese population had made up about 30% of the population in the Malaysian society and Indian consists of 10% of the Malaysian population. Both of the figure is a large proportion, so Malaysia can’s do what Singaporean had done to nationalize all school. Nationalizing all school will create something like the “Weeding Operation” in 1987 that caused a lot of Chinese educationist to stand up and opposing the government creating ethnic tension. Hence education could be very bias, because education has the ability to shape the children thoughts. Intellectual or not does not contribute much to the level of toleration among ethnic groups in a heterogeneous society.
Maybe the professor understand this, the Chinese was never going to give up their culture and mandarin mother tough learning. This was same with the Indian that cause huge Indian uprising during the pass few months. Maybe assimilating Indian and Chinese culture to become a Malaysian was not a truly solution for Malaysia. Maybe the Chinese and Indian ethnic groups are Malaysian after all. What all this ethnic minority want is just freedom for religion expression and the rights to learn and practise their own mother tough language.
Conclusion
After the talk, and rethinking about what the professor telling us that, voting beyond ethnic lines in Malaysia does not really solve Malaysia ethnicity problem, cooperation among the ethnic political parties is the main strategy to sustain peace and security among ethnic groups in Malaysia. Three of the main ethnic groups in Malaysia that is the Malay, Chinese and Indian are very strong in their ethnic bonding. To force for an immature and unprepared society to accept the concept of voting beyond race is seemingly a disastrous decision, because Malaysia is still not ready and open enough for this.
[1] Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman. (2008, July 6). Article 153 intended for long term. Retrieved 5th August 2008, from http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/index2.php?option=com_ content &do_pdf=1 &id=16956
[2] Ibid. 1
[3] Professor Dan Bar-Tal as noted in len traubman. (2004, February 6). Reports on Palestinian kids’ hatred grossly exaggerated. Retrieved 6th August 2008. from http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21480/format/html/displaystory.html
Title: Managing Ethnic Conflict: A Comparative Perspective: Constitution on severely divided society
1.0 Summary
Conflict had always happened in places where there is domination of a single majority race and discrimination against the minorities. This kind of phenomena had happened, not only in the Asia, and the Middle Eastern countries, but even in developed and highly educated countries like in Ireland, in which the Unionist that mostly was protestant clash with the Nationalist which was Roman Catholic. The event had cause about 3,254 people lying died. In other cases like the Bosnia, ethnic conflict had even developed into a stage where ethnic cleaning was implementing by the Serbs majority towards the Croats and Bosnian minority. Others than this, the Cyprus Dispute was another case of ethnic dispute. Although these entire example had reached a stable political condition, but true conflict resolution had far from over. It was noticed that these entire example have one same common characteristic that is all these state have a heterogeneous community that is more than one type of people that practised different culture, religion and background living together in one geographical territory. This different races of people may have common needs for example the national economic pie, geographic area that was involved in religious holy site dispute causing tension and competition between ethnic community. Constitution was then drafted and implemented to set as a fundamental law and order to safeguard the interest of the minority people to prevent any kind of ethnic clashes beside that guarantee the need of the normal citizen.
Things was similar with that in Indonesia in which their community society was extremely diverse from the one extreme to another base on religious, geographical different. One thing the Indonesia had done practically quite well is that they had avoided making a whole new constitution, their action to Not To make a new constitution after all the political turmoil. This had prevented Indonesia geographical archipelago from separating. The consequence of making a new constitution after a political turmoil in a rush manner had caused things like what happened in Iraq to happened. It turn out that the new constitution turns out to gain majority support from both the Kurds and the Shia Muslim but the new constitution was overwhelmingly rejected by the Sunni Muslim. A unbalance constitution had formed, and this had caused a tension between the ethnic groups.
So now is the question of “what is the best practical formula to make a constitution for a severely divided heterogeneous society?”
The main function of a constitution is to guarantee the rights and freedom of each citizen in the nations. Mostly political party in the heterogeneous society is building on ethnicity line. This was to prevent domination by one race of ethnic. The question now is how? There are practically two options for this answer. First, forming a coalition that includes all political parties including the extremist left and right. Or, second, which forms a coalition in by the more secular kind of people excluding any form of extremist.
There are two types of theories that were used to manage the political matter in heterogeneous society. First, is the Consocational Democracy Theory. That is by forming a political party that include all the parties in a nations, and that party once they won the election will divide their parliamentary seat according to the proportion, this was called the Least Proportional Candidation. For example if A got 10% of the votes and B get 20% of the votes then according to Least Proportional Candidation, B will get twice more representative than A in the Cabinet. In the Consociational Democracy Theory major decision by the government is made by making consensus among the parties that formed alliances, beside that the minority people that join the party may also have veto power over the majority that have bigger party in the coalition. In these sense the rights of the weak and minority is guaranteed. No matter in whatever matters, including the budget was also divided according to proportional. Minority group autonomy was also guaranteed in religion and traditional custom matters. This theory mainly rejects majority democracy that is simple majority concept.
The second theory that was applicable in some heterogeneous society is the Centripetal Theory. The basic concept of this theory is to encourage compromise. This theory does not reject majority democracy which the Consociational Democracy Theory had done. According to this theory, politician tends to push politics to the centre. Politician in this had the ability to manipulate votes through electoral engineering. This theory had also rejected electoral proportionality, because it is believe that practicing it will create more divide among the society. In this theory candidates from one ideology or ethnic lines will tend to draw votes from citizen that ethnic origin that was totally different from the candidates.
A2 moderate politician will push politics to the middle and try to find consensus with the group B2 moderate. This action will cause A1 and A2 to split and B1 and B2 to split. What happen next is that A2 and B2 will then form an alliance and gone for the election. While on the other hand A1 and B1 in order to gain their support from their grassroots supporter will begin to be more extreme than before. For example below
2.0 Critics of Consociational Theory
Under the theory of Consociational Theory, it is believed that all people was brought under one roof, including the extremist, the main problem remain that the natural human behaviour of lust for power. The problem arouse when the largest party which representing the majority of the population in the society gain power and try to rule the state. In this case why does a large party will grant a small party representing a minority of the population veto power? Moreover the leaders are confident that they could control the security of the state without fearing the minority uprising.
3.0 Critics of the Centripetal Theory
In the Centripetal Theory state that it does not reject majority democracy in other words, if a party won a 51% of the votes, the party will get all their representative in the government. In other case, this will not guarantee the welfare and rights of the minority that gain lesser votes in the election.
4.0 Can both these theories could be adopted?
It’s a tough question because different states have their own demographics facing different kinds of problem. The main difficulty of drafting a constitution in a heterogeneous society is that the majority want to rule by the same time the minority want guarantee from the majority but sometimes things could be turn the other way round. What if the constitution is to protect the weak majority from the strong minority? For example in Malaysia Article 153 of the “Malay special Position” is to help the Malay in the field of economy and education.
In addition both of the theories could not be fully recognised as applicable because normally the people that draft the constitution for the nations are model bias. Lawyers especially are responsible of drafting the constitution, in which they will refer to others nation’s constitution as role models. The problem arouse when the policy maker refer to another state constitution that have a totally different social background in education level and society demographic status. For example, the constitution of American that mainly stated that every human being are equal in education and but in Malaysia that may not be totally true. Government Matriculation Programme are only opened for 10% non Bumiputra. Different states need different constitution to guarantee the basic rights of their citizen.
Beside that constitutional maker maybe historically bias. Constitutional maker maybe in close contact with their former colonial master, and refer their formal colonial master constitution.
My Point of View.
In this place I will like to voice out my opinion about Malaysia Constitution in a heterogeneous society like Malaysia. The most controversial about the Malaysia Constitution that concern about ethnicity, is no other than Article 153 regarding the Malay Special Position. The main reason of the establishment of such an article was mainly due to the backwardness of the Malay in economic and also education sector, this was reported in the Reid Report during the independence of Malaya as stated by Rahman in the Sunday Times[1](2008)
“Written records of the inter-party discussions of the Alliance leaders indicate that the Constitutional provisions on the 'special position' were understood more as a protective measure for the Malay community which was then socio-economically disadvantaged.”(pg 1)
The Article 153 was also intended to stay for a permanent period of time, if the Article was to be amended only when the Yang Dipertuan Agong thinks there is a necessary to review the article. When the Yang Depertuan Agong thinks does is time for the article to be reviewed? This was never known. Even if the article had the consent of the Yang Dipertuan Agong to be reviewed it could only be amended when there is a two third majority in the parliament and also have the consent in the Council of Rulers[2]. So it is very hard to amend the Article 153.
But in the context of Malaysia society, this kind of seemingly unbalance kind of constitution was practically balance. This article had save Malaysia from a lot of ethnic conflict. What could have happened if Malaysia doesn’t have the Article 153, and citizen of all race was seem equal?
To answer this question, we have to turn to Indonesia to make a comparison.
Percentage of national economy controlled by ethnic group
For my opinion, during the independence period of Malaya, the British had controlled much of our national economy. After the independence, the Chinese community had started to take over Malaysia economy and control much of the economy activity in Malaysia. Under the supervision of the government according to Article 153, the Malay which are the majority population in Malaysia are more economically weak in comparison to the Chinese Malaysia had gained economic benefit allocated by the government narrowing the distribution of wealth among the different ethnic groups under the New Economic Policy of 1970. The huge gap of distribution of wealth between the Chinese and Malay had caused the May 13 racial riots in 1969. If the government does not intervene, things like what have happened in Indonesia in the 1990 could happened, which 10% minority Chinese population taking control about 90% of Indonesia economy. The unbalance distribution of wealth among the rich Chinese and poor Indonesia is significant. This kind of situation had caused ethnic riots, and ethnic tension happened between the Chinese and the Malay people in Indonesia. So the provision of Article 153 was a must in order to secure Malaysia Malay community rights by the same time taking care of Malaysia minority interest.
Beside that, if we turn to China earlier this year in Tibet. Young Tibetan is starting to create unrest in the city, destroying shops which were owned by the majority Han people. The question is why? All these while, after the capture of Tibet by the Chinese, there is no strong unrest, why now there is? The reason lies again in economic factor. When China started to open up their door, tourism had started to flourish in Tibet, where most of the shops was owned by the majority Han people, in which mostly of the workers employed by the Han employer was Tibetan. This had created a situation which the Tibetan feel that the Han people had taken away their wealth of their homeland. Tibetan will think “this is Tibet, I am a Tibetan, I should be the boss. Why in my hometown I am still a worker and all my wealth is controlled by people from outside?” This situation had created an unequal distribution of wealth among the Han people employer and the Tibetan employee. This had to be mentioned that the Tibetan does not have any kind of constitution protection from the government. So the economy situation in Tibet is a totally open capitalist open market without government intervention, in which the strong Han people will outperform the Tibetan economically.
My second point of view is concerning about my question to the professor. My question is base on the election result that Malaysia have during the last election, it shows that the MCA which represent the Chinese, UMNO that represent the Malay and MIC that represent the Indian had lost terribly to the opposition. Is this proving that Malaysia society is now intellectually mature enough to vote beyond their own race? Or does it shows emotional votes by the citizen? The professor reply is that Malaysia today is now still voting within ethnic lines and the solution for Malaysia in ethnic conflict is not to votes beyond ethnic lines, but is to seek cooperation between different political parties that representing different ethnicity.
His answer, was quite a confuse to me. All these while from the year of Tun Hussein Onn until now politician is aiming that one day Malaysia society will be mature enough to votes beyond ethnic lines. This may solve the ethnicity problem that was haunting all Malaysian for the pass 51 years since 1957. Malaysia citizen dream of becoming a truly Malaysian is that there will be no Malay, Chinese or Indian but only Malaysian. But since the professor suggested that if voting beyond ethnic lines is no longer the solution for Malaysia ethnicity problem then what is the solution?
There is another which the Professor had mentioned that education level of the society may not mean that the society are more open to others ethnics understanding. He states that education level and the toleration of others races does not correlate with each another. In some of the society although their mass population is highly educated but their education had trained them to think narrowly in ethnic toleration, and emphasis more on self race supremacy or another example is the German race during the world war II Hitler period, Germans are so proud of themselves that they refer themselves has the great Aryan race and look down at others ethnic races. This is true, for example in Arab states, normally their education system train their future generation to hate Israel in school. As noted by Professor Dan Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University(2004) “over the years, generations of Israeli Jews were taught a negative and often delegitimizing view of Arabs.”[3](pg1).
Turn the view back to Malaysia. Malaysia education system is quite distinct because they are two main educational system co-exist in Malaysia simultaneously. First, is the educational system designed by the Malaysia government which was used by the National school which main portion of the student is Malay, Chinese national school which main portion of the student is Chinese and Tamil National School which their main portion of the student is Indian. Second type of education in Malaysia is the, Chinese independent school system in which they does not follow the Malaysia education system, their certificate is also recognised by others states except the Malaysia government.
In different school, the future generation of the Malaysian society is very hard to mingle with each another. understanding among races truly was limited. The government that vision to create a truly Malaysian society want to combine all the three different types of national school under one national school that was named the “Vision School Project”. This project was facing huge, feedback from the Chinese community especially the Chinese educationalist, due to the fact that they distrust the government, their argument is that once they combined together, slowly Chinese education will be destroyed and assimilated to Malay, and the future Malaysia Chinese will be a truly “Malaysian” with the price of loosing their mother tough and culture values.
Different school will feed their young generation different knowledge. Ethnic based education will cause more or less bias among themselves ethnic group due to lack of ethnic understanding. From primary school 7 years old to 18 years old, one child may only exposed to only his or her own races of people, this inevitably had caused ethnic understanding to be extremely limited. If we turn to Singaporean, Thailand or Indonesia. What the government did is that they had destroy all the ethnic based schools and establish only one type of school that is the national school, learning one main national language. This had caused minority to loose their own ethnic identity by destroying their culture, language and education for the sake of nationalism.
In Malaysia on the other hand, Chinese population had made up about 30% of the population in the Malaysian society and Indian consists of 10% of the Malaysian population. Both of the figure is a large proportion, so Malaysia can’s do what Singaporean had done to nationalize all school. Nationalizing all school will create something like the “Weeding Operation” in 1987 that caused a lot of Chinese educationist to stand up and opposing the government creating ethnic tension. Hence education could be very bias, because education has the ability to shape the children thoughts. Intellectual or not does not contribute much to the level of toleration among ethnic groups in a heterogeneous society.
Maybe the professor understand this, the Chinese was never going to give up their culture and mandarin mother tough learning. This was same with the Indian that cause huge Indian uprising during the pass few months. Maybe assimilating Indian and Chinese culture to become a Malaysian was not a truly solution for Malaysia. Maybe the Chinese and Indian ethnic groups are Malaysian after all. What all this ethnic minority want is just freedom for religion expression and the rights to learn and practise their own mother tough language.
Conclusion
After the talk, and rethinking about what the professor telling us that, voting beyond ethnic lines in Malaysia does not really solve Malaysia ethnicity problem, cooperation among the ethnic political parties is the main strategy to sustain peace and security among ethnic groups in Malaysia. Three of the main ethnic groups in Malaysia that is the Malay, Chinese and Indian are very strong in their ethnic bonding. To force for an immature and unprepared society to accept the concept of voting beyond race is seemingly a disastrous decision, because Malaysia is still not ready and open enough for this.
[1] Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman. (2008, July 6). Article 153 intended for long term. Retrieved 5th August 2008, from http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/index2.php?option=com_ content &do_pdf=1 &id=16956
[2] Ibid. 1
[3] Professor Dan Bar-Tal as noted in len traubman. (2004, February 6). Reports on Palestinian kids’ hatred grossly exaggerated. Retrieved 6th August 2008. from http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21480/format/html/displaystory.html
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