Mix and match: An amalgamation

AT the recent Barisan Nasional retreat at Janda Baik in Pahang, the Sungei Besar Umno chief, Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, claimed that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ordered all Umno leaders to attend activities organised by races other than their own. The aim was purportedly to win support for the coalition, principally from the Chinese community and also to prevent leaders from being confined along racial lines but to allow mixing and matching.
Unfortunately, this directive has given the impression that thus far, few of the leaders have practised positive integration. Many will be asking whether after 53 years of independence, we are more fragmented than before.
Others will be appalled to know that leaders have to be 'told' to 'attend activities organised by other races'. This surely is a sad indictment that past policies have failed to achieve what they set out to do – the interaction of the various races that make up multicultural Malaysia.
Perhaps it is also time to ask: are the Umno leaders unable to think and act on their own, to reach out to other members of the community who aren't Malay? Can they be so helpless?
When we elect our leaders, we do expect them to act in our best interests and for the good of this country. We anticipate leaders who are proactive, not ones who have to be mollycoddled or those who have to be instructed to integrate. One would have thought that in a country such as ours, the need to know your neighbour and your fellow citizen would come naturally, and is uppermost in our minds to promote community spirit.
Fortunately, many Malaysians already practise integration of their own – Malays, Chinese, Indians and the other races do happily exist as neighbours, friends or work-colleagues. But sometimes, it is the hand of politics that causes much anguish as more walls are put up between various races in the name of religion or education.
So were Umno leaders misled or did their own spin of being the superior race exclude them from others? It is a bitter pill to swallow for the coalition to discover that Malaysians believe Umno is above reproach and their leaders are inaccessible. It is worse to find this out the hard way, through the results of a by-election.
The losers are the citizens of this country. After 53 years of independence, we still do not know the meaning of being 'one'. We started off united against the British but have ended up fighting amongst ourselves. This is not the legacy the Tunku left us.
However, it is never too late to salvage our nation. So if the prime minister has to instruct our leaders to be more inclusive, then so be it. In the final analysis, it is Malaysia that is more important.