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Sunday Interview: We still have room to find
solutions
NST 23 Jul 2006
Abdul Razak Ahmad
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He’s a soft-spoken man who has been given a big responsibility —
getting Malaysians closer together. National Unity and
Integration director-general Datuk Azman Amin Hassan, who has
been in service for 30 years, speaks to ABDUL RAZAK AHMAD about
the root causes of ethnic conflict in Malaysia.
Q: What’s the current state of unity and integration in this
country
A: As someone whose job is to protect and enhance our unity and
integration, I’d say that on a scale of zero to 10,
Malaysia stands at 6.5. We don’t have planned racial conflicts.
We feel safe to move about freely.
There’s also good co-operation between the races. But we need to
do a lot more. We do have occasional cases of fighting,
and because they occur between a Malay and an Indian, for
example, they get classified as a "racial" incident. But if you
look at the root cause, you’ll find that not all are
caused by race or religion.
Q: If race and religion aren’t the root causes of ethnic
incidents, what are?
A: Sometimes it’s the dissatisfaction of the poor. A rubber
estate is cleared for a housing project. The residents are
displaced. This creates pockets of discontent among these poor
people. The resentment builds up.
And when a minor incident involving a person from another race
happens, things explode. The root causes are mostly
socioeconomic, or related to laws and calls to amend certain
regulations that affect people of different faiths.
There are also grievances due to "demolition" of places of
worship. Those affected say they can’t understand why they
have to move for a housing project when their temple has been
there for 20 years. These potential tensions exist in this
country. But it’s important to note that we still have
ample room to discuss and find solutions.
Q: Every minor quarrel seems to have the potential to explode.
Is unity in Malaysia so fragile?
A: When I look at every incident, I find there are always early
signs that we missed. After an incident, we tend to say
the situation in this country is not good because very minor
misunderstandings can still blow up so easily.
In truth, most of these incidents are retak menanti belah
(cracks waiting to shatter the container). It’s like a
fire. There’s the spark that starts the fire, and there are also
the conditions that cause the spark.
Q: Can you give an example?
A: Take the Kampung Medan incident five years ago. The root
cause was socioeconomic. The residents were promised new
homes. They waited for years, but the homes were not completed.
If you saw the conditions they lived in — houses with cement
floors and zinc roofs, in a neighbourhood with a drug and
prostitution problem — you’d have seen how the socioeconomic
plight of the community connected to the whole episode.
The "spark" was a minor incident involving people from two
races. One group acted, another reacted; the trouble
spread. But the root cause and original grievance and
dissatisfactions of the community were longstanding and
deep-rooted.
Q: What struck you most about Kampung Medan?
A: I was then director of the Department’s Rukun Tetangga (RT)
programme. I commuted from Subang Jaya to work using the
KTM Komuter service. I passed Kampung Medan every day and I
would observe the people who got on and off the station; I’d
look at the area. Something was not quite right.
On the morning of March 8, 2001, I casually remarked to the
director-general, Ainon Kuntum, that I suspected something
could happen in Kampung Medan. We pulled out the file on
Petaling Jaya. But we did not have much to go on: there
was no RT programme in the area, no grassroots network
reporting to us.
I got a call that very night from Ainon telling me that a
terrible incident had happened in Kampung Medan. We felt
utterly frustrated.
We had been promoting unity all this time — and this happened.
Ainon made some right and quick decisions in dispatching a team
to the area quickly. And one of the first things done was
to set up an RT. I was there every night. The first six nights
I saw many families sleeping outside on the verandah. They were
afraid that mobs would torch their houses. It took us
quite a lot to persuade them to go inside.
But I realised things were going to be okay when the RT team,
made up of Malays and Indians, said they were willing to
patrol their neighbourhood. They were united and committed to
keeping outsiders from coming to create more trouble in their
neighbourhood. It was a relief, because we had other
concerns at the time.
Q: You have witnessed the ravages of ethnic strife. But is it
hard to convince the general public about the importance
of an intangible thing like national unity?
A: Many people view incidents like Kampung Medan mainly as a
quarrel between people of different races. Apart from
that, unity isn’t really as important to many as economic
indicators, for example.
I wish I could quantify the financial losses due to racial
incidents.
If I can total the amount spent on hospital bills for the
victims of Kampung Medan, the cost of deploying extra
policemen, the amount of business lost in the area, and the
number of foreign investors who cancelled plans to invest
or pulled out, then I can say this is how much the Kampung
Medan incident cost Malaysia.
The Fire and Rescue Department puts a ringgit estimate to damage
caused by a fire. Why can’t we do the same for damage
caused by incidents that threaten national unity? We’ve never
quantified such damage before. It’s time we did.
Maybe, then, more people will open their eyes and appreciate how
important unity really is.
Q: How important is the upcoming National Unity and Integration
Action Plan?
A: It’s Malaysia’s first five-year unity plan. We were operating
on annual plans and in some aspects we worked in
isolation. Last year, for example, the department organised
35,000 specific activities geared towards national unity,
involving the participation of three million people.
But even that’s not enough. Ministries like Education and
Information have their own programmes, but there are still
a lot of groups and parties out there that need to be roped
in, including the private sector and non-governmental
organisations.
The plan is a more systematic approach to national unity. It
outlines what each sector, Ministry and agency can and
should do in the next five years.
Q: How will progress be monitored?
A: I suppose we will become the policemen of national unity in
Malaysia. We’ll be looking at whether a particular
ministry is carrying out the plan and what its initiatives are.
The ministers will have to report to the Cabinet Committee on
National Unity and Integration that will be set up. We’re
also developing instruments to objectively measure unity, called
a national unity index. A higher index number means that unity
in a particular area is good. A lower figure means the
opposite.
We need something concrete, because for many, unity is a very
elusive thing. It’s so important, but not something you
can hold in your hand.
RM100m 5-year plan for unity
23 Jul 2006
Abdul Razak Ahmad
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KUALA LUMPUR: The days of the all-Malay football team, largely
non-Malay English debating
team and all-Chinese Red Crescent society in schools are
numbered.
Under a five-year unity plan — the nation’s first — all this is
set to make way for multi-racial activities in schools and
institutions of higher learning.
The RM100 million programme recommends, among others, that
schools seat pupils from different races next to each
other and encourage free multi-racial interaction in
activities.
The overriding objectives of the 2006-2010 National Unity and
Integration Action Plan are stemming racial segregation
and building stronger ties.
The plan contains 266 recommendations that will be carried out
by 18 ministries, the State Governments and 22 public
agencies.
Non-governmental organisations will also be encouraged to take
part.
National Unity and Integration Department director-general Datuk
Azman Amin Hassan said the plan was needed to head off the
polarisation in schools and universities.
"Our concern is with the lack of space in many schools for
children to mix, a problem even more compounded in
mono-ethnic schools," he told the New Sunday Times.
Azman said the plan did not list all the steps for unity "but we
do mention them in general since these are what we would
like the Education Ministry to consider".
He said schools with multi-racial enrolment should reflect
multi-racialism in the make-up of school associations or
teams and clubs.
"We don’t want to see the stereotypes. We want to see more
colours of unity in the teams representing schools."
Azman said the Public Service Department would also be roped in.
"We will monitor reports on things like integration programmes
and the movement of personnel between the peninsula and
Sabah and Sarawak."
One measure asks the Information Ministry to develop more TV
sitcoms that can portray the inter-cultural communication
between the people of East and West Malaysia.
The plan will also ask the Housing and Local Government Ministry
to make it compulsory for rural and suburban housing
estates to have community bodies like the Rukun Tetangga.
The Ethnic Relations course, recently made compulsory for all
public university students, is also listed as one of the
recommended measures in the plan.
The Cabinet approved the plan and its funding on May 17. The
department was also appointed the secretariat and lead
agency.
Azman, whose department comes under the Prime Minister’s
Department, said a Cabinet Committee on National Unity and
Integration, to be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk
Seri Najib Razak, would be set up in the near future.
While many ministries and agencies are already conducting
pro-integration programmes, the plan will be able to
centralise all the initiatives and make them easier to monitor.
"Previously, if any agency did not respond then we were in no
position to follow through. But now we can.
"The aim of this plan is to get an integrated approach involving
all relevant parties. It will be easier to get results if
we all work together."
Azman said the department was also developing what could be the
world’s first computerised early warning system on racial
conflict.
To be installed in an operations room at the department’s
Putrajaya headquarters, the system will process a database
of information and reports on unity in every district.
It then decides how prone each area is to incidents involving
race and religion. Districts will be colour-coded on a map
with "red" areas the most prone to strife.
"The system will monitor every inch of Malaysia. If we know
which areas are prone to conflict, we’ll have a better
chance to prevent an incident."
No date has been set to roll out the system.
Azman said the system would initially process the information
monthly. It will eventually be able to give weekly
updates.
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