Over the weekend, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob launched the National Unity Action Plan 2021-2030 and Kami@Malaysian Family Unity Plan 2021-2025.
He said the National Unity Action Plan is to restore the original dream of unity expressed in the five principles of the Rukun Negara.
Deja vu. Haven’t we been here before many times?
Restore the original dream of unity? Ha, that is an admission we have lost our way since Aug 31, 1970, when the Rukun Negara was first drummed into our consciousness.
I won’t bother to go into the multiple reasons why, in the intervening five decades, national unity is still a Holy Grail.
It is still requiring a minister and a ministry to attempt reaching it, and failing to do so, probably because if they were to reach it, it would mean being out of a job. How can?
Readers of Malaysiakini, particularly those who use the comments facility for their daily anger management therapy, will have their own lengthy diatribe and harangue on the reasons for the fracturing of communal relations.
They will have their own rogues’ gallery as to who should be consigned to the lowest level of Dante’s Inferno, failing which, at least a lengthy sojourn in Sungai Buloh, with no respite for overseas trips.
"This is not a plan written on paper alone because this action plan is a planned modus operandi,” the prime minister said.
The National Unity Action Plan 2021-2030 is based on the National Unity Policy and National Unity Blueprint 2021-2030. There you are. From blueprint to action, there has indeed been progress - in changing the title.
The five strategic thrusts are to preserve the constitutional monarchy, form a society that values and practises unity, empower a fair and equitable socio-economy, ensure openness and tolerance to religious differences and cultural traditions, and build a progressive society through science, technology, and innovation.
The first one – I don’t think anyone has a quarrel with that, at least not openly.
The second point – to form a society that values and practises unity – I won’t bother to list a litany of recent incidents and individuals who reveal the lies in this illusion and the government’s stoic, silent response.
Credit must be due for the bold, barefaced admission that the government has failed at this task for 64 years. Serial failures who won’t give up – cue the theme music from ‘Rocky’.
The third mission - empowering a fair and equitable socio-economy. Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz says he “has been disheartened to see how some quarters of our society have cherry-picked portions of the speech to insinuate how the budget prioritises the bumiputera community at the expense of the non-bumiputera beneficiaries.”
Critics of the government alleged less than a tenth had been allocated for ethnic minorities - just RM300 million compared with RM11.4 billion for the ethnic majority communities.
He reminded us that close to 70 percent of Malaysians are bumiputera, including indigenous groups from Sabah and Sarawak, as well as the Orang Asli.
Okay, but unless the cherry-picking numbers are wrong, it works out to 30 percent getting 2.5 cherries and 70 percent getting 97.5 cherries.
Looks like the 30 percent are all blindfolded justices holding a dacing (scale), and a voice is telling them, "It’s balanced, all fair and equitable."
Trotting out figures to show how economically disadvantaged bumiputeras still are just underlines the failure of over six decades of several prime ministers and governments, multiple five-year plans, and so-called affirmative action that ingrained mediocrity and incompetence.
The fourth mission – to ensure tolerance of differences in religions and cultures? Hello, the closure of 4D shops in Kedah and the storm in a shot glass over the labelling on a bottle of whiskey all looks like a camel intruding further into the tent of other cultures.
The only thing I got out of the Timah farce, besides the usual thought that when God was handing out brains, a few in Malaysia got severely short-changed, that if ever I got the occasion to taste Timah, besides gauging it for its smoothness, the balance between its smokiness and sweetness, the bouquet of fruits that are hinted, I must get my jaded taste-buds foraging for a new taste sensation – a lingering aftertaste of a woman.
As for building a progressive society through science, technology, and innovation, it’s just an endlessly repeated cliche.
The prime minister said this vital mission to guide the Malaysian Family to understand the meaning of unity in a more inclusive scope will be spearheaded by the National Unity Ministry led by its minister Halimah Mohamed Sadique.
So now, after an Abah, the Malaysian family has a Mak.
Poor mother, barely into her role as matriarch, and she stepped into a family squabble in Pahang - new signboards for several publicly funded Chinese-language primary schools in Pahang devoid of Chinese characters.
"Because this (directive) is from the (Pahang) Education Department, I think we should get a response from the Education Ministry… Whatever decisions made will be based on what is available to the ministry.
"So I can't answer this… I do not want to comment on that because it relates to a specific matter. I think we should get a response from the Education Ministry and state government."
Can’t answer. No answer. Oh well, at least Mama shows an essential skill for a minister – passing the buck. - Mkini
THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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