Bring back national service to improve racial unity, says youth chief

 

The national service programme, which was introduced in 2003, was stopped in 2018 by the former Pakatan Harapan administration. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The National Service Training Programme should be revived to mend the country’s increasingly fragile racial unity, especially after the last general election (GE15).

Speaking to FMT, Malaysian Youth Council (MBM) president Izzat Afif Abdul Hamid felt that the national service is the best platform to nurture democratic education among youths after 18-year-olds were allowed to vote for the first time in a general election.

“Now that the political issues are over, national development needs to be our main focus,” Izzat said.

“We saw how racial sentiments were used during the election, and we feel that the national service can be one of the mediums to overcome this.”

Malaysian Youth Council president Izzat Afif Abdul Hamid.

There was a spike in social media content that touched on racial and religious sensitivities in the leadup to GE15 and right after the election, with Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani warning social media users against uploading such content as it could threaten public safety and order.

The national service was stopped in 2018 by the former Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration. Izzat said that if revived, the programme should focus on bolstering patriotism instead of the military-style training practised by other countries, such as Singapore and South Korea.

He also said some previous national service modules should be re-introduced as it taught youths key values, such as patriotism and resilience.

“Our module shouldn’t be the same as countries, such as South Korea or Singapore, because their main intention is to boost the military readiness among their youth.

“If people really want to undergo military-style training, they can join the army,” he said.

“Instead, our national service training should focus more on the values of unity and love for the country.”

He was commenting on the insistence of several parties, including the general public, who wanted the youth empowerment programme under the defence ministry to be reactivated.

On Facebook, Umno Youth have also asked defence minister Mohamad Hasan to re-examine the national service programme which was introduced by the then Barisan Nasional (BN) government in December 2003.

In November 2020, the then defence minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said there were proposals to bring back the national service as it played a crucial role in developing the spirit of patriotism among teenagers.  - FMT