Conservatives should be more tolerant of modern lifestyles

From Sheriff Kassim

I join all Malaysians in celebrating National Day on Aug 31. It is a day for us to remember that despite all the challenges of building a united country, we have proved that we can overcome the difficulties facing us. Malaysians can be proud that they can enjoy their National Day in peace and security.

Malaysia is more diverse in race, language, culture, and religion than most former colonies in the British Empire. When we became independent in 1957, the country inherited a good system of law and order, a reliable public administration and a developed infrastructure of transport and communication. We also had the benefit of inheriting a good education system based on the British model.

Combined with the country’s rich resource base, and its location in Southeast Asia, considered as one of the most dynamic regions in the world, our economy developed very fast to become much more diversified and stable than it was 60 over years ago. The strong economic growth enabled absolute poverty and high youth unemployment, especially among the Malays, to be eradicated.

Our national leaders were pragmatic in formulating the development policies, resulting in all races feeling a sense of belonging to the country. Every economic five-year plan put the priority of government spending on developing the education and health of the rakyat, and raising living standards in the rural areas.

We made good progress in reducing the inequalities to avoid the kind of internal instability such as the May 1969 racial riots from happening again. The tragic incident made the government even more determined to push through higher levels of economic growth targets.

As Malaysians have all the basic needs of food, clothing, and housing, they are now expecting more of the rights and freedoms like what they see people in other prosperous countries enjoy. With their exposure on international TV and on social media to new trends in lifestyles around the world, the new generation of Malaysians is also becoming westernised.

The religious conservatives should understand the generational change happening among our youths and be more tolerant of their modern lifestyles. They should not try to impose their conservative moral values on society as this can have bad implications to the economy as well. If local and foreign investors feel unsafe for their business because of rising religious conservatism influencing the politics of the country, they will move their operations to neighbouring countries.

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In a free enterprise economy like Malaysia, the “goose that lays the golden egg “is the private sector.

As our development planning has always stressed, Malaysia’s prospects of soon becoming a high-income country will depend on sustained high levels of expansion of private sector activities, especially in the modern, cutting-edge technologies so that we can compete to maintain our participation in the global economy. All this will depend on private sector businesses feeling confident that Malaysia will remain a tolerant country in dealing with the issues of race and religion whether in government policies or among the political leaders. - FMT

Sheriff Kassim is a former treasury secretary-general.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.