From Diversity To Unity

By: Natalie Shobana Ambrose

theSun, Malaysia (pg 10)

April 5^th,  2012
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/340297  

Oftentimes I’ve found myself in a little bit of a pickle, feeling “in- between” when it comes to my identity. Where I am from is contradicting to where I belong, and I suspect I’m not alone in this conundrum. I look Indian, but when I’m in India – the conversation goes something like this.

Shopkeeper: Aap kaisey hain? (How are you?)

Me: Sorry, I don’t speak Hindi. I’m Malaysian.

Shopkeeper: (Shakes his head) No? Aren’t you Indian? You look like one of us. But your parents are Indian ... you should speak Hindi.

Me: No, they were born in Malaysia and I speak Malay. 

The shopkeeper looks confused, and I find myself feeling frustrated.

But when I’m in Malaysia, my Indian friends call me a coconut or more specifically “a black-bottomed white chick”, but to the other races, my racial designation is very much Indian.

My problem, however, is that I’m not at all comfortable being defined only by my race; but that is what our Malaysian definition of multiculturalism has shifted towards.

Multiculturalism has been the stamp of our nation and a brand we proudly sell of what Malaysia is. While some neighbouring countries chose the path of nationalism, emphasising unity and civic nation-making, we were determined to highlight our differences and decided that ethnic nation-making suited us best.

We chose to recognise, appreciate and celebrate our diversity, packaging it as a unified front. However, the foundations of human inequality lie in the fact of human diversity (Kukathas). And inequality is something that is less and less tolerated in this day and age.

It is implied that there was some sort of agreement to do so. Yet, if we were to imagine a social contract of any sort, what principles would we use?

Each of us would have a different preference depending on our background, ethnicity, religious beliefs, social standing and so forth.

Obviously a compromise would have to be made and some would have better bargaining skills than others.

So then, can we assume that the agreement was a just and fair one?

Michael J. Sandel who teaches Justice at Harvard University takes it further in a thought experiment suggesting the outcome we would chose having not known our ethnic, religious or social standing in society would be an original position of equality. Meaning, all of us would choose equality above all; equal basic liberties, social and economic equality.

But how does equality fare when we are all situated differently?

That is where we are in Malaysia. Wanting equality but denied it because of race when equality should be the collective privilege of all Malaysians. So instead of moving towards being a more unified nation, pockets have given up on assimilating and unifying because at the end of the day, it is drilled into you that you are different, even though Malaysia is the only home you know.

One basic illustration is a simple analysis of the newspaper circulation figures from Malaysia’s Audit Bureau of Circulation which is categorised by language. A rough count shows that there are 13 Chinese newspapers with the highest circulation compared to the five in Bahasa Malaysia and seven English newspapers. It’s not that we should abandon our mother tongue; the thorny question is, how does this reflect a shared destiny, a sense of belonging and common identity?

If what we keep emphasising is how different we are, what unifying ground do we share? Conceivably in the past, communal frameworks seemed successful, but in today’s world, “the majority-minority distinction works against building cohesive nations” (Alagappa).

What then is the key to moving from diversity towards unity? A slogan doesn’t do much, but a change in mindset, speech and policies towards an equal society makes a marked and sincere difference.

Perhaps the key is not to see ourselves in terms of pockets of ethnic groups and emphasise our diversity, but to follow a more patriotic path. Then maybe we’d be on the same side, bettering our nation and not feeling like in-betweens.

Natalie is encouraged by the words  on the Great Seal of the United States:
“E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One).

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