Common values, common sense

One of, if not the most, important reasons Malaysia has been a fairly harmonious country for a decently long time, has been that despite the changes in government and policy, the rises and falls in the political scenario, the shifts in economic activity, Malaysians have always been grounded in common values applied with common sense.

The problem we have today is, we no longer agree on what those common values are, and in no small part, because, we have abandoned common sense.

Values are inculcated in us at a young age. While we mingled freely as kids in the past, in villages and towns, in common facilities like schools and playgrounds, this is increasingly becoming a nostalgic memory of the past, as rising costs of living and economic disparities drive the more affluent Malaysians into high rise condos and gated communities.

Parents from these families often work in companies with a global outlook and have liberal ideas of what values are. Schools and classes are similarly run by teachers with similar mindsets and help reinforce these ideas in kids who are privileged enough to be raised in these neighbourhoods.

Competitiveness appears to be what drives the upper half of Malaysians to be the best, the take on other countries. Many of these parents worked really hard to get where they are and will not let their kids forget that.

These same economic realities force the increasing number of Malaysians unfairly left behind in the rat race to populate remaining parts of town.

Taking a cue from the tune sung by politicians, religion is often used as a means to empower the new middle-class high and we see now common activities being held such as charity, education and even businesses take on religious overtones.

This symbiotic relationship feeds off each other, and when you bind issues together, they become harder to solve.

For example, what was an economic issue, and could be solved with numbers, is now a religious issue and cannot be solved without involving religious authorities.

This does two things. It opens up religious authorities to a wide range of issues they may not be equipped to solve, and closes up these issue to "secular" experts who may be able to solve it.

And because the convenient demographics of the first group comprises mainly Chinese, Indians and "liberal" Malays and the second group comprises the general Malay population and East Malaysians, it’s easy to confuse and blur the lines of what is essentially a class problem and label it as a racial or religious one.

While it is not the root cause of the problem, being divided along the lines of race and religion, it now becomes "easier" for interested parties-politicians, businessmen, religious groups with vested interests, to exploit this class difference and turn it into a racial, religious and highly-flammable problem.

”Kenapa Melayu ditindas di bumi sendiri?” and “why should Chinese be grateful” or “who cares about the Indians” are far more emotionally charged questions guaranteed to evoke a political response, as less popular questions such as “how are we still so divided?” or “why is there such a big income disparity?” or “when will we start beating Singapore economically?”

So, instead of addressing the actual problem with Malaysia, conversely, the lack of economic wisdom, we are instead transfixed on compartmentalising it by race and religion and other similar narrow spectrums of view. And that is where our common problems diverge.

Exacerbating this would be our complex racial and religious make-up. With each community now looking at their own leaders, we would now seek our own values and tenets to best solve what we think are problems exclusive to our own communities. Problems then occur when we try to impose these values on another community.

Hudud, for instance, is perceived to be able to solve crime by some, while at the same time, to others, implementing a Scandinavian-style correctional facility would do the same.

But again, because religion has been dragged in, we aren’t seeing the problem from a collective lens, but from our own community-centric point of view.

Not only does this hinder nation-building, it also limits our resources to address issues affecting us all. Issues such as poverty, corruption and abuse of power.

There was a time where we had much more common values then we have now, and much less problems. We had far less education then, and far less exposure to various academic ideologies and theories.

What we did have in excess of in those days, and seem to lack now, is common sense. – June 30, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.