The Challenges of Forging Unity in Malaysia
Marina Mahathir
I was reading recently about Belgium where its government had collapsed for the third time. The reason? Belgium is divided into two linguistic communities, the Dutch-speaking Flemings and the French-speaking Walloons and these two groups cannot agree on anything, don't mix together and rarely marry one another and each believes that the other group is trying to dominate everything. There are no national political parties and no national media and linguistic lines divide everything. It thus struck me, reading this story, that human beings are truly capable of quarrelling over the most stupid things.
Of course, at heart, this story is really about how human beings deflect the real issues with something else. As Jared Diamond examined in his book Collapse, at the heart of all conflicts is the struggle over resources, whether it is land, trade routes or whatever else that societies need to survive.
For whatever reason, we feel the need to disguise this very basic source of conflict with other reasons, often religion and race. Thus some people believe that the occupations of Palestine and Kashmir are just about one religious community dominating and discriminating over another, or that South African apartheid was just about white people ruling over the majority black people, or that Rwanda was just about Hutus and Tutsis. So perhaps we should be honest with ourselves and admit that it's really the most basic of instincts that put us in conflict with one another, the need to ensure that we have the resources we need for our own survival, especially in times when there is a perception that such resources are scarce. The trick is however to make people understand that we don't need to take everything in order to survive, that in fact sharing with others will not only ensure we survive but the resources can actually grow as well. That it does not need to be a zero-sum game.
For 12 years I worked against an enemy that required me to question such zero-sum games. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) survives by living off a human being. But its very parasitic presence means that sooner or later that human host will die, requiring the virus to either find a new host or die with it.
Happily for the HIV, human beings are the best facilitators for its survival by either being ignorant of its existence or of ways to curb its relentless march through human bodies. In fact we very often assist the virus to survive by refusing to practise safer sex, use clean needles or take treatments.
In trying to fight such a virus, one fact becomes abundantly clear: the virus has no interest in who you are. You could be of any race, religion, sex and sexual orientation, age, of any economic, social or political background; none of this matters. What matters is that you are a human being, the source of a blood system that is able to supply it with all the nutrients it needs to grow and survive. In short, the HIV does not discriminate.
It follows then that to effectively fight the virus, we also cannot discriminate. To assume that some people are likely to have the virus and others not, just because of lifestyle, sexual orientation, race, religion or creed is likely to result in two things. One is that we will discriminate against certain groups of people by ignoring and neglecting them, either because we assume they are invulnerable or that they are vulnerable but do not deserve to live. The other is that we will pay too much attention to some groups of people and by doing so we stigmatise them. Neither achievs the desired result of preventing the survival of the virus; in fact discrimination ensures that we leave gaps in prevention and treatment that allow the virus to extend its life.
Where people hve been successful in eliminating discrimination against various groups - the so-called marginalised groups -, they have also been successful in curbing the spread of HIV. Thus it is no coincidence that in more egalitarian societies - and I mean egalitarian in every way -, the prevalence rates of HIV are very low. In countries where there are huge gaps between people -whether economically, socially, politically, or between the sexes - HIV prevalence rates are much higher.
Even in wealthy countries such as the United States, HIV prevalence rates among the African-American and migrant communities are far higher than the national prevalence rates. One only has to look at the gaps between these groups and the dominant Caucasian group to see why.
Thus the lesson I have learnt from HIV is this: solidarity and equality is everything. As a representative of a particular socio-economic group, I may not myself be vulnerable to HIV. But by standing in solidarity with those in the least privileged groups and treating them as my equals, I have a better chance of protecting and benefitting my entire society than if I did not. Thus the inputs of every group is required, respected and taken into account and this results in the best and most effective policies and interventions.
How do we achieve this? Actually many governments know how to achieve unity among their people: find an enemy common to all (or create one). In the case of HIV, all of us are fighting a common enemy, a very clever virus. Thus, the old trick, often used and misused, is to find a common enemy for all of us to unite against.
Some governments have gone to war with others, as a way of uniting people. But there are other common causes that can unite people in a more positive way. Perhaps the injustice of the current global economic system is one, if it can be explained in real terms. Or even climate change. Sports of course is one of the most effective unifiers, as we saw last night (at the Thomas Cup semi-finals between Malaysia and Denmark) or as portrayed in the movie Invictus.
The key is to know how to communicate these concepts in very easy-to-understand terms. I do think that often those who are keen on forging unity are less adept at communication than those who are not. People want simplicity, not complicated concepts. Often we speak in overly convoluted terms adn this both turns off and excludes people. Those of us who want unity need to learn to be more inclusive. For instance, speaking here to a group of people at an institute in English is fine but means nothing to the people we really need to convince. We should perhaps examine our own prejudices and assumptions and make better efforts to understand those we instinctively dislike.
Finally, I think that really the hope for change for the better has to come from civil society. As shameful as those church-burnings and others acts of defilements of places of worship were last year, I am nevertheless proud that ordinary Malaysians refused to fall for these political tricks. They did not hide in their homes in fear, did not listen to rumours, nor did they go out to avenge any of those painful insults.
Instead they insisted -maybe willfully, maybe unconsciously - that life has to remain normal. They also reached out to one another, giving out flowers at street corners and fruits at mosques. I'm particularly convinced that young people are truly the hope of our country. They came out together for instance in a project called Tali Tenang to show solidarity with one another in a fun way.
Our leaders could learn a thing or two from these young people. Firstly, there is no need for any heavy-handed top-down unity campaign; subtlety can be more effective. And secondly, that they really need to back off because our people, particularly the young, are quite capable of being more innovative, more creative and more effective at forging unity.
Thank you.
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