The
provision of Islam as the official religion, the protection accorded to
the natives and reservations for the Malays might make the Federal
Constitution less than multi-racial.
However,
as one constitutional expert said recently, the Federal Constitution is
not a document frozen in time and space, but a living one.
In
other words, it caters for all over a long period of time. In essence,
the Constitution is the collective emblem of the nation.
The fact that the Federal Constitution has functioned well over a period suggests its relevance to the country and its people.
It serves no purpose to take umbrage saying that the Constitution has been misinterpreted by certain quarters.
The same can be said about those who want to give a particular definition to the Constitution.
For Mahathir, who has the tendency to place the cart before the horse, it is always about the means justifying the ends.
This Machiavellian approach to politics seems to be the key problem in Mahathir’s approach.
Self-contradicting Mahathir
It
is not the Federal Constitution alone, there are other instances that
Mahathir might be prone to invoke to justify why Malaysia is not a
multi-racial country.
The fact that non-Malays are immigrants, the
Malays being the original people or natives, the political bargain
between the two communities, demographic make-up and others might be
cited to show that Malaysia is a Malay political and cultural based
country.
However, it was the same Mahathir, not too long ago, chided PAS for not accepting the multi-racial feature of the country.
At
one time, he even praised the DAP for being more multi-racial and
nationalistic in comparison to the MCA, Gerakan and the MIC, all the
three being mono-ethnic parties.
It is somewhat strange that the
attempts to define the political and cultural make-up of the country are
happening at a time when there is a counter-global move towards the
multi-cultural paradigm.
It is just like a candle that burns brightest, before it fades away.
The
analogy of the candle might not be appropriate to describe the
overzealous tendency on the part of Mahathir and others in holding on
tenaciously to ideas that might be fast eroding in a world where
national boundaries are fasting eroding.
I suppose the last
vestiges of nationalism in the form of cultural and religious extremism
might not fade away under the impact of universalism, but they will
resist as far as possible.
This might be what we are witnessing in
Malaysia, where culture and religion are invoked to maintain and
perpetuate a hegemonic agenda.