NST July 23: Sunday Interview: We still have room to find solutions
Sunday Interview: We still have room to find solutions
23 Jul 2006Abdul Razak Ahmad
He’s a soft-spoken man who has been given a big responsibility — getting Malaysians closer together. National Unity and Integration director-general Datuk Azman Amin Hassan, who has been in service for 30 years, speaks to ABDUL RAZAK AHMAD about the root causes of ethnic conflict in Malaysia.
Q: What’s the current state of unity and integration in this country
A: As someone whose job is to protect and enhance our unity and integration, I’d say that on a scale of zero to 10, Malaysia stands at 6.5. We don’t have planned racial conflicts. We feel safe to move about freely.
There’s also good co-operation between the races. But we need to do a lot more. We do have occasional cases of fighting, and because they occur between a Malay and an Indian, for example, they get classified as a "racial" incident. But if you look at the root cause, you’ll find that not all are caused by race or religion.
Q: If race and religion aren’t the root causes of ethnic incidents, what are?
A: Sometimes it’s the dissatisfaction of the poor. A rubber estate is cleared for a housing project. The residents are displaced. This creates pockets of discontent among these poor people. The resentment builds up.
And when a minor incident involving a person from another race happens, things explode. The root causes are mostly socioeconomic, or related to laws and calls to amend certain regulations that affect people of different faiths.
There are also grievances due to "demolition" of places of worship. Those affected say they can’t understand why they have to move for a housing project when their temple has been there for 20 years. These potential tensions exist in this country. But it’s important to note that we still have ample room to discuss and find solutions.
Q: Every minor quarrel seems to have the potential to explode. Is unity in Malaysia so fragile?
A: When I look at every incident, I find there are always early signs that we missed. After an incident, we tend to say the situation in this country is not good because very minor misunderstandings can still blow up so easily.
In truth, most of these incidents are retak menanti belah (cracks waiting to shatter the container). It’s like a fire. There’s the spark that starts the fire, and there are also the conditions that cause the spark.
Q: Can you give an example?
A: Take the Kampung Medan incident five years ago. The root cause was socioeconomic. The residents were promised new homes. They waited for years, but the homes were not completed. If you saw the conditions they lived in — houses with cement floors and zinc roofs, in a neighbourhood with a drug and prostitution problem — you’d have seen how the socioeconomic plight of the community connected to the whole episode.
The "spark" was a minor incident involving people from two races. One group acted, another reacted; the trouble spread. But the root cause and original grievance and dissatisfactions of the community were longstanding and deep-rooted.
Q: What struck you most about Kampung Medan?
A: I was then director of the Department’s Rukun Tetangga (RT) programme. I commuted from Subang Jaya to work using the KTM Komuter service. I passed Kampung Medan every day and I would observe the people who got on and off the station; I’d look at the area. Something was not quite right.
On the morning of March 8, 2001, I casually remarked to the director-general, Ainon Kuntum, that I suspected something could happen in Kampung Medan. We pulled out the file on Petaling Jaya. But we did not have much to go on: there was no RT programme in the area, no grassroots network reporting to us.
I got a call that very night from Ainon telling me that a terrible incident had happened in Kampung Medan. We felt utterly frustrated.
We had been promoting unity all this time — and this happened.
Ainon made some right and quick decisions in dispatching a team to the area quickly. And one of the first things done was to set up an RT. I was there every night. The first six nights I saw many families sleeping outside on the verandah. They were afraid that mobs would torch their houses. It took us quite a lot to persuade them to go inside.
But I realised things were going to be okay when the RT team, made up of Malays and Indians, said they were willing to patrol their neighbourhood. They were united and committed to keeping outsiders from coming to create more trouble in their neighbourhood. It was a relief, because we had other concerns at the time.
Q: You have witnessed the ravages of ethnic strife. But is it hard to convince the general public about the importance of an intangible thing like national unity?
A: Many people view incidents like Kampung Medan mainly as a quarrel between people of different races. Apart from that, unity isn’t really as important to many as economic indicators, for example.
I wish I could quantify the financial losses due to racial incidents.
If I can total the amount spent on hospital bills for the victims of Kampung Medan, the cost of deploying extra policemen, the amount of business lost in the area, and the number of foreign investors who cancelled plans to invest or pulled out, then I can say this is how much the Kampung Medan incident cost Malaysia.
The Fire and Rescue Department puts a ringgit estimate to damage caused by a fire. Why can’t we do the same for damage caused by incidents that threaten national unity? We’ve never quantified such damage before. It’s time we did.
Maybe, then, more people will open their eyes and appreciate how important unity really is.
Q: How important is the upcoming National Unity and Integration Action Plan?
A: It’s Malaysia’s first five-year unity plan. We were operating on annual plans and in some aspects we worked in isolation. Last year, for example, the department organised 35,000 specific activities geared towards national unity, involving the participation of three million people.
But even that’s not enough. Ministries like Education and Information have their own programmes, but there are still a lot of groups and parties out there that need to be roped in, including the private sector and non-governmental organisations.
The plan is a more systematic approach to national unity. It outlines what each sector, Ministry and agency can and should do in the next five years.
Q: How will progress be monitored?
A: I suppose we will become the policemen of national unity in Malaysia. We’ll be looking at whether a particular ministry is carrying out the plan and what its initiatives are.
The ministers will have to report to the Cabinet Committee on National Unity and Integration that will be set up. We’re also developing instruments to objectively measure unity, called a national unity index. A higher index number means that unity in a particular area is good. A lower figure means the opposite.
We need something concrete, because for many, unity is a very elusive thing. It’s so important, but not something you can hold in your hand.
