This column is beginning of a pet hypothesis I have always held but now consider it time to put into a written form. In the past I have only used this framework to speak using my power point of the same. I will begin to put these thoughts in writing through a series of partial essays or arguments in shorter format to reflect my current thinking on the subject.

Before I can proffer my thesis, however, it is important to ask three basic or foundational questions:

1. What is Truth, if and whether Man can know such a truth? It is an important question before we talk about ‘the knowledge of such truths;’

2. Who or what is the custodian of all such truths; whether scientists, ulama, lawyers, our parents or everyone who chooses to live lives that honor God, as citizens of our one nation-state?; and

3. How then can we demonstrate all such truths in and through our lives? If not, how else than by demonstrating our love for God and neighbour? What are the differences between talking, walking and living such truths? Can external power and authority alone be deployed to demonstrate such truths? Or, should not all such truths become evident in and through our very human lives? If not, why not?

My personal answers to these questions will guide all my thinking as expressed through these write-ups on this important question relevant to Malaysia at this juncture of modern life.

My pet proposition or null hypothesis is that a 1Bangsa of Malaysians can only be framed for a multi-ethnic Malaysia, and any agenda for such, must be framed for national integration with constitutional integrity. If we fail, then, as a modern united nation-state we will fall apart.

My concept of ‘bangsa’

The concept of ‘bangsa’ used today is somewhat confusing and misleading, depending on who uses the term. When we refer to the Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu, we mean the United Nations. When we repeated the war cry ‘Untuk Negara dan Bangsa’, while I was in the public service, I was never really sure if it meant only the good of Malays, or also the good of non-Malays and all else.

When a Malay person says, ‘bangsa kita’, or ‘bahasa kita’, they mean the ‘bahasa Melayu’. But Bahasa Malaysia is founded on Bahasa Melayu though it is not the same as Bahasa Malaysia, so I am taught to believe. We claim that even Bahasa Indonesia is founded on Bahasa Melayu, and I am not sure they would also agree.

Therefore, since I am not a Bahasa Melayu scholar or a Malay sociologist, I will also await responses from others more knowledgeable about these matters!

Nonetheless, before I conclude this part, I will make three propositional statements, which can be reviewed or discoursed, as we proceed for those who want to engage me in a private dialogue over these arguments or propositions that I make.

My propositions about human knowledge

  • All human knowledge is embedded within worldviews.  Any worldview must recognise all three realities; of time, space, and spiritual or organic maturity, or the human spaces of being and becoming;
  • Worldviews must appreciate both kairos and kronos forms of time; in history, and in the geography of space, within different time zones, and with each spirit of movement for change in recorded history; and
  • We must therefore interpret all text only within its context. Any such review requires all new interpreters to give conscientious support to original moral agents or actors and their spirit for each action, and inaction as the case may be.

Man or human beings often only take a dualistic view of time, space and all reality; which we can be called ‘the here and now’ or today, and ‘the hereafter’ or tomorrow. I would like to add the third dimension of spiritual and organic maturity which we can call ‘development or progress’.  My problem is that in normal modern definitions of ‘development or progress’, we often overlook this third dimension of spiritual, organic time perspectives.

To do the above, we need to understand the both forms of time; i.e. both kairos and kronos time. Only then can we “better appreciate reality with fuller knowledge of events”. All true human events have a kronos and kairos perspective of the reality experienced. When it is well and completely recorded we call it history; otherwise it remains their story.

Therefore, no text can ever be defined without fully understanding and appreciating the original context. Therefore, any review of any history requires all the views of the original participants’ and or other forms of evidence or artifacts that define their lived experience.

(The second part of this essay will appear next Tuesday.)