Baby steps to nation-building

Last week seven co-organisers and two sponsors hosted the 5th National Congress on Integrity (NCOI) on Sept 16, which was the first time that Malaysia Day was celebrated as a national holiday. The first NCOI was held in 2005 on the theme of ‘Corruption: The missing link’.  

These congresses are a civil society initiative to stimulate national dialogues on issues of concern and pertinence in public space about how the three sectors of governance can achieve high performance and good governance in Malaysia. The host was UCSI University.

The co-organisers were the Malaysian Institute of Development and Asian Studies of the UCSI University, the Inter-Ethnic Studies Unit at UKM or KITA, the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies or IAIS, the Malaysian Organisation of Facilitators or MAFa, BangsaMalaysia@yahoogroups, Andante Resources Sdn Bhd, EPIC Sdn Bhd, The IJM Corporation and OHMSI Sdn Bhd.  

The highlight for all concerned and those who attended were the keynote address by Idris Jala and the two keynotes talks. Idris delivered an outstanding thesis on ‘Celebrating Diversity’. The two keynote talks were by former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram and senior lawyer Azzat Kamaludin ( left ); who spoke on the topic of ‘National Integration with Constitutional Integrity’.

The framework of the NCOI’s Common Ground Dialogue

The planning and preparation for the 5th NCOI began with the Common Ground Dialogue (CG Dialogue) held on May 13, 2010 at the IAIS. One hundred and twenty-seven participants discoursed and held dialogues on the challenges faced for forging unity in Malaysia.

Through a process of consultation and moderation carried out by the MAFa members, the CG Dialogue identified four issues which were serious concerns that hindered the policies related to national unity in Malaysia. These issues were:

1. Education as a unifying framework;

2. Political culture and leadership culture for good governance;

3. Religion, law and shared values for a common national framework; and

4. Personal Issues and hindrances.

Premised on the above and through the application of a DEEP model of problem analysis and solution resolution, the 5th NCOI was designed to have two parts to address all key issues. The keynote address was designed to hear an international expert in strategic planning for nation transformation. The current CEO of Pemandu gave his hands-on lessons and views about the set of issues facing Malaysia.

The two other plenary speakers were invited to give their views on why the integrity of the federal constitution was integral to the national agenda of integration. The theme of the 5th NCOI was ‘Integration with Integrity’.

The afternoon saw three parallel sessions designed to allow “experts on each subject to give their views and opinions”, moderated by another independent civil society expert. The selection of all speakers was guided with a view to create and stimulate “a thesis and anti-thesis perspective on all related pre-identified key issues and concerns”.

DEEP Analysis

The DEEP method of problem analysis argues for a four-step process of thinking through of issues and concerns. The first is to describe the problem in words and if possible in figures and numbers.

The co-organisers agreed that the key problem faced by Malaysians was, as very well described by Professor Shamsul Amri, the founding director of KITA: “While we are a state, we are not yet a nation.” Statehood in the model of current leadership of the nation since Merdeka and then Malaysia is where we have a state with even a written constitution. But the problem is we have not still achieved nationhood, somehow, even after 53 years!

Therefore we need to explain the sources and causes of our predicament. Why is Malaysia a state but not yet a nation? It is definitely a state because we have created and executed all instruments of modern governance of any statehood of the legislative, executive and the judiciary.

We also have the fourth and fifth estates of the public services and the media. Furthermore, we have many good and positive institutions that most other democracies do not have like the institution of the Council of Rulers, a periodic National Consultative Council, the Rukunegara or national philosophy and the experience of multi-ethnic coalitional politics.

Malaysia has the hardware but maybe what is missing is the software and the needed shared values of translation towards a truly 1Malaysia.

Therefore the evaluation of the CG Dialogue on May 13 revealed three main causes and sources of the problem using the Pareto Analysis model. The three identified factors aggregated into the three issues and concerns explained 80% of the problem. The remaining issue was personal concerns with bigotry and ethnic bias of individual Malaysians.

Therefore the 5th NCOI was intentionally architected to address all these major issues and concerns. The fact that this was a civil society gathering and not a government initiative congress made for the fact that all attendees came in their personal capacity; even if in some cases their formal roles were recognised. For the organisers the baby steps towards nation-building had started.

Simple action steps; a personal resolution

Action steps are always possible at two levels; at the individual level and the group level.  According to Idris there is a three-step model action model for moving from simply “tolerating” the other to “acceptance” and then towards “celebration.”

He said in order to achieve a truly 1Malaysia; Malaysians need to change the way we think and speak. The organisers therefore asked all in the audience to do two things:

1. Join the younger generation to sing We R Malaysia ; a brand new song launched to celebrate Malaysia and especially the diversity in Malaysia.

2. Sign a voluntary pledge not to be a racist and therefore take positive steps to build the Malaysia we want.

What a day it was and May God bless Malaysia as we seek action in our chosen ways!