Malaysia is a unique federation blessed with a variety of religions, races, ethnic groups, languages, customs and culture. All world major religions are practiced here: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. Other religious beliefs include Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Bahaism and Animism.
The country’s 27 million combined populations consists of three main racial groups, namely Malays, Chinese, Indians; and numerous ‘orang asli’ tribes in the Peninsular as well as other indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak.
The Malays are largely Muslims, the Chinese are predominantly Buddhist, the Indians are generally Hindus. Christians are basically Chinese or Indians. The ‘orang asli’ communities and dozens of other Borneo ethnic groups mostly practice traditional beliefs but many have converted into either Christianity or Islam.
Therefore, all the groups are of different religions, races, ethnicities, and understandably, a myriad of languages, dialects, customs and culture. Obviously Malaysia is a multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-cultural nation.
Albeit the diversity, generally all Malaysians have been harmoniously living together for decades. Islam is the religion of the Federation, and the Constitution grants freedom of worship to other religions. So, it is common to see places of worship like mosques, churches and temples within the same area.
By extension, this liberty goes to other social and cultural aspects of the various people as long as their practices do not pose any threat to the public order, public health or the principles of ethics and morality.
This explains why religious or cultural festivals have been amazingly celebrated by Malaysians regardless of their divergent racial or religious backgrounds. This racial unity and interaction cannot be found elsewhere in the world.
Such an excellent understanding and relationship suggests that these races have adopted a strong sense of respect and tolerate each other well. This has been the main factor behind the country’s economic prosperity, growth and political stability.
However, one of the greatest challenges of the nation is to maintain its peaceful social ambience and political stability resulting from the multi-racial nature of the society.
The recent unfolding of events indicates that all these noble qualities are now increasingly under threats. Since then, there have been repeated calls asking members of our pluralistic citizenry to preserve the unity spearheaded by our forefathers and nurtured by generations of subsequent political leaders.
It seems that religious issues have all the potentials to be exploited to cause prejudices, suspicion and disunity among the masses. In fact many have been manipulated by irresponsible and unscrupulous quarters to fan hatred. Thus, one such call has been to abstain from discussing issues that may spark misunderstanding and ignite religious or racial tensions.
The rationale is straight forward: without unity, there will be no peace and stability. Without peace, there will be no prosperity, growth and development. And none will benefit from any resulting outbreak of social anarchy.
The latest series of events may lead one to conclude that our unity is extremely fragile. Our religious tolerance is a fake one. Our stability is fictitious.
I strongly advocate that we take the above as true. Then what are we supposed to do to rectify the problem?
Perhaps ‘tolerance’ is not the right concept to foster unity. The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus defines that ‘to tolerate’ means to endure or permit [something] especially with forbearance, i.e. the patience to sustain or endure suffering, pain, hardship or unfavourable conditions.
Equally highly authoritative Crabb’s English Synonyms puts it that “Tolerate suggests something annoying borne with some patience; endure, something in the nature of positive suffering borne with courage and fortitude”.
Prof. Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud, a Malaysian scholar, comments that all the above indicate human submission to different kinds and degrees of unpleasantness. It refers to something disagreeable without the element of kindness and love.
Bearing that in mind, it is our clamourous mistake to perceive our tolerance as something genuine and sincerely carried out. Thus it is not surprising to see that when something happens to the perceived disadvantages of certain people, some will cunningly snap and maneuver the opportunity to shout injustices and blame others for their false predicament. Worse still they scream that it is their right to annoy others for their own selfish ends.
If we were to ‘embrace’ our unity in diversity as a boon, something exceptionally terrific for the nation, we must genuinely accept our commonalities and agree to disagree on certain fundamental differences as they are, be they religious or cultural.
Echoing Prof SMN al-Attas, I would suggest that the conception and practice of freedom and tolerance must be based on ‘samahah’, or ‘muhibbah’, rendered into Malay as ‘muhibah’. The former means liberality, munificence, generosity and gentleness, while the latter refers to something that is dear to oneself, loved.
The amount of respect, care and love is abundant in ‘muhibah’. Therefore, instead of propagating ‘tolerance’ as a vehicle for unity, we must rather promote ‘muhibah’ in its place. A ‘muhibah society’ means a true loving society while a ‘tolerant’ one is pretentious as majority members are exercising self control amidst all forms of hatred and suspicions towards others.