If Sabah can do it, why not Sarawak?
By Fatihah Jamhari, Tanjak
This year, Malaysia will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its independence. As a nation, its citizens have notched up many accomplishments and Malaysia’s prowess in the fields of education, research, sports and entertainment is recognized globally.
However, it is not enough to have our talents broadcast abroad while locally we are still gasping for unity and commonality.
The fighting spirit of Malaysians must continue to be rekindled so that our survival as an independent nation is guaranteed. This includes efforts to uphold the terms of the social contract that had been agreed between our forefathers and now form part of our constitution.
Sign in Brunei
Bahasa Melayu as basis of our national culture
To honour our independence, Malaysians must first be able to assume a common identity between ourselves without differentiation as to place of origin, whether we hail from the peninsula, Sabah or Sarawak. This is to ensure the continuance of the Malaysian essence throughout globalisation.
In a modern nation, such as Malaysia, where its people are comprised of many races, cultural hybrids and even interracial mixes, it is a myth that ethnicity is the only shared commonality between a people.
If we want to move beyond our different cultures to form a modern global society that lives and functions as one, we must be able to create one national culture to be adopted by all Malaysians.
Stuart Hall, the famous cultural theorist from University of Birmingham, in his seminal work, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies wrote:
“The formation of a national culture helped to create standards of universal literacy, generalized a single vernacular language as the dominant medium of communication throughout the nation, created a homogeneous culture and maintained national cultural institutions, such is a national education system.”
The most glaring issue that obstructs the construction of our national culture is the reluctance to fully use Bahasa Melayu as our national language.
