Since the November 1999 general elections, we have seen so much changes in politics that they boggle the mind. While the monoethnic UMNO, MCA and MIC have been preaching racial politics down to the core, they accuse others of racialism and religious extremism. Just because they can constrain the mass media, it does not mean that they can get away with their brands of racialism.

In his New Year message, the Prime Minister Dato' Seri Dr Mahathir says that all in Malaysia can live in peace and harmony because the leaders of the various races in Malaysia who not only fought for the country's independence but also drew up the nation's basic policies were moderates who wanted to see all races receive their due in this country.

"The concept of 'give and take' between the races which was created by the country's founding fathers - Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun Sambanthan - was most efficacious for Malaysia.

"The effort to unite the Malays is to safeguard their interests and not to create animosity among them," he added.

Monoethnic Parties

It is clear that as long as monoethnic parties such as UMNO, MCA and MIC exist, they will continue to play on racial sentiment. This type of sentiment is definitely more populist compared to multiracialism. All you have to do is listen to their harangues in front of purely racial crowd and you have an idea of their racial demagoguery.

Once they are elected, they stand in front of the multiracial society, proffering their intention to look after all races including mouthing catchy phrases in various tongues such as Mandarin, Tamil, Dayak or Kadazan. They send out messages during festive occasions with universal appeals like unity and harmony.

True, tolerance is an important basis for Malaysia. One of the effective ways to promote tolerance is to narrow the gap in all respects between and within all races.

Multiracialism

The future of Malaysia lies in multiracialism. We need multiracial parties to achieve it. This may take years. As the dominant party in government such as UMNO is monoethnic, the present direction is towards racial parties and racial politics. Racialism and patronage are the twin pillars of the Barisan Nasional.

A monoethnic party veers towards racialism especially by demagogues. On the other hand, a multiracial party has an in-built restraint, reflecting the sensitivity of all races.

We know that if there is something wrong with one race, this affects other races. If one race is united and the others are not, this state of affairs is detrimental to Malaysia. What type of tolerance do we expect?

Eradicate abuses of rights and privileges

Under the New Economic Policy, we can see some progress such as the increase in the number of universities and hence the number of graduates of all races. However, there are wanton abuses of special rights and privileges in virtually all sectors such as the economy and education: the appointment of vice-chancellors of universities, the allocations of places in universities, the promotions of civil servants, the implementation of privatized projects and so forth have made all races disaffected. Uneducated people may not be able to see the true picture. Nevertheless, once they become educated and enlightened, they begin to see things.