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MPW1133/2133
MALAYSIAN STUDIES
MAY 2016
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MATRICULATION NO : 911118015441001
IDENTITY CARD NO. : 911118015441
TELEPHONE NO.

: 0125078238

E-MAIL

: cbkia2008@hotmail.com

LEARNING CENTRE : BATU PAHAT

Introduction of the topic

The months of August and September in our annual calendar are of great
significance to all Malaysians. On the 31st August every year we celebrate our HARI
MERDEKA or Independence Day while on the 16th of September we commemorate
HARI MALAYSIA or MALAYSIA DAY. And this year we will celebrate Malaysias
upcoming 59th birthday.
As we commemorate these two very significant events we should take pride in the
fact that ever since our Nation secured Independence in August 1957, it has remained
peaceful without facing major security threats that could jeopardise its stability, peace
and harmony except for the May 13 1969 racial riots and the recent Lahad Datu terrorist
incursion. Malaysia today stands out in the world as an example of how different ethnic
communities can live in peace and harmony and work together for the progress and wellbeing of the nation.
As a country of diverse races, cultures and religions, Malaysia is indeed unique in
proving how its diversity could be united and harnessed for nation building. Despite the
different political ideologies and contrasting view and opinions, we have been able to
respect and appreciate one another. We were able to conduct 13 General elections
peacefully and without bloodshed.
We have been a harmonious society and it is necessary for us to further enhance
and strengthen our inter-racial understanding and trust for one another despite whatever
differences. We should continue with greater fervour and determination to strive towards
building our multi-racial nation into a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common
and shared destiny.
National Unity is very vital and is the key to Malaysias success. Whether
Malaysia will become a fully developed nation by the year 2020 will depend on a number
of important factors, the most important being national unity. Unity should therefore be
the basis of all programmes and activities for nation building. Malaysians should be
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more conscious of their role and contribution towards national unity which is paramount
to the nations growth and development. National development would not be meaningful
without understanding, harmony, goodwill and trust among the multiracial people. Racial
and other forms of polarisation are the biggest hindrance to national unity and it should
be the responsibility of all Malaysians to reject racial polarisation in whatever form that is
detrimental to national unity.

Discussion the importance of unity and harmony to the formation of nation-state.

Malaysia is a country populated by various ethnic, racial and religion. The success
of integrating Malaysias various ethnic groups would be established in a united
Malaysian society. Thus, the national unity plays an important role in progress of
Malaysia. Before the Malaysia successfully achieves independent, our ancestries which
come from different background cooperate in order to demand for independent. The
result for their unity among them has lead Malaysia as a self- governing country. Hence,
we could say that no unity, no Malaysia. Secondly, the occurrence of unity in Malaysia
has created a harmony and peaceful society. As we know, Malaysia is a nation which
group by diverse culture and religion. If the Malaysia people doesnt implement with the
quality of unity, conflict and quarrel will occur among them and thus the stable of
political of Malaysia will be corrupt. The visitors from other countries will be attracted by
the unity that shown by the Malaysian people. The visitors would like to identify more
closely with the Malaysian culture of various races and religion which can live harmony
under one society. The presence of the visitors to Malaysia has led to the development of
tourism industry and hence increases the nation income. Another importance of unity in
Malaysia is the development of economic. The stable of political in Malaysia due to the
unity of Malaysian people will attract the foreign traders to make investment in Malaysia.
The attendance of the foreign traders will not only cause the economics of Malaysia to
increase, it may also raise the status of economic of Malaysia in the world.

Analyse any THREE detrimental factors of nationality and harmony and Discussion
on how selected factors may contribute to national unity and harmony in
multiracial society in Malaysia.
The ethnic relations are important and focusing on three elements which are
economic, culture and security. Based on the economic view, the unity amongst the
different ethnics or races in Malaysia is one of the extremely matters where it can help
every ethnic to get involved in any economic fields without any barriers and all the
ethnics are able to do any activities related with economics as long as they are Malaysian
citizens. In addition, the stable economics also can be achieve if all the ethnics are united
and have a pleasant relationship, hence the elimination one race overpower one economic
are able to improve the good relations between ethnics because every races are deserve to
work and being success in their achievement. Besides, the elimination of one race
conquer one economic is to avoid from the economics segregated between Malays,
Chinese and Indians which occurs during the British colonization before Malaysia
Independence. Therefore, the government has taken the action where all of the ethnics are
able to involve in Malaysian economic system. This shows that the better ethnic relations,
the better unity amongst all of the races can be achieve, hence this benefit the country in
enhancing stabilizations of economic and increases the investment from local citizens as
well as the foreign investment.
The culture elements also play an important role because the culture aspects
shows the uniqueness of Malaysian people or ethnics whereby it must be preserve in
order to have a respectable relationship between the ethnics as well as live in a harmony
country. Commonly, all over the world are alert that Malaysia is consist of multiracial
citizens which hold and bring different cultures, customs and religions. Through
maintaining ethnics relations by respecting each other cultures, customs and religious, it
helps to get all of the ethnics become more closer whereby we as Malaysian believe that
the great unity amongst all ethnics can lessen or narrowing the gap between races as well
as avoiding from the ethnics crisis. Moreover, ethnics relations are very important in
Malaysia is to ensure that there would not be any ethnics selfishness which can lead to
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racist or prejudice as well as intolerant. This is due to we are living in a country which
have different races and it is not relevant with the common scenario because we already
achieve the independence as well as now is the modernizations era where every
individual are able to think broadly and deserve to live in well manner. Consequently, by
respecting other ethnics culture, customs and religions are very important to gain a good
ethnics relations besides all of us are able to understand others customs and their taboos.
The ethnic relations are also important in Malaysia in order to sustain the current
safety of our country as well as the safety of the nation itself in the future. This is
important to avoid from the previous incidents occurs which is the Ethnics Violence in
13th May 1969 where it gave a huge impact and trauma to some people who their family
members has been murdered and the big numbers of Malaysian were killed in the Black
Blood History. Basically, maintaining the ethnic relations are important to avoid from all
those issues occurs and take all those incident as the lessons for every Malaysian citizens.
Besides, that will encourage the all the ethnics to have a feeling of Love their Mother
Land and feel free to sacrifice to save the country. As we are aware that the unity and
good ethnic relations lead to the harmony and safety living in Malaysia and at the same
time reinforce and strengthen the safety of Malaysia from threatening by insiders and
outsiders. In addition, the unity amongst the ethnics would be able to defend Malaysia
sovereignty from any obstacles and disasters in order to make sure that Malaysia will be
develop and success to achieve the Vision 2020 and remain the ethnic relations in wellmanner.
As the lessons taken from the World War II which had given a very huge impact
in the sovereignty and culture of Malaysia where the horrors of this war when innocent
people were killed showed the clear view that peace cannot be limited to situations of
absence of war. However, the peace can be defined in various ways such as political,
economic, cultural and understanding amongst the ethnics. In order to ensure that
Malaysian living in peace, our government has become as one of the country who
collaborate with the United Nations (UN) in The Security Council and responsible in
maintaining the international peace and security. As to ensure that, Malaysia become as
one of the representatives in United Nation for peace keeping, the government must
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guarantee that Malaysia citizens also living in peaceful manner, hence we are aware that
the Culture of Peace is curiously important since we are living in a multiracial country.
Malaysias government will be headed by the King or Sultan whose positions rotates
among the Sultans for every five years. As the action taken by the government to sustain
the culture of peace as well as giving equal priorities to all of the ethnics, Malaysia is
using the democracy parliamentary system and gives the rights for the people to choose
their political party through the elections which will be held every five years. At the same
time, all of the ethnics are given the place in Malaysia parliamentary system in order to
ensure that there would not be the term bias will be arisen in any context.
The culture of peace also is important in term of giving right of education to all
the ethnics where the government has established schools in three medium which is
Malay-medium, Tamil-medium and Chinese-medium. The establishment of these schools
is to satisfy every ethnic need and preserve their language as well as learning our mothertongue language which is Bahasa Malaysia in all of the schools. The most important thing
is measuring the progress of the students by examination equally which helps to evaluate
and compute the level of knowledge and offer the scholarships for those who success in
studies in schools as well as in tertiary education. The offer will be given similarly to
every ethnic who perform well. This shows that Malaysia is very well organize in
handling all the matters related to the ethnics in order to maintain the peaceful life.
Further reasons on culture of peace is important in Malaysia arise when every
race or ethnic has different religious and beliefs. As the concern of these matters, the
government has decided that Islam as the official religion since the majority of the
population is Muslims because 60% are Malays. However, Malaysia never force any of
the ethnic to be as Muslim and all of the races are free to practice their own religions and
beliefs such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and others as long as it is not harmful
and lead to any religions or ethnics crisis. The presence of such diversity of religion and
beliefs calls everyone to respect each other and live in harmony neighborhood,
environment and society. In enhancing the culture of peace, Malaysian citizens is very
aware in celebrating the religious important days and mostly every of the religious has
their official holidays. Through the holidays given, we are able to celebrate with open
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houses such as for Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas Eve and others whereby this
will help in further the knowledge as well as the valuable interreligious experiences of the
population. This will encourage all of the ethnics to gain more understanding and unity
which boost peaceful living amongst the different cultures. In addition, none of the
religion asks its followers to do criminal. Indeed, all religions command their followers to
do good deeds and ask to know and understand each other, and to live in peace with one
another.
Another reason on the culture of peace is important in Malaysia is the acceptance
of the term moderation that contributed in making Malaysia as everybody well known.
This is one of the moderate actions taken by our forefathers. The moderation works as a
very significant approach to connect the differences, ease the communication, resolve
disagreements and maintain the stability and development. At the same time it creates
harmonious relations as it calls for mutual respects, understanding, tolerance,
communicate, cooperation and justice. The concept of moderation has in-built in every
citizens of Malaysia to not relate any of our ethnic, religious or cultural background as
the crisis as everybody concern and take the lesson during huge problems of the World
War II and the Ethnic Violence (13th May 1969). This relatively contributed in peace and
harmony Malaysia to this current day.

Explanation on THREE recommended activities to the National Unity Consultation

Council (UNCC) based on selected factors.

Revive the observance of the Rukun Negara principles in schools, the workplace
and where relevant, in order to influence the overall conduct and behaviour of all
Malaysians. The fifth principle of the Rukun Negara, Kesopanan dan Kesusilaan
is particularly relevant to fostering racial harmony. In this context, there is a need
to promote intercultural understanding and literacy of ethnic-based values of all
Malaysians as reflected in their everyday life, languages, religions and rituals.
Banning the use of words insulting to the different races would be a good start to
encourage Malaysians to observe Kesopanan and respect for our multicultural
sensitivities at all times.

To make attitudes in schools, the civil service and other government institutions
which spell of racism unacceptable. These attitudes as seen at service counters of
government departments, by overzealous bureaucrats under the guise of
application of Islam, must be corrected with new norms which promote respect
for values of the different races. It is critical that government administration of
public services is not undertaken with undertones of condoning racism and
according preferences to certain races based on personal values of public sector
officials. There should be sanctions against such behaviour.

To sanction and impose penalties on teachers and school administrators who

practice racist acts in their schools or during student activities. At the same time,
to encourage schools to instil a culture of racial harmony, awards or other forms
of recognition, including higher budgetary allocations, should be given to schools
which introduce innovative programs that actually result in a favourable
environment of cultural and religious understanding and tolerance in the school
environment and among its students.

Teachers and school administrators have a significant influence on student attitudes

on racism, student capacity to develop cultural literacy and overall good behaviour
(kesopanan). As such, it is important that teachers are given personal accountability of
their behaviour on this aspect of student development. School Heads have an important
leadership role in developing a culture of racial harmony and religious tolerance by
improving the intercultural understanding and ethnic-based literacy in their schools. An
appropriate incentive system can help foster an environment favourable to promoting
racial harmony among students at a young age.

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Conclusion
The process of establishing a united Malaysian nation is fraught with challenges
and what has been achieved so far must be nurtured.
In this regard policy makers, planners and implementers have to be committed to
the principle that their thoughts and deeds would always be guided and governed by the
objectives and standards of Rukunegara and the sacrosanctity of the Federal Constitution.
All plans for growth and development and all corrective measures for social
imbalances will be meaningful only if they are geared towards the attainment of national
unity.
Malaysians must continue to aim at nurturing and strengthening the spirit of love
and loyalty for the country and pride in being Malaysians. The spirit if patriotism must
always be cultivated and nurtured and we must continue to strengthen racial harmony and
religious tolerance at every level. All activities must be geared towards uniting the
people which is the best recipe for nation building and the achievement of Vision 2020.
The immediate task of all political leaders and all strata of society is to prevent
any further drift towards racial polarization.

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References

http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Malaysia.html
https://mymalaysia.wordpress.com/2006/11/12/race-ethnicity-and-ethnic-

relations-a-malaysian-case-study/
http://www.slideshare.net/Fakrul141291/kepentingan-hubungan-etnik-dan-

usaha-yang-dijalankan-untuk-memelihara-perpaduan
http://www.g25malaysia.org/#!Racial-harmony-and-National-UnityConsultative-Council/c1nni/57205a4c0cf232b075cf82a9

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