Doing away with tolerance

Opinion

It appears that “ketuanan Melayu” or Malay supremacy is never away from the news for long before somebody decides to pick up on our ever-ready polarising lightning rod.

Most recently it was Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail at the PKR party congress who declared that it was time to consign the concept to the dustbin of history “for the sake of our children”.

And sure enough, self-appointed defenders of Malay rights, the ultra group Perkasa, promptly joined in the fray, accusing her of “political prostitution” — which rather states the obvious and thus completely misses the point of politics, really.

Not too bright, those fellas.

While there is no doubt where I stand on the issue itself (I have been accused of being a Malay liberal and worse), I feel as though I need to say something with regards to the whole Malay supremacy thing to balance things out.

You see, for the sake of consistency I am also against any sort of racial chauvinism of the Chinese, Indian or indeed Martian-kind. And to me, for someone to call for an end to Malay supremacy without also giving a nod to Chinese and Indian types of tolerated “chauvinism” (e.g. vernacular schools — especially if they are state-funded) smacks of one-sidedness; and worse, gives folks like Perkasa ample ammo to appoint themselves as “protectors” of Malay rights.

You’ve simply got to go all the way on this, Pakatan Rakyat. Because as it stands, it is incredibly disingenuous to call for an end to one but not the others as well.

Granted, that wouldn’t be politically expedient behaviour for garnering the majority of Chinese and Indian support but hey, since you’ve already got the liberal Malays taking notice, why not focus on consistency and appeal to the Chinese and Indian “liberals” out there too?

At the very least, speak in the full pro-integration voice in the same breath because it is this lack of consistency that will end up derailing a more comprehensive and inclusive meritocracy and a new “Bangsa Malaysia.”

Tolerance

I suspect at the very core of this inability to go the full Monty when it comes to integration may be our preoccupation with the whole concept of “tolerance” itself. We’ve been hanging on it for so long historically and from a propaganda perspective, we may not be seeing it for what it truly is: a bad thing.

Tolerance (Latin: “to bear or endure, or to suffer through”) you see is the very thing that may be preventing a true Bangsa Malaysia from developing. There seems to be a cherished belief that tolerance is a good thing; a noble end unto itself and the only way for a plural society to flourish.

Well I don’t mean to be a contrarian just for the sake of it, but I do think that tolerance is proving to be our particular major impediment … you’ve got to lose in order to gain, and not surprisingly, not many people are keen on the first part of that equation.

One of the more renowned “anti” tolerance philosophers and critical theorist is Slavoj Zizek, the so-called “Elvis of Cultural Studies.” To paraphrase Zizek: tolerance is grudging sort of “right to not be harassed” and to be kept at a safe distance from others.

In many ways it is an obsessive fear of harassment: the “other” is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the “other” that the majority has to confront.

And that is the modern equivalent, mind. In pre-modern times as historian Bernard Lewis put it, it was more a case of: “I am in charge. I will allow you some though not all of the rights and privileges that I enjoy, provided that you behave yourself according to rules that I will lay down and enforce.”

As an example, it’s really not hard to think of a time in our history when men “merely” tolerated womenfolk; and the white the coloured.

Right now our concept of tolerance breaks down precisely at the societal level. Whereas it may work on a personal level, tolerance does a tremendous disservice within the larger social context.

When two incompatible ideas or cultures meet, the postponement of confrontation cannot be relied upon as the solution. The longer something isn’t confronted, the more it festers and changes shape — and in a worst-case scenario things come to a head in an unmanageable arena.

And however much we would like it to be, tolerance is also not often associated with mutual respect. For example: On a societal level — the Palestinian Muslims’ toleration of their Christian kin; or, on a personal level: my toleration of K-Pop music.

So I would like to posit that tolerance, in the bigger scheme of things, is pretty much a stop-gap measure at best. While it may be useful in the early to intermediate stages of building a plural society or nation-state, there must be a conscious effort to go beyond tolerance to a genuine attempt at integration and assimilation.

To have separate spheres for everything — vernacular schools, neighbourhoods, places of congregation and indeed race-based political parties and social policies — is not a formula that can stand the test of time, however much we wish it to be so.

It is exactly this “mental block” that we need to get over if true integration if to happen for the sake of our economic, and indeed social survival. Like it or not, doing away with Malay supremacy is a two-sided coin.

And what’s the gain? Mutual respect and flexibility. Tolerance may be reciprocal, but there is no give and take. And as we’ve all known from young: nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

Populations grow, generations pass the baton on, and old concepts of a mythical social contract are consigned to history. The next generation can’t be held accountable for the sins — nor whatever may be claimed as the virtues — as it were of their fathers.

Zeffri Yusof is an ex-journo and all-round informavore. Zeffri believes in the force of Reason, human goodness and dignity, and the "machahood" of man. He's on and off on twitter.com/zeffri