Development of culture must be consistent with new reality

The overriding issue for the people of Sarawak is to build a peaceful and progressive community. For this reason, we must take a regular look at ourselves, for example through organizing cultural symposium, to ensure that we are on the right track. Basically, if we stand in a valley, we should go up to the top of a mountain to determine our position. The exercise of re-examining ourselves helps us to see tremendous changes, which signify successful efforts of all communities, to develop the state and country. 

Over the years, we have been experiencing phenomenal changes; even people, who have been afraid of change, now accept it as a way of life. There is no way we can achieve higher standards of living without economic changes. On the other hand, if we look upon changes as betrayal of the past then we may not see progress at all. In any civilisation, the people, who want progress, have to work very hard; once they achieve some progress they even work harder to build on their success. They want to move ahead with greater determination and perseverance to improve on their success. 

History has shown us that any civilization, including modern ones do not last forever because the people, once they become very successful, assume that other people are wrong and backward. They start to erect fences surrounding themselves to protect their so-called clean, beautiful and unique civilization. The classic example, of course, is the Great Wall of China which cut China from the rest of the world; then China was the most advanced civilization in the world with its continuous development of more than 4, 000 years.

During the same period, Islamic civilization, which had provided the torch of learning to Europe, highlighted the importance of knowledge on compass for greater exploration of the world. The knowledge of astronomy, on the other hand, arouses the curiosity of man to explore the universe and even discover the new world. The Arabs, on their part, mapped out places that they had visited and charted them so that they could come back to the same places with greater certainty.

By the 13th Century, the Arabs had already mapped the whole Mediterranean, while other people had mapped the Eastern coast of Africa and India. With the maps, the route to China had become safer and more predictable. It had become obvious that the whole world was tapping on the knowledge of China and India. China, with the great wall, had remained isolated for many centuries to come. Obviously, no civilization can survive long if it excludes influences from outside; no civilization can last without the renewal of inter-changes with others.

The history of civilization shows that it comes up if it shares and develops the legacy of others to become its own heritage. History actually tells us that civilization needs renewal all the time. For this reason, we should not think of culture in terms of stagnation.   Vision 2020 is our idea of looking into the future with perfect eyes sight.  We try to open our eyes with the maximum power of clarity in order to have a full perspective of what constitutes the truth. In other words, we try to recognise all facets of what constitute the truth.

Efforts to develop a society in any civilisation must be based on the willingness to recognise the truth. Otherwise, the steps forward will be clouded with the fear of going the wrong way. We must ensure that the development of our culture remains consistent with the new reality, clear vision and wider perspective. Any nation, in the process of building a new civilization has to fight based on the truth. For example, Confucius preached followers to make adjustments in order to achieve equilibrium in the society; they must learn to conquer their lowest desire.    Christ preached the followers to search for their souls and spread peace, love and kindness among mankind in order to restore the perspective of enthusiasm of their ambitions.

For Muslims, they believe the way to love God is through loving His creation. So we can see, the best guidance for truth is religion, what ever religion we belong to. Nobody can tell with certainty, which region is the best; we can quarrel with each other for thousand years but can never settle that question. Let us put religions as the various schools that we go through in order to acquire knowledge.  

The truth is knowledge but who can have the full knowledge? Even a religion may not have the full truth. Even within a religion, not all followers can perceive anyway near the truth.  We can see all of these from history and we have to accept them.

For us, in our multi- racial and multi-religious society, we have to be pragmatic and use the good values from various religions to in our search for a good social policy for the development of the country. We must accept the fact that, in spite of our different racial origins, religious beliefs, socio-economic status and background, we must find ways to improve the livelihood of our people. We may have to spend more time to think of ways and means to raise the level of our development.  More importantly, we must accept the fact that changes must take place in the process of development for greater progress and prosperity in the state and country.

Movement towards a Malaysian identity

For us in Sarawak, we equate the various religious and ethnic groups to a follow of water from tributaries, streams and rivers in different colours, some may be clear, others may be yellow, red, green or black, into the sea. As they flow downward, the colours gradually change and by the time they reach the sea, they become blue only.  More importantly, they become stronger and bigger that they can even float load of things into the sea.

The flow of the water from rivers to the sea actually typifies an example of the need to have more energy and resources in our movement towards a Malaysian identity. Though the water may have different colours, as they pass through curves, deep hollows and headlands, the colours start to change; eventually they become one colour only.  The process of our assimilation is almost like flow of water from rivers into the sea.  This is the stage where we are today. The fresh water from rivers has to mix with salty water in the sea. However, there will be changes in the movement of the water with tides bringing sea water into rivers, while the receding water bring fresh water into the sea.

There are many ways to institute changes not just one way.  For example, there is no more distinction between the computer television broadcasts as much as there is no distinction between small and big screens TV, with all the gadgets available. However, for us changes must come through our own initiatives.  We must follow the waves of change from time to time and the mixing time for us is education.

The process of education plays a central role, in whatever we do, in facing the change. A society will not be able to change unless there is a flow of information. A society will also not be able to experience changes peacefully unless it can apprehend the truth and differentiate between the positive and negative values. In this connection, we must pioneer an education system, which can help us to see the truth in the common efforts to uplift the level of our progress and prosperity.

We are at the gateway to the new reality, which can be considered as a new phenomenon in our favour. The people, who embrace the new reality must have positive attitude; they embrace change with the knowledge that change is good for them. To the people, who accept change, they know that change brings them new opportunities. The momentum of change has actually helped the people to develop positive attitude of wanting to change and recognizing that changes bring to them new opportunities. For this reason, they are mobile as mobility is something that is good, though it may also bring problems to the society at large.

We are not just taking about social but also physical mobility, a phenomenon, which has already seen 20% of the rural people moving to urban areas and may face the problems of getting good jobs, while the children will get less guidance from their parents, who will be too busy trying to make ends meet.  If they mix with bad people they may have bad influences from them. Basically, children must not be left on their own, to such an extent that they do not listen to words of advices from the elders.

The relationship between the old and the new generations must be maintained as the gap may bring social problems to the society at large. The new generations must be provided with social education through civics talks, seminars, courses in process of urbanization.  They must be instilled with noble values, be they based on the teachings of Islam or Christianity or any other religions in order to strengthen their personalities.

Basically, we must have the determination to educate our children towards the realisation of positive values. They must be equipped with knowledge, which can help them to reject negative values. We shall not be able to protect our children unless they are being instilled with positive values.

Generally, our young people are lucky; they can go to schools, even though they may be poor, with the availability of assistance from the government. Tertiary education is no longer confined to the elites only.                 Besides they have plenty of employment opportunities with jobs available to them according to their trainings. There were no jobs for electronic engineers, 20 years ago. Then they  had to go to Penang, Kuala Lumpur or Taiwan to look for jobs. Now, the proportion of people with skills and getting good pay also increases.  In other words, new opportunities, being created, are serving as incentives for young people to acquire necessary skills.  

The social mobility entails plenty of job opportunities with no social barriers. Before, it was illegal for a Bidayuh man to marry a Malay lady with the title of Sharifah; such marriages could be considered as impossible. However, there is no discrimination against such marriages any more.  We can safely say cross cultural marriages are no longer barriers in our society. The people have reached a certain level of equality and the people have the feelings of equality among themselves.

Meritocracy is going to be the order of the day in the new reality of Malaysia. Before, when we talked about meritocracy we could be regarded as anti-natives, who were still lacking in confidence in their own capability. They feared, without help, they could be left behind. However, in the fast changing world, meritocracy must be made as parts of our struggle. We must instill competitive spirit among the Malays, Ibans, Bidayuhs and others. They must be competitive, based on meritocracy, to ensure that our standard of quality will not deteriorate.

The concept of meritocracy must be fully understood and appreciated by all of us; even the Penans must learn to interact with other natives. All Bumiputera groups must interact among themselves and find ways and means how to upgrade their knowledge and skills through more informal ways. We have to support the idea of meritocracy with a little bit of adjustment and allowance for our people. There is no escape from meritocracy because there is no escape to competitions in a globalised world. Besides, we have to improve our productivity, which means we have to be resourceful. The habit of resourcefulness has to be cultivated among the people especially among Bumiputras.

 In this connection, we must learn not to be shy, be resourceful and believe in the concept of trial and error in the process of learning. At least we can enrich our experience. We must have a new outlook with the ever-changing situation in the state. We have no time for self-pity. Otherwise, do not expect change. Let other people change. We must have faith in ourselves and that we can be as good as other people. However, we have to work hard, be persistent and never give up. We must believe in ourselves; what others can do we can also do them, if not better than them. The world is changing very fast and all of us have to change with time. Otherwise, we will be left behind.

Basically, the people must have the common spirit and ambition to improve their livelihood and the overall progress and prosperity of the society and nation. We must move with time; we should not cling to old ideas if we want progress and prosperity. We must have the capacity to convince the people to move on their own accord in order to get their enthusiasm to change in the process. The people, who cannot adjust to changes will be left out in the process of development. Worse, they may pull back others to remain with them.

Basically, knowledge transforms the people to explore their own talents to meet new opportunities.  With the world becoming a single market, it means anybody can come and do business in our country. For us in ASEAN we have to open our market to about half a billion people. In Sarawak, our market started with only 700, 000 people and now 22 million people.

However, we must view globalisation as opportunities for us to market our products like gas, palm oil and others world wide. Soon, we may export more fish and prawn into the world market. However, we have to be resourceful in order to be more competitive. Besides, we must work as a team, be innovative and knowledgeable about our country and state. We have to be competitive, resourceful and innovative. We must also be resilient and have the ability to adjust to changes and work with the greater courage and determination in facing the challenges ahead.

The immediate challenge for us is to prepare ourselves for the migration from the medium income to high income economy towards the year 2020 and beyond.

 Mulu View

 *Photos Source: google.com images