We need to overhaul our education system If we want good politicians of integrity, progressive outlook and great ability for the future.

Learning from world history

Napoleon Bonaparte, former French emperor and one of history’s greatest military leaders, once lamented that there were so few statesmen in this world.

Statesmen are those who will not only show true greatness in exercising power but will not resort to displaying pettiness (such as using race, religion and gender cards) to gain power.

Few politicians in this world would qualify to be statesmen.

Therefore, winning elections alone may not necessarily mean that the politicians who win are doing the right things.

Of course, the democratic wishes of voters must be respected. But true democracy is a lot more than that.

Might and “tyranny of the majority” have often been proven to be oppressive and unjust to the minorities in many countries around the world, especially when such minorities are not well organized and there is little check-and-balance on the powers that be.

Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, famous for playing the race card against the minorities, became the largest party to have been elected to the German Reichstag (Parliament) by 1932.

He was democratically appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. In 1934, he legitimately became President as well, and then he merged the two positions as one to become Führer (supreme leader) of Germany.

Hitler masterminded the genocide (Holocaust) of an entire minority, started World War II (with the invasion of Poland) in 1939 that killed an estimated 80 million people worldwide, injured many more and destroyed the economy and livelihood of many millions of people around the world.

Those who do not learn from history will eventually always fail in whatever they may set out to do, even if there would be huge collateral damage on innocent people.

Analyzing the outcome of state elections

Perhaps the most positive aspect of the just concluded state elections was that it went on peacefully without any major untoward incident, signaling a degree of maturity of our democracy and people.

Although the status quo of all six state governments has remained the same, PN (Perikatan Nasional of Bersatu and PAS) has not only secured a larger majority in predominantly Malay northern states of Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan, it has also made some gains in the more multicultural and developed states of Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan.

It is sad to see much racial polarization building up to the polling day and great geographical divide taking place in our country today, even after 66 years of Merdeka.

The state elections saw the massive playing of the race or religion card, which is a “no-brainer” as many other unscrupulous leaders around the world have shown.

It does not require a professor of politics or sociology to tell you that this age-old trick and deceit of scapegoating and playing up non-existent race threats posed by the minorities, often seems to work in favor of extremist perpetrators, at least for a period of time until more people become aware of the truth.

It is alright for a leader to defend or fight for the rights of his ethnic community against any oppression or injustices, but it is morally bankrupt, unjust and evil to create fake bogeymen to frighten and compel his ethnic community to support and vote for him.

Commentaries calling for real reform or transformation of some political parties to improve themselves and to keep up with the times are a step in the right direction.

However, some politicians have called for heads to roll from the top leadership of a certain political party (Umno) due to its declining support in the Malay community.

Calling for a radical change of leadership in Umno now based on the election results alone is over-simplistic. It can have negative consequences on the stability of the current Unity Government.

If we look back to the aftermath of GE15 in November 2022, if it was not for the strategic leadership of the current (yes, imperfect) leadership of Umno, there would not be a national Unity Government today consisting of the main parties from Sarawak and Sabah as well.

Many independent analysts would dread to think of what the alternatives would be if Umno had not teamed up with Pakatan Harapan to form the Unity Government then.

The country needs more political stability and robust development of its economy in order to ensure that the rakyat have decent jobs, food on the table, housing, education and other basic needs of our people of all races.

This should be the top priority of all political parties. Everything else is secondary.

Way forward for country

Every political party must be given a chance to reform and re-engineer itself in order to stay relevant to dynamic changes taking place in our country and around the world.

We live in the age of globalization, Internet and connectivity. Important issues, changes and events around the world cannot be swept under the carpet. Politicians and leaders would need to change or adapt with the times or the rakyat will boot them out.

Moderate leaders may not be happy with the negative extremist image of their parties and the outlook of some of their colleagues. We must give them the chance and space to address the issues internally without undue external influence.

The country must move away from race politics and towards cross-racial representation.

I wrote a press article published in February 2019 entitled “An MP must speak for every race.” We must discard the notion that a politician is only able to represent his own kind. Or a person of a particular race cannot be trusted or relied upon to represent other races.

An important principle of our parliamentary democracy is that an elected representative has the same accountability and responsibility to each and every person of any race in his constituency.

As a non-Muslim, I have been fighting for many years for the oppressed Muslims, especially for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people against Zionist aggression and oppression.

When Donald Trump became the US president in 2017, he targeted and labeled Muslims as potential extremists or terrorists and he aggressively promoted Islamophobia, a vile form of racism.

I have written many press articles to explain what Islamophobia is all about and to expose and condemn Trump’s lies, distortion and negative stereotyping of Muslims.

The other important issue to address in order to achieve a more multicultural, harmonious, transparent and honest society, is on our “unable to adapt” education system which has resulted in many problems we are facing today in politics and other sectors.

I wrote a press article published in January 2019 entitled “Why our education system needs an overhaul” to explain how the failure of our education system to significantly uplift the knowledge, outlook and communication skills of the mainly Malay community to a more competitive level, has left them jobless or under-employed and aggravated resentment against other races.

If we are serious in wanting to have good politicians of integrity, progressive outlook and great ability for the future and a more productive economy, we may need to overhaul our education system to achieve the highest standards possible.

It has been 66 years since our independence and 60 years since the formation of Malaysia with culturally diverse Sarawak and Sabah, which have acted as a bulwark against cultural extremism.

We are a relatively small country of 34 million people living in a highly competitive world. All our races would need to be united and work together efficiently in order to deal with both internal threats and external challenges of globalization and geopolitics.

We sink or swim together as a multiracial country.

(KK Tan is a corporate, political and geopolitical analyst for more than 30 years. He was former CEO of MNC & GLC and global Strategic Advisor of a leading global software firm. He is now CEO of a proposed world peace museum.)