dipetik dari http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/
We have many lessons to share on social cohesion
IN his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last year, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said, "Across all religions we have inadvertently allowed the ugly voices of the periphery to drown out the many voices of reason and common sense."
The prime minister called for a "Global Movement of the Moderates" (GMM) from all faiths "to combat and marginalise extremists who have held the world hostage with their bigotry and bias".
He cited the 'equilibrium' achieved in Malaysia as an example of what "leads to moderation or wasatiyyah in the Islamic tradition of mutual justice".
And at the East-West Centre, Hawaii last month, he announced the inaugural International Conference on the Global Movement of the Moderates which will take place in Kuala Lumpur from Jan 17 to 19, next year.
What has alarmed people and governments globally is when violent extremist behaviour is elevated, from behaviour of an individual, to that of a larger social movement or collective, mobilised on historical, religious, economic or political justification, that, in turn, costs the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocent people.
The return to moderateness is not only rational and logical but also an imperative.
The moot question is who is going to champion "moderateness", especially on the global stage, for what seems to be a logical, rational and common sense social behaviour at the individual level.
Our prime minister, and hence Malaysia, is now the champion and driver of a very significant niche in global politics. If adopted globally, Malaysia could re-define and transform the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and lead its new form, as the GMM.
It is a deceptively simple, rational and logical agenda for the largest of movements. However, undertaking this task involves a complex diplomatic manoeuvre and suave realpolitik.
It was supported at the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels last year and in the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting 2011 Final Communiqué this year, which committed to improve international security by taking a number of steps, one of which is "embracing moderation as an important value to overcome all forms of extremism, as called for in the 'Global Movement of the Moderates'".
But it is time to drop the use of the word wasatiyyah. However important the term is, politically, for the domestic audience, it does not make "advertising sense" for "moderate" to compete with wasatiyyah since the world has endorsed the English version.
Perhaps the "National Seminar on Understanding Wasatiyyah and 1Malaysia", a curtain-raiser for the Umno General Assembly last month, should be the last occasion wasatiyyah is used in connection with the promotion of GMM.
Whatever the "Islamic" political mileage lost or gained, the stark reality is that we need to stick to "moderate" because globally it is now known as GMM, not GWM.
The next step in the way forward to promote GMM is more critical. In short, GMM has to have substance.
The prime minister believes it is the "equilibrium" that exists within the Malaysian society "that leads to moderation or wasatiyyah".
His selected "thinkers" now have to elaborate the following: first, the concept "equilibrium"; second, the methods taken by the Malaysian government thus far to achieve it; third, the practical steps rolled out to build and sustain it; fourth, the exercise of monitoring, in the immediate-, short- and long-term, results of the practical steps towards achieving it; fifth, evaluating the success, failures and the unintended consequences; and finally, how to put all these in a comprehensive package useful, for instance, from the kindergarten to the university, as a procedure to be applied in all societies, globally.
And perhaps we also have to explain the origin and pre-condition of the state of moderateness that Malaysia has enjoyed thus far.
A state of "equilibrium" or "balance" in a society would only be achieved if sets of "opposites" or "contradictions" that exist within it have successfully been "realigned and arrived at a point of convergence", including agreeing to disagree.
In the plural, fragmented and diversified Malaysia that "equilibrium" has been brought about by a surprisingly unrecognised and intense on-going social process of realignment and convergence called "social cohesion", which, in turn, is the origin and pre-condition to the Malaysian state of "moderateness" that encouraged the PM to launch his GMM.
Perhaps we have been so engrossed in our pursuit of "national unity" that we have failed to recognise what we have actually achieved in the last four decades since the May 13, 1969 tragedy, that is, peace and stability in the form of "social cohesion" created by serious efforts rooted in genuine desire for that elusive national unity.
"Social cohesion" in Malaysia is about how the plural, fragmented and diverse components of our society, overwhelmed by opposites and contradictions, have been able, through a continuous process of negotiation, consensus and compromise at every level and section of the society, to rise above it all in a most mature manner, to embrace peace and reject any form of violence for long-term mutual survival.
The GMM promoted by our prime minister must showcase Malaysia's social cohesion, not only how we managed to bring it about through an endless series of "fire-fighting" efforts but also how we are capable to monitor and, to a certain extent, calibrate it through an early warning system constructed, as a pre-emptive and preventive strategy, on our own to suit our mould, with the possibility of being applied in other societies necessarily in a modified form.
Therefore, the GMM is more than just wasatiyyah for it is an integration of tireless top-down effort and imaginative bottom-up activism, of ideas, practices and commitment, by Malaysians for Malaysia and for the rest of the world to share.
This is the message, the concept and the package we must deliver at the inaugural conference of GMM in mid-January next year as a gift from Malaysia to the world.
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