Nostalgia knot

Touchstone: Despite its historical revisionism, Mat Kilau spoke to the revival and reinterpretation of the Malay-Muslim identity at a time when Malay political power was fragmenting. — Official poster

WHAT does Madani mean? It’s been almost two years since the concept was introduced and the average Malaysian still struggles to understand this term.

We at Iman Research had spent a year studying Malay youths’ aspirations and sense of nationhood. One of the questions we ask at the end of every session is how they envisioned Malaysia. What we often got in response was that the country lacked any meaningful direction and that they did not understand how the government’s Madani concept contributes to our national framework. However, the national concept that Malay youths strongly connected with was 1Malaysia.