True colours: Underneath the unique cultural image of the country, lies the quintessential truth about Malaysian society: diverse, heterogenous and divided along ethnic lines.
THE nation-building process in Malaysia is actively on-going and has dominated the agenda of its domestic politics throughout the years. The government tried time and again to integrate the citizens into a unified whole through its various ideologies and policies. However, the process of nation-building in Malaysia is, and has always been, characterised by opposing forces of ethnicity and nationalism.
Ideally, the state’s vision is to have a united Malaysian nation, a reflection of its pluralistic society. In realist terms, this objective is quite a long shot but not altogether impossible in the long run. It is the unfortunate nature of society in Malaysia to identify one’s self through the distinction of ethnicity first before all other measures. Even in official government forms this is brought into stark relief whereby citizens are required to identify themselves through their ethnicity.
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