Prof Dr Jayum Jawan
BINTULU: Sarawak reflects the true colours of ‘One Malaysia’, which is exemplified by its multi-ethnic characters in many areas of governance, says Professor Dr Jayum Jawan.
“As a Sarawakian, I’m happy that Sarawak is a multi-ethnic society, it is an example where a family can have Malay, Chinese, Indian and various ethnic groups with different religious backgrounds and can sit together, eat together in the spirit of family togetherness,” he said.
He said being an important region in Malaysia, Sarawak has successfully maintained the characters of its multi-ethnic society, be it in the daily life of the people or in state government administration.
“Much better for Sarawak, there is much more sharing. In terms of quantity there is good sharing, good number of involvement from various communities, in both levels of Sarawak bureaucracy – from the ministerial, permanent secretary, down to Residents and district officers, you have all the colours of Sarawak ethnic groups over there,” he said, adding that in terms of quality it could still be improved.
Though Malaysia was formed 56 years ago, in terms of the process of nation building, he personally believes that the 56 years of being together has not really brought the people together as a nation.
“We are not united because our leaders failed to understand the very important values that were used to form Malaysia in 1963,” he pointed out in his keynote speech during the International Conference of Social Sciences and Humanities (ICOSSH 2019), themed ‘Integrating the Culture and Civilisation of Malay Archipelago: Perspectives of the Social Sciences and Humanities’ here on Tuesday.
Jayum, who is a professor of Politics and Development in the Department of Government and Civilisation Studies, Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia; emphasised the values of commolition, cooperation, and give and take, which are the values of sharing, where some people get more and some people get less but everybody gets something.
“The unhappiness is because the proportions are not quite fair and just from the perspective of one community. Now, who do we blame, we have to blame somebody because somebody is not doing something, that’s why it was not moving in the right direction and proportions. If somebody is doing something about it, I don’t think there will be any complaints from anybody,” he said.
Jayum defined two groups of leadership in Malaysia – political leadership and bureaucracy.
According to him, political leadership is the one that defines things, makes policies, and he admitted that the political leaders are doing well, with new economic policy, a formula for sharing so everybody has a share.
“But the problem comes in when these policies are being implemented and it gets away from the hands of politicians to the hands of bureaucracy, they are the ones who ensure the success of the implementation of the policies,” he said.
He added the implementation of the policies could go haywire if it is implemented based on their own interpretation, not following what the political master wants.