COMMENT | Plan needed to phase out racial, religious, regional parties

COMMENT | Sometimes the nation feels like a sick patient whose symptoms get treated from time to time without the root cause ever getting tackled. I certainly have been feeling deja vu in the last few weeks with the same old conversations that should have been put to bed decades ago continuing to crop up.

Can a non-Malay become PM? Should there be quotas for Tamil speakers in cabinet? Can you consider yourself a loyal Malaysian if you are not culturally assimilated with the majority race and language?

Are Malays and Muslims - who form the majority in Malaysia and occupy almost all critical roles - under threat from minorities who are vastly outnumbered and have almost no such positions to speak of?

Honestly, these are foolish questions to be debating as the answers are self-evident and yet here we are, nearly seven decades after independence, going around in circles while others are forging ahead.

I had to stifle a sigh when Community Communication Department (J-Kom) deputy director-general Ismail Yusop urged the federal government to launch a national movement aimed at promoting the Malaysia Madani concept and agenda.

He proposed that the initiative...