By Prof Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi

Malaysia has been hailed as the 'miracle nation' in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The new government's response has been acknowledged to be one of the best responses as compared to other developed countries like Italy, America and Britain. Our civil servants and the frontliners comprising of the nursing, medical and police force worked with a dedication that all Malaysians can be proud of.

In a mere three months, Malaysia has managed to flatten the curve and has the pandemic under control. The Malay dominated government showed unenviable resolve in managing religious issues such as Friday congregational prayers, the Tarawikh prayers and the Id celebration under a no nonsense manner that could have easily caused religious unrest among the conservative Muslims like what has happened in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Every single day, the television and radio kept the war by reminding and reminding and more reminding about social distancing, washing of the hands, avoiding contact and the wearing of masks. The religious speakers also came on board talking science and sense for once rather than the tired old religious rituals that I have heard a thousand times over the course of my life. Incredible. We did it. We can all be proud of it. The politicians deserve our applause. The civil servants deserve our gratitude. The guardians of peace deserve our salute.

Then, how come we cannot do the same to racism and corruption? Why is there more and more extremist reactions and also bigger and bigger corruption? Why even now GLC positions are given out like candies to dubious politicians as a reward for political support with no sense of even contributing to nation building? We showed how determined we were and how efficient we worked to flatten the curve of the pandemic. But for racism and corruption, both have grown, flowered and guarantees to fester into a cancerous disease lasting decades more to come until this country is set on a self-destruct mode of civil unrest within a bankrupt nation.

Here are some probable reasons that I have meditated on why we can never flatten the curve on racism and corruption.

First, let's deal with racism. In the pandemic, the virus could not care whether you are a Malay, Chinese, Kadazan or Orang Asli. It attacks everyone. It does not discriminate. Thus, the virus was a THREAT to EVERYONE. In racism, one race feels that it is threatened by 'others'. It considers others as enemies. Why is that? Firstly, politicians like this situation very much as they can exploit it to gain votes under the pretext of saving their own race. So they can spout beautiful speeches about 'We are all Malaysians and must live in harmony” but in actual backdoor speeches, 'I am 'M' first, second and last and we need a Big 'M' party to control the non-M's”. So that's it.

Secondly, some race feel that Malaysia is a country belonging to them and them only. Others are immigrants. They don't even acknowledge that their Javanese, Bugis and Mendailing ancestors were also immigrants like the Chinese, Indians and others. They don't even acknowledge the Sabahans and Sarawakians as owners of Malaysia. Thus the term 'pendatang' and 'orang tumpangan' will always be popularly accepted.

Thirdly, the religion of one group of people frequently screams of jihad to protect the religion against kafirs who happen to be citizens of the country. These kafirs are considered 'musuh dalam selimut' to the country that should belong to one religious group only. Thus, with these three reasons, the curve of racism will never be flattened because racism is NOT considered a dangerous and indiscriminate enemy. Discrimination has been the life blood of a group of insecure people made frightened more by ignorant religious teachers and opportunistic politicians.

Now let's deal with corruption. Why can't we flatten and eliminate this evil? The pandemic was considered a very serious threat. Corruption, simply is NOT considered a threat. The civil servants thinks as long as there is their salary, housing allowance and their pension, there is no corruption.

Another group feels, if politicians have hundreds of millions of ringgit from somewhere and sponsor many people to go to Hajj, corruption does not exist because all monies for a religious purpose is necessarily cleansed by virtue of the good intention. Thirdly, corruption at the level of ministers, prime ministers and heads of civil servants are NEVER talked about in sermons on Fridays. Corruption that are dealt with is the mere 'duit kopi of a few thousand ringgit'. That of billions by leaders and servants of government are 'not in the religious books'. A group of Malaysians do not understand that money from the government comes from the taxes of the people to be invested in resources of the country to generate more income to develop other majority of people. Corruption hinders the money to be given to poor families for food, shelter and education.

What the civil servant sees are money magically appearing in the government's account and that there was enough to go around. The nature of inflated costs of submarines, undelivered attack helicopters and a ghost city is never in the khutbah, the school curriculum or university forums. So…there is no problem-lah! The hundreds of Birkin Bags and millions of foreign currency and bags and bags of watches costing tens of thousands each paraded outside of a politician house makes no sense to one group of Malaysians. In fact that politician is more popular and loved by his own race and religious adherents as a hero and affectionately called 'Bossku' by low educated people and even high educated ones too. The stupidity is across the board! Now it looks like the politician will be freed and even once again be the top leader of this nation! Wonderful.

In conclusion, the civil servants and our politicians have shown that they have the capacity and intelligence to save all of Malaysia from a serious threat of an infectious disease. However, those same people have also shown that they have no interest to stem out the disease of racism and corruption because both are not considered threats but are considered the life giving blood to make sure one single ethnic group stay dominant and thrive at the expense of others. The virus is a threat to all and must be stamped out at all cost. Racism and corruption are not threats but two life giving forces that must be nurtured and grown to ensure dominance of one race above the others.

(Professor Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor at a local university.)