I’m writing this letter to express my thoughts and suggestions to all Malaysians about a way of living in a pluralistic society; where many different people of various cultures, races and religions live harmoniously under one roof. We all need to get along well with each other and avoid conflicts which can cause and lead to violence. It is certain that the strengths of our nation are the art of living together, being friendlier and living more peacefully.

Pluralism is not just the awareness of the existence of different ethnic groups living together but also involves activating the utmost enthusiasm among Malaysians to accept different identities as one identity. It’s not just a matter of tolerance but an acceptance of people with multi-diversity in our nation.

How should we understand more about others, their cultural and religious differences to preserve the uniqueness of our nation? In this letter, I would like to share the ways to hold ourselves tightly to the concept of being pluralistic for the betterment of our great nation.

The secret is through education. We should educate ourselves to make us understand better about other religions’ beliefs without holding the tendency to accept and experience their beliefs through our own eyes. If we do not take this seriously, the dogmatic views about others would definitely lead to religious violence and make the whole nation have a feeling of having lost all hope for humanity.

Dr Tariq Ramadan in his book ‘The Quest for Meaning’ stated that, “Coming to terms with the very essence of the relativity of our gaze does not imply that we have to doubt everything and can be sure of nothing.”

We should not be a bigoted people and it is necessary to broaden our views and perceptions to educate ourselves on other religions’ philosophies for the purpose of understanding and acceptance. When we are dealing with pluralistic society we should share our religious values which are universally accepted and useful to mankind and also leave apart the contradictions.

Sectarianism, racism and its horrible descendant, fanaticism have taken control on this beautiful earth. We are currently facing many religious controverses which at a certain point of life, we would not realise how strongly they could affect and cause violence in our nation. To prevent this from happening, we as responsible citizens should come to an understanding and conscious about the essence of each religion.

One part of the great universal truth

Each and every religion in the world takes up one part of the great universal truth and spends the whole force in representing and simplifying every single unique individual. We can reach this level of mindset only through educating ourselves with the essence and philosophy of other religions with the quality of not thinking in a dogmatic way.

We should not look at others based on our own individual point of view rather than depending on one study of the nature to the meaning of life of others from one religion to another religion. It is better to try to understand their traditions and set of beliefs.

Accepting the existence of other religious philosophies without dogmatically and stridently rejecting it is the first and fundamental challenge which we should deal with. It can be successfully obtained through educating ourselves the essence of other religions in the presence of the great sense of humbleness. It’s is an art of living in pluralistic society towards preserving the uniqueness of our nation.

Those days our leaders fought British colonisation and had finally set our country free from political control and attained independence. Now, we should free ourselves from the fanaticism, bigotry and sectarianism aiming the uniqueness values of our great nation. I have dreamt that this letter would be the death-knell for all who are driven by religious extremism.

“ Every religion emphasises human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal” - Dalai Lama

MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA!