On August 31, 2017, our nation will be celebrating sixty years of Merdeka, or an experiment in being a sovereign state.

As another ritual approaches, and as we think of the hopes, dreams, and legacy of the best prime minister we had, Tunku Abdul Rahman, I thought of these ideas of the requirements of a new spirit and structure of citizenship.

The nation must be made to be Malaysian once and for all. Malaysia is one country and cannot be considered in part. There can be no such thing as first and second class citizens anymore. This Malaysian brand of apartheid is morally reprehensible and must be abolished once and for all.

Essentially, below are considerations for a grand plan or the big picture of change that need to respectively be created and painted in order for Malaysia to offer a pathway to the realization of the “Malaysian Dream,” preceded by key premises.

We cannot escape from the idea that there ought to be winners and losers, whether it is in the way we give grades to students, design economic policies, organise the political system or, ironically, even in the way we understand religion and God and how these relate to what Mohandas Gandhi would call the harijan (children of God).

The continuing issues of succession plaguing the leadership of the major components of all the ruling parties, for example, reflects a virtueless leadership. It even reflects the system of dictatorship and authoritarianism that we have allowed to take root in all parties....