The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is celebrated on March 21 every year. The theme for this year celebration is ‘Learning from historical tragedies to combat racial discrimination today’, which aims to explore the root causes of racism and racial discrimination and to stress the essential need to learn the lessons history has provided in order to combat racism and racial discrimination today.

Without a doubt, the world has made tremendous progress in the last century. One hundred years ago, in 1915, a racist movie titled ‘The Birth of a Nation’, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, was released in the United States and was a huge box office hit. It even become the first ever motion picture to be screened in the White House.

Now, the current occupant of White House was born from intermarriage, something that was illegal in many parts of United States until a few decades ago.

Although the world still has a long way to go in eliminating racial discrimination, the overall trend is encouraging. However, the same optimistic projection cannot be made for  some nations. In Malaysia, the regressive trend in the past few years is cause for concern.

In recent years, Malaysia has undergone a sea of changes in the political landscape. The political scene has become more competitive, with the opposition alliance winning control of some states and capable of challenging the ruling coalition at the federal level.

However, despite the initial hope that such scenario will push the political players to offer visionary policies to entice the electorate and compete for centre position in order to win over as much votes as possible, what we have seen is the increasing use of hate speech and racial rhetoric.

The urging to boycott Chinese traders by Ismail Sabri Yaakob in his Facebook last month is just a recent example of a long list of unfortunate incidents which seek to undermine inter-ethnic relations in this country.

The theme for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this year, ‘Learning from historical tragedies to combat racial discrimination today’ is something that should be heeded by our country.

Unfortunately, the people in power have the tendency to learn the wrong lessons from history. Take the tragedy of May 13, 1969 for example. The tragedy has been used as a devise by extremists groups to intimidate and scare people into submission, claiming that the tragedy will be repeated if thing dont go their way. It is even used as a tool for indoctrination by state institutions.

Three documents must be our guide

The Rukunegara launched in 1970 clearly spells out our national goal to achieve an united, democratic, just, liberal and progressive society. These are clearly noble aspirations, and the Negara-Ku People’s Movement has highlighted the Rukunegara as one of the three basic documents (the other two being the federal constitution and the Malaysia Agreement) that Malaysians must use as our guide to heal the nation and restore hope in our future.

The Negara-Ku People’s Movement therefore urges elimination of all forms of racial discrimination in accordance with the spirit of the federal constitution, Malaysia Agreement and Rukunegara. We also urge the government to immediately ratify the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

Malaysia is now at historical crossroad. When future generation discuss us and utter the words “we must learn from history” when referring to us, will it be in a positive tone, or will it mean learning from an historical tragedy that we failed to prevent? It is up to us to decide.

Heal the nation, restore hope!     

ZAID KAMARUDDIN is chair, Negara-Ku People’s Movement.