Contrary to the unfounded claims often made by ageing mainstream journalists and overstayed politicians, young Malaysians are not actually that racially segregated and religiously divisive.

In fact, many young Malaysians, typically those below the age of 35, are actively searching for ways and means to promote genuine national unity and integration based on justice and peace.

The seminar on Cultural and Civilisational Dialogue organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, or Institut Kajian Dasar (IKD), in cooperation with the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, or Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, on Aug 10-12 gave young Malaysians to opportunity to get to know each other's culture and belief-systems better.

The seminar, attended by the Malays, Chinese and Indian youths mostly in their 20s, were addressed by older youths like Khalid Jaafar (IKD's executive director and former journalist), Kamarudin Jaffar (member of parliament), Teng Chang Khim (state assemblyman and practicing lawyer), Raja Ahmad Aminollah (artist and former Utusan Malaysia director), Chang Teck Peng (mass communication lecturer in the Chinese community-financed New Era College in Kajang) and this author.

Intellectuals like Associate Professor Dr Siddiq Fadzil, Dr Ananda Krisnan and Adnan Benan Omar also spoke.

One very positive and encouraging attitude among the multi-ethnic youths is their youthful frankness, which is absent in the older generation. Also, the atmosphere and relationship of trust among them seemed to be stronger than among Malaysians in their 50s or above. It could be due to their common experience with the national education system and their common ability to communicate with each other in fluent Bahasa Malaysia.

Indeed, if we are cool, calm and rational enough to observe and explore the long-term socio-political changes in Malaysia, we can detect a vast, but often unconscious, attitudinal and cultural difference between the younger generation of Malaysians in their 30s and 20s or below, and those grand old guards in politics like Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad, MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik, DAP life adviser Dr.Chen Man Hin and deputy president Karpal Singh.

British imperialism

Typically, the latter built their dreams and nightmares, and acquired their hope and fear in politics within a bygone Victorian education system of the British Empire, based in and centred around the Malaya University, then located in Singapore.

The younger Malaysians, on the contrary, mostly graduated from the Malaya University, Science University, National University, Technology University in Kuala Lumpur, International Islamic University and other institutions of higher learning in the country.

For them, the agenda for national unity is no longer mere mutual tolerance, but mutual understanding, appreciation and even acceptance. While mere tolerance is still a kind of negative balance of powers or forces, mutual understanding, appreciation and acceptance positively promote integration.

Consequently, the perception of political threats between two generations of people differ.

While those products of the education system of the bygone era of British imperialism still worried about "mad mullahs", "Chinese chauvinists" and "violent Malay mob" running amok, Malaysians in their 30s or below often see violation of human rights, illiberal democracy, abuses of powers, anti-intellectualism, corruption and Big Brotherism or arrogant paternalism on the part of the ruling elite and the police, as the greater menace to their collective security and well-being.

Also, unlike Mahathir Mohamad, Ling Liong Sik, Chen Man Hin, Karpal Singh, and perhaps also Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik, the younger generation of Malaysians do not experience politically traumatic and personally emotional events like the Second World War (1939-1945), anti-communist Emergency (1948-1960), Indonesian Confrontation (1963-1966), merger and separation between Malaya and Singapore (1963-1965) and the many allegedly racial and communist riots in Malaya and Singapore.

The grand old guards may lament the fact that younger generation of Malaysians lack "experience", but the latter could justifiably claim that they are subsequently less prone to the delusions of persecution or grandeur, or paranoia.

Younger generation of Malaysians could also justifiably claim that, by virtue of their educational background, they are more national than Mahathir, Ling, Chen, Karpal and Lim, who received their education and enlightenment from the syllabus of the British Empire. From this perspective, the grand old guards in politics, while very experienced in the past, are now in fact secretly nervous novices in the new realities.

Thus, in the seminar, many young Malays inquired where and how to learn Mandarin and English, while their Chinese and Indian friends, commanding excellent Bahasa Malaysia listened patiently to Muslims expounding Islamic political theories.

Human tyranny

While young Muslims must learn to appreciate and respect good Chinese, Indian and even Malay cultures, Muslim Malays, Chinese and Indians must also start to interest themselves positively in acquiring knowledge about good Western cultures and values.

They must learn to distinguish the populist, and often vulgar sub-cultures in the West, from the mainstream and more polished values and traditions which has not only empowered Westerners with science and technology to overcome ignorance and cultural backwardness, but also internalised and institutionalised the Judeo-Christian-Islamic notions of justice and compassion, and of equality and mercy.

The West is not only about crusades, imperialism and colonialism, but also about the progressive establishment of democracy, the affirmation of the notion and practice of human rights, separation of legislative, judicial and executive powers, and also the betterment of human conditions in the form of socio-economic justice for the working classes, minorities and the under privileged.

The West has indeed made many errors and mistakes in the past, but it also has the remarkable intellectual, moral and spiritual capacity for self-criticisms, self-empowerment and self-improvement.

The moral and spiritual progress in the Western civilisation based on the belief that all human beings are equal and dignified, aided by its scientific and technological advancement has, to a large extend, eliminated the primordial fears of ghosts, evil spirits and human tyranny. The decrease in fear corresponds, over a long period, with the increase in scientific and technological creativity.

Potential threats

In response to a question of one young Malay Muslim on what are the greatest fears of different ethnic communities in Malaysia, I pointed out that from a typically parochial Malay nationalist world view, it is the perception or misperception that it is a small people (in ethnic sense) "surrounded" (or "besieged" or "threatened", according to old Umno propagandists and psychological warfare operatives) by giant people (in ethnic sense) in China to the north and east, India in the north and west, "Anglo-Saxons" in Australia, and "smart Chinese" in Singapore on the South.

Traditionally, for a typically narrow-minded Chinese or Indian Malaysian who lives in urban centres and whose hearts and minds are still closed to Malaysian conditions and realities, the potential threats are the so-called Islamic state or Islamisation as symbolised by PAS, as well as the political oppression and cultural "assimilationism" by the ethnic majority, namely the Malay/Muslims, as promoted and portrayed by Umno which claims to represent all Malay/Muslims.

However, it seems that with the emergence of a younger generation of Malay/Muslim, Chinese and Indian Malaysians, these mutual fears are not insurmountable.

As the young Malay who asked the question pointed out later that the first step to overcome the mutual fear is to attempt to understand their origins and natures, and then discuss them openly but rationally with the responsible intention of eliminating them. Indeed, any noble intention to do good must be preceded by, and premised on, a rational and dispassionate understanding of the bad.

JAMES WONG WING ON, chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia, is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.