The Malay mind has to move beyond the socio-economic and political paradigm of the de-colonised Malaya of the 1940s and 1950s, said social activist and academic Dr Denison Jayasooria today.

The Social Strategic Foundation head said the Malay mind was locked with the themes that had dominated the Malay community then, such as the need for political control, feelings of insecurity, socio-economic disparities in the rural areas, as well as the communist threat.

"The Malay mind has not shifted from the 1940s struggle of the Malay union and the mindset of (being merely a racial) community," he told a forum on national unity in Kuala Lumpur.

Globalisation, extremism in sectors of religions "which is a force to be reckoned with," the "stronger (trans-border) movement of labour and capital, and the equal stakes of Chinese and Indians had yet to be addressed, said Jayasooria.

The Indian and Chinese communities of today are not the same as during the years leading up to and following Independence, he added.

"Indians and Chinese from the ages of 30 to 35 don't see India and China as their mother countries (anymore)," said Jayasooria, whose foundation serves as the social arm of Indian-based Barisan Nasional component party MIC.

Many of such realities had yet to be accepted psychologically by the Malay mind and this was impeding efforts to achieve national unity, said Jayasooria in the forum entitled 'Forging National Unity, My Malaysia.'

'The scourge of God'

Contacted later, Jayasooria explained that in 1957 the country had overnight turned from Tanah Melayu (Land of the Malays) to one where Malays were merely one of several communities with a stake in the country.

Yet, he said, many Malays had not taken cognisance of that fact. This was apparent in the ethnicisation of the public sector, in which the inordinate proportion of Malays was partly to blame for the lack of unity as well as the distortions in otherwise good policies.

Policy makers and civil servants had also failed to address the fact that the bottom 30 percent of the country's poor were no longer solely Malay but cut across all racial lines.

In earlier presentations, two opposition party leaders said paving the path towards national unity lay in the democratisation and opening of the public space, which would go a long way towards removing the underlying distrust and racial discord.

"Justice must prevail in the domain of political life," PAS secretary-general Kamaruddin Jaafar said in his presentation.

Other than investing in the human development and capital, the government also has to institutionalise "best practices in the management services of both public and private sectors," he said.

Kamaruddin also said there was an urgent need to reforming the political leadership by ridding the government of moral weaknesses.

"The scourge of God in our nation seems to be that of corruption," he added.

Underscoring his point on the matter, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) vice-president Sivarasa Rasiah said the distortions in and abuses of social and economic policies was the direct products of authoritarian laws and practices and the lack of transparency.

"We cannot separate the abuses from the lack of transparent government," he said.

Referring to the feelings of prejudice and resentment felt both by non-Malays and Malays who had not benefitted from the National Economic Policy (NEP) "despite being in their name", Sivarasa said these could be substantially reduced with the democratisation of the public sphere.