The Pakatan Harapan government just unveiled its National Unity Blueprint. With due respect to the new government which is making a sincere effort to change for good, I must say that the blueprint is something we have already done to death and it has absolutely no certainty of success.

We will have many activities and many committees, and we will spend millions or billions of ringgit, but our grandchildren will still have the same racial and religious conflicts we are presently experiencing – perhaps even worse.

I am therefore proposing my own blueprint to be considered by the government and the people of Malaysia.

The first and most important item on my blueprint is the setting up of a committee to rewrite the narratives of history and the role of religion in Malaysia. This committee must consist of people who actually believe in racial harmony and national unity and who have open minds and hearts to do the necessary outside the expectation of social, cultural, religious and political norms. There is no point appointing a professor from a public university with a string of honours and titles and papers if the fellow is a die-hard racist.

I recommend that this committee be appointed through a pool of suggestions by civil rights groups for the consideration of P Waythamoorthy, who holds the national unity and social well-being portfolio. The main role of the committee would be to create a historical narrative that does not assign blame to any race with regards to “black” periods of history like May 13, 1969. It would give due accolades to all races for the great achievements of our country.

Now, some have accused me of “playing” with or “manufacturing” history, but for those who understand the research and methodology of historiography, history is simply an assemblage of actual verifiable events in a string of narratives by the historian concerned with present issues. EH Carr, the great professor of historical research, explains history through the analogy of a person standing in a boat and looking backwards as the boat travels along a winding river. As the boat turns here or there, the vista of the person changes even though the person is standing perfectly still. The person is looking back in time but his vista changes at every turn. This represents the issues of the day.

History is written through the eyes of historians and the only way to study history is to also study the historian and the time he or she was writing in. Any human historical account is but a mere perspective of the writer. So it should be possible for us to create a narrative that would benefit all rather than dwell on the subjective blaming of the few. Did Najib Razak wreck the Malaysian economy? What about the time when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was in power and the corruption scandals of his time? What about the civil servants who manned the machinery? Who is really at fault? There are simply too many variables of human intentions and secret dealings that we will never be able to review. It is for this reason that the historical “why” is the most difficult question which requires the most creative of answers.

The narrative of religion is another controversial matter. Hardcore Muslims believe that only Islam is right and everybody else is wrong. The Christians and the Hindus or the Buddhists probably feel the same way. To me, everyone from every religion who says that they are right are simply arrogant and bigoted people.

As a Muslim, I read the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad who says that no one knows the end of their lives, whether he or she will be in hell or in heaven. If you are a political leader of an Islamist party and have been fighting for the cause of Islam for half a century, it may be that at the end of your life, you may support a corrupt party and befriend a leader who is a kleptocrat and perhaps even a murderer. Where will you be then?

Religion should be narrated as the many pathways to God or salvation with us as weak and ignorant children of the Almighty who humbly seek His favour. As a Muslim, my deeds of writing books, giving to charity and taking care of my family do not guarantee my place in heaven, only the favour of Allah which I must humbly seek every minute of the day.

The institutionalisation of religion has paved the way to worshiping the form of the institution rather than the simple message and essence of goodness, compassion and love for all man. Can’t we write this narrative for our children? We must teach that humility before the vastness of God’s knowledge and forgiveness as well as compassion is something immeasurable compared to our deeds, dresses, rituals and sacrifices.

Secondly, I wish to seriously suggest that we find the budget to retrain 1,000 religious teachers a year for 10 years. It may cost our national budget RM100 million a year, but I think this would be money well spent. We must send our religious teachers to study a master’s course in anything but his or her own religion and to stay in countries where that candidate’s religion is in the minority. Mujahid Rawa can change policies every morning when he clocks in to his office but that will never guarantee change in people’s attitudes. Civil servants will toe the line but they will never change.

Change in attitude must come through the hardship of experience and a sojourn of one year in a foreign country alien to normal Malaysian day-to-day activities, values, contacts and communication – this will ensure real change. These candidates must be required to conduct research for their thesis on the subject of how their own religion can answer one of the 17 sustainable development goals in Malaysia or the world.

Once we have retrained 10,000 of these religious teachers who will teach at our houses of worship, our schools, our government departments and public forums, we would have reached the critical mass of changing the whole narrative of this nation. Without this training of a postgraduate degree in a foreign country where the candidate’s value system is in the minority, we will have no champions to institute real change in the country. These 10,000 candidates will move on to be government leaders, NGO heads and political MPs in Parliament.

Thirdly, I wish to recommend a cultural exchange of government officers, teachers, lecturers and religious officials to private and religious institutions in the country for a period of six months. Those who participate will be rewarded with proper remuneration. Non-Malay lecturers will probably feel some trepidation teaching at UiTM, but Malays are not really as bad as many may think. Malay teachers from government schools will find themselves in Chinese vernacular schools, and ustaz might find working in an administrative capacity in a big church an exhilarating experience! Vice-versa, a priest may end up in an office in Jakim. Why not? If we are really to do things about which we care deeply, we must be able to sacrifice and go to the deepest end of the pool.

My fourth suggestion is more radical than the third one. This is my Anak Angkat Programme. Each Malaysian family that has a son in Form Four can exchange the child with another family of another faith and race for a period of three months. Each participating family will be rewarded with a RM10,000 scholarship fund by generous corporations, educational institutions or individuals. This is a Malaysian project.

If we can encourage an exchange between 1,000 families a year, by the 10th year, racial and religious extremism will be wiped out from Malaysia. Who is going to say bad things about another race or religion when the family has an anak angkat of a different faith? The anak angkat will be exposed to hundreds of extended family members, and this exposure will “infect” other family members. If my wife and I take in a Christian boy, I will have to accompany him to church every Sunday. Similarly, a Chinese Christian father will have to wait by the side of the mosque until his Muslim anak angkat finishes Friday prayers. Why not? In the days of old, Malays, Chinese, Indians and other races moved in and out of each other’s homes and houses of worship with as much ease as they felt in their own. The spirit of neighbourliness and kinship between races then transgressed the restrictive social and religious norms of the present.

I have a few more items to present but the above four are the most important. Waytha and Mujahid can talk about unity and religious diversity all they want, but nothing will change in this country. It is the people that need to change, not so much the ministers. In order for people to change, they must experience things for themselves. This is the way God intended his creations to evolve. Of course, change can come at gunpoint or because of threats, but this will not last and it will definitely not be sincere.

In the new Malaysia, we have the opportunity for real change for the sake of our children and theirs. The old formulas no longer work. Let us jettison them for something we have never tried. It was Einstein who said “madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the outcome to be different”.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.