What social contract means to Malaysians.

I like to keep this articles written by Azmi Sharom in the Brave New World dated The Star 1 April 2010.

The term has been wrongly used by those who choose to invent their own meaning of the expression. Due to space constraint, I take only the relevant points so that more Malaysians will not be mislead in future.

The founders of this country did not have such racialist aspirations when we obtained our independence in 1957. The provisions in the Constitution which provides for the "special position" of the Malays and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak - there is no such thing as "Malay rights" in our constitution, were meant a stop gap measure but not a permanent clutch.

The time limit initially set was for the affirmative action to last 20 years. The report of the Federation of Malaya Constitution Commission ... in an independent Malaya all nationals should be accorded equal rights, privileges and opportunities and there must not be discrimination on the grounds of race and creed.

It was the Alliance consisted of the Malayan Indian Congress, the Malayan Chinese Association and the United Malay National Organisation. Our great leaders of UMNO hoped and dreamt of the Malays based on equality. Article 8 guarantees equality except in situation specifically provided for in the Constitution.

Article 136 which states that all government servants must not be discriminated against based on race and creed. So our non-Malay public servants have a Constitutional protection against poor treatment for example in promotions.

The rulers, our sultans themselves said that they"...look forward to a time not too remote when it will become possible to eliminate communal ism as a force in the political and economic life of the country"

So the next time some racist politicians go on about the "social contract" please be informed that this kind of selfish behaviour was not part of the dream for Merdeka. Our founders did not have such base ideals.