This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Despite the Omicron variant of Covid-19 scaring governments and markets, dampening the sentiment for recovery everywhere, data and the underlying science seem to suggest that we are indeed on the road to coping with this virus and getting back to our normal lives. There will have to be observance of standard operating procedures, continued testing and vaccinations but most aspects of economic life should be back on track next year. I am annoyed by pharmaceutical companies putting forward views that fourth doses will be necessary when many in the world are still waiting for their first dose.

Of course, it is normal for humanity to be a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. The only question is whether the pandemic has done anything to improve that mix of good, bad and ugly.

Many bad things were made worse by the pandemic; the underlying reasons why income is generally low and its distribution highly uneven were exacerbated by the pandemic and the decisions taken in mitigating it. The pandemic affects the poor among us much more than the rest of us. They are the same ones whose incomes and sources of income were most affected by the pandemic; they are the ones with poorer health; they are the ones in the informal sector where officialdom does not exist; they are the ones living in cramped environments that make them more susceptible to the disease. They are the ones whose choices were greatly diminished by the pandemic.

The virus thus came to teach us the one lesson that Malaysians have problems appreciating: It is not about identity, race or religion, or for some, which state we live in. It is about economic strata. Quite simplistically but truly, it is about those who have and those who do not have the economic means regardless of what race they are, what religion they profess and of course, where they live. It is about means; the means to cope and survive. Yes, it is economic determinism but then I am an economist, although not a Marxian one.

Opportunities are crucial for everyone, for the absence of opportunities is a form of injustice — an absence that deprives people of choices and therefore the opportunities to grow and improve, but they are meaningless without the means to take advantage of these opportunities. The absence of economic means is the great dis-leveller, not identity. While we may be naturally comfortable with the familiar, we know enough to know that whether people are good or bad has nothing to do with who we are familiar with and whether they look like us. We know that is neither true nor just.

One would think that this is the kind of lesson being taught early in school to all young children, but obviously the halls of power, be they in parliament or Putrajaya, are full of people who have not understood this fundamental lesson. The reason is that we do not teach this fundamental lesson. We have been teaching other lessons instead. If the wrong lessons created the problems prior to the pandemic, the same basis will not make managing the post-pandemic period any better. Unlearning these lessons will be the challenge the country faces for not much will change until people base their choices and behaviour on the right national fundamentals.

Much of what ails the country — from racial and religious discords to the concept of federalism and intergovernmental relations — stems from various forms of revisionism. We do not start from the Constitution and we are not guided by the document that defines us as a nation. We are not united behind the Constitution. Instead of debating the content and intent of the Constitution when we need to resolve a current problem, we each have our favourite version of what Malaysia is supposed to be, and we go from there.

The “we” in the Constitution are Malaysians, the collective. The “we” cannot be Sarawakians or Malays or Hindus. How can Sarawak be made better without making others better too? How can what affects Kedah not also affect Johor? How can the solution to the problem of poor Malays not be a solution to poverty among Kadazans? What makes corruption among Christians in Sabah different from corruption among Muslims in Kelantan? None of these make any sense but yet these are the cocoons of identity we live in, because we refuse to start with the Constitution. We resort to our favourite revisionist version of what the Constitution should be instead. We then live in that world.

In a recent Federal Court ruling on citizenship by operation of law of an adopted abandoned child, the court said: “Citizenship is inextricably linked to the right to life and personal liberty contained in Article 5(1) (of the Constitution). As such, any provisions on it must be construed as widely as possible.” The operational word or concept here is “citizen”, a generic term that is undifferentiated. That should be the case, and people, whatever their personal beliefs are, should just get on with it. So, we do have a Constitution, but not constitutionalism, the principle of being guided by it. And perhaps we must try not to amend it too frequently!

Thus the proposition is not just a return to the Constitution but, more importantly, to the ideals of constitutionalism and all that comes with it, from the separation of powers to the rule of law.

A corollary lesson — also a well-known one — that the pandemic taught us is that humans are emotional beings more than they are rational ones. So much for the rational homo economicus. This is why the economic means argument earlier is just a sufficient condition. Economic means allow for consumption, conspicuously sometimes, but they are not sufficient for enlightened behaviour, for enlightenment is not just about means, nor is it just about rationality.

Enlightenment requires a certain appreciation of the beauty of existence, therefore the appreciation of not just its great diversity but what, from our perspective, its imperfections are. It is to ponder and reflect on those flaws and actually see something precious in them. Of wanting to protect what exists and wanting others too to be able to appreciate it. Alas, these certainly do not come with economic means which, for many, are simply the means to acquire and display.

Thus, the altruism to give and volunteer during the pandemic to help fellow Malaysians, or the selfishness and betrayal to pursue personal interests during a crisis are both emotionally driven acts. Whether we do better after this depends on this proportion of seemingly emotionally driven acts. If the proportion for personal or group interest prevails, we obtain a narrowing of the “we” mentioned earlier, and with that, a fragmented nation. If we instead act emotionally more for the collective, we enlarge the “we”, and while we will necessarily differ and disagree on ideas and implementation, the end result for the collective will be a better one.

As the words on the national coat of arms say — bersekutu bertambah mutu — unity is strength. Unlike a politician’s definition of unity, which is conformity to his views, the unity meant here is the common love for the country, a country defined by the collective compact, its Constitution.

As we look ahead to a better year, we must not forget that over 30,000 Malaysians have died from Covid-19 in less than two years. Some of them died because of the bad in us, more did not die because of the good in us. We will all be ugly if we cannot see both clearly.

Dr Nungsari A Radhi is an economist

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