00:03Well, Malaysia is also navigating. I am not suggesting that we have all the answers.
00:10But Malaysia is a multiracial, multicultural country.
00:14And we have a standard of civilizations, the Malay world, Indian, Chinese,
00:20and of course the exposure to the Western world.
00:23So it is unique in that sense.
00:26And navigating is of course more complex and complicated.
00:28We had in the past experiences, pre-independence and after-independence,
00:33from time to time, many racial tensions.
00:36But I am proud to say that as a Malaysian, generally, the vast majority of our people
00:44acknowledge the fact that whilst Islam is this religion of the Federation,
00:51the religious tolerance is to me unrivaled, you see.
00:58We continue to have problems, naturally.
01:02Racial issues.
01:05The Malays, Muslims, the other majority, but we have a pronounced number of ethnic Chinese.
01:12One of the largest ethnic Chinese minorities are in Malaysia.
01:16One of the largest Indian ethnic minority is also in Malaysia.
01:22And then you have other indigenous tribes.
01:24Now how do we navigate?
01:25With patience, with tolerance, you are not going to satisfy everybody.
01:29You see in the media, every other day there will be some complaints, some additional demands.
01:34But it requires maturity and patience.
01:43To my mind, the focus should be stability.
01:46We have to continue to educate and alert our masses.
01:52The level of conscientisation to understand that without that stability, key stability, the risk is there.
02:03So one is stability, one is clarity policies.
02:07That's why we focus.
02:08We need to push ahead with economic development, new technology, making the necessary adjustments, democratisation of access to education at
02:22all levels.
02:22And these, I think, are issues that we should highlight.
02:27And I'm not suggesting, therefore, this would be a good example for the rest to follow.
02:33Countries have their own, you know, historical dissidents, challenges.
02:37But for now, despite the fact that huge issues, a number of issues that we have to grapple with and
02:48now with the economic crisis and a lot of extremist demands.
02:53Now, having said that, the fact that we are able to unite this country as a multiracial, multireligious country, there
03:02are also pools.
03:03You can see in the media, for example, extreme pool of Malay supremacy or then Islamic dominance or then the
03:13Christian groups or the Hindu, you know, coming for the Hindu extremist appeal.
03:18There are small pockets like that.
03:20But I think, I would concede among the Malays or Chinese or Indians or Sarawakans, generally people do acknowledge the
03:29fact that for this country to survive and manage,
03:32which will have to be sane and understand that we cannot satisfy everyone, even when you choose to disagree, there
03:40may be some decorum principles in place.
03:51You
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