THE Ministry of National Unity is organising a Nation-Building Conference this year-end to discuss the concept of a shared national identity, or "konsep negara bangsa". Alongside this, it is also seeking RM550.7 million for six initiatives including a Unity Week, all under the banner of “Together Building the Nation.” Yet the deeper question remains: what sort of national identity are we trying to build, and do Malaysians actually share the same answer? The real obstacle may not be a lack of programmes. Malaysia has long held conversations about multiculturalism and diversity, Bangsa Malaysia in official speeches, Vision 2020, 1Malaysia, and now Madani. Still, a durable unity has not been crystallised. Why is that? 

Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, a Malaysian ethnologist, offers a useful three-part framework in his work “Kesatuan dalam Kepelbagaian” to represent the current state which Malaysia is in. According to Shamsul, what we live with is not full "perpaduan" (unity). It is "kesepaduan" (cohesion) real enough to keep the country stable yet still marked by social deficits. The ongoing work of closing those deficits through bargaining, negotiation and mediation is what he calls "penyatupaduan" (reconciliation). Perpaduan, the ideal of unity, sits at the end of that process, not at the beginning. 

These deficits persist partly because different groups carry different visions of nationhood. In 1996, Robert Rotberg, an American academic coined the term “nations-of-intent” in the African context. Rustam A Sani, a Malaysian political scientist and sociologist, applied it to the Malay Left, and Baharuddin developed it further for Malaysia in his work “Nations-of-Intent in Malaysia” in Asian Forms of the Nation. “Nations-of-intent” is understood as the competing visions of nations and ideas of belonging held by different communities. Baharuddin identifies at least four such nations-of-intent in Malaysia:

A more pluralist vision pushed mainly by non-Bumiputera groups, especially Chinese and Indians.

A non-Muslim Bumiputera vision (for instance, Kadazan in Sabah seeking equal recognition for Christianity and native religions). An Islamic vision associated with groups such as PAS that seeks a more purely Islamic foundation.

Crucially, Baharuddin distinguishes the authority-defined national identity (promoted by the state through slogans and campaigns) from the everyday-defined ones held by ordinary people. In his 2019 Penang Institute lecture on Bangsa Idaman, he noted that even after the 2018 political change the dominant version in circulation remained a “Malay-led plural society”. When the state talks about unity without acknowledging these different nations-of-intent, it asks people to rally around a slogan while their underlying maps of the country remain different. That is why many campaigns can feel more symbolic than impactful. Baharuddin’s own suggestion is that the practical work remains "penyatupaduan" — continuous negotiation and mediation among these competing visions rather than the premature declaration of unity.

There is a historical reminder that this kind of negotiation has been attempted before. In 1947 the PUTERA-AMCJA coalition put forward the People’s Constitution, which proposed a single “Melayu” citizenship for everyone who made this land their home and gave it undivided loyalty. It offered an inclusive civic nationalist foundation while recognising Malay as the official language and the special position of the Malays. The proposal ultimately failed to gain the support of British colonial government, Umno and the Malay aristocracy. 

The episode shows how difficult it is to translate competing visions of nationhood into a shared political settlement, and makes us question if unity can be achieved through authority-defined ideals alone without genuinely engaging with the everyday-defined identities and aspirations of nationhood.

Nonetheless, if negotiation is how we work through the various competing visions of nationhood, what are we working towards? Perhaps we should also question whether ethnicity needs to remain so central to how we define national belonging in the first place. Muthiah Alagappa, a political scientist, for instance, argues for a more inclusive civic nation in his inaugural lecture on nation-making in Asia. He challenges the weakest point in the negotiation model: can bargaining among competing visions ever produce a nation, or does it also need a shared civic foundation? 

He opposes ethnonationalism because an ethnically based idea of the nation keeps producing zero-sum politics and makes genuine cohesion harder. In his version, people retain their ethnic and religious identities while the shared basis becomes citizenship, equality and a common political order. Unity does not require everyone to melt into one cultural form; it requires stronger agreement on the political rules that hold the place together.

Beyond this, scholars have also proposed an imaginary “post-ethnic society”, as articulated by historian David Hollinger in his book "Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism". It does not mean erasing ethnic or cultural identities or forcing everyone into a single cultural mould. It means treating ethnicity as something voluntary and secondary rather than fixed, primary and politically decisive. The goal can be to make ethnicity less decisive in how we distribute power, opportunity and belonging. Such a vision would challenge the assumption that communities must be represented primarily as ethnic blocs, each negotiating for its share of recognition and resources. It would place greater emphasis on shared rights and equal citizenship, while leaving room for cultural differences to persist. 

A full post-ethnic society may seem to be a distanced dream, as race and ethnicity continue to play an important role in Malaysia’s constitutional and political landscape, political mobilisation and everyday life. A more feasible step might be to work towards a post-racist society, one that first aims to reduce discrimination and stereotyping without pretending the categories themselves have disappeared.

Unity is not a finished product. It is the long, messy work of "penyatupaduan" of people negotiating what they can agree on and what they can agree to disagree on. But negotiation should serve an impactful purpose: establishing a shared civic foundation built on equal citizenship, mutual respect and protection from discrimination, without requiring everyone to abandon their ethnic, religious or cultural identities. Such a foundation would not resolve every disagreement over Malaysia’s national identity, nor would it immediately dismantle the role of ethnicity in politics. It would, however, give Malaysians a common basis on which to negotiate those differences. Over time, this could potentially open the possibility of a more post-ethnic society, in which ethnicity becomes less decisive in determining political belonging and access to opportunity.

Negotiation is not without challenge. Rethinking national belonging can be difficult when political incentives still often reward ethnic mobilisation more than difficult compromise. Trust across communities is uneven, and top-down nation-building efforts rarely create enough space for open-ended negotiation.

The risk now is that we continuously pursue nation-building efforts without first clarifying a shared vision of the nation. If different groups are still fighting for different end-states, then every new slogan, every new walk, every new conference risks becoming another site of quiet contest rather than genuine coming together. 

So before we decide how to build unity, we perhaps need to be clearer about what kind of nation-of-intent we want to build and whether, underneath all the official language, we are even fighting for the same thing. If these questions matter to you, the Think Big Summit 2026 by the Malaysian Philosophy Society is one such avenue where people from different starting points come together and have honest, open conversations on the diverse, competing visions of the nation. 

Ultimately, Malaysia’s nation-building project will depend not on how often we celebrate our diversity, but on whether we can build a nation where our differences no longer determine the terms of our belonging. 

Yael Mirzaei is a content curator at the Malaysian Philosophy Society.