THE celebration of Hari Raya today is more than a festival for Muslims in Sarawak, significantly it is also an occasion for Sarawakians to celebrate our ethnic and religious diversity and tolerance.

Religious and traditional festivals like Hari Raya, Christmas, Chinese New Year and Gawai Dayak while accentuating our cultural and religious identities have a unique way of unifying the people through the sharing of the festive joy by the celebrants with their neighbours and friends regardless of creed or race.

It is when reading about religious and racial conflicts around the world that we realise how fortunate we are to have peace in a multi-ethnic society like ours.

We should count our blessings that instead of letting race and religion become a source of conflicts we have chosen to place racial harmony above our differences and accept each other for what we are.

However, we must also realise that racial and religious relationship is fragile and that we must never be complacent and take for granted this harmonious co-existence that we have for granted.

Sarawak is not a melting pot of cultures because each of the 26 ethnic groups maintain their distinct culture and every religious group is allowed to worship according to their teaching.

This kaleidoscope of cultures and religions is both our strength and potential weakness.

At the moment we have wisely chosen to make our diversity our strength but we must also be on guard against the fact that the situation could change drastically when this delicate balance is upset.

We must be on the look out for development in our society that could lead to the break-up of the racial integration that we have nurtured over the years.

There are signs in the horizon that this religious and racial harmony that we have cherished for so long is in danger of being disrupted.

One of the most worrying among them is the tendency among students in schools and institutions to mix around only within their racial groups. The older generation often looks back fondly at the days of their youth when their friends were multi-racial and from different religious background.

This is a natural tendency but in the past when the student population was small there was almost no chance for this segregation to take place as students had to mix with everyone in their school activities.

Nowadays with school population burgeoning there are enough from each racial group to form their own cliques and stick together in their school. This is compounded by the increasing number of schools built in the vicinity of a single race community.

We are now facing a potentially dangerous future as our older generation has greater racial and religious tolerance than our youth.

Something must be done to arrest this trend in our schools and universities before it is too late and racial and religious intolerance destroy the peace and harmony that we are so proud of now.

We must continue to stand united on the firm ground of our common values and nurture our acceptance of our racial and religious diversity or risk sinking into the morass of intolerance and ethnic conflicts.

Azam and SDI wish all Muslims Selamat Hari Raya.

3rd Voice is a regular feature initiated by Azam and Sarawak Development Institute (SDI). Feedback can be sent to francis @azam.org.my