Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.5, No.13, 2015 130 Deconstructing Visual Images of 1Malaysia Esmaeil Zeiny 1* Noraini Md. Yusof 2 1. Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), National University of Malaysia (UKM) 2. School of Language Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Malaysia (UKM) Abstract As Malaysia is a multiracial country, Prime Minister Najib has introduced the concept of 1Malaysia to protect each ethnic group and to bring unity to the country. To inform people about the importance of unity, media has been employed to publicize the concept by distributing images of 1Malaysia logo. 1Malaysia is being fetishized now so much so that even public transportations are painted with the 1Malaysia logo. To an outsider eye, this fetishization seems absolutely surprising and complex. Through deconstructing images of 1Malaysia in media from an outsider perspective, this paper examines the function of these visual discourses on Malaysians and tries to answer the question that whether the Malay, Chinese and Indian perceive themselves together as 1– Malaysians. We argue that Malaysia is still a work in progress to achieve ‘unity in diversity.’ Keywords: Malaysia, 1Malaysia, images, unity, diversity, ethnicity 1. Introduction The concept of 1Malaysia is a vision introduced and propagated in 2009 by the sixth Malaysian Prime Minister, YAB Datuk Seri Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak, days after he was sworn in. He defined 1Malaysia as being “we stand, we think and we act as Malaysians.” The concept, introduced to protect the rights of all ethnic groups in Malaysia and to bring Malaysia forward to a better future, is seen as an approach that yearns to harmonize the society as one functioning unit without taking into account the background of various cultures and traditions. It is, indeed, a political agenda that nurtures on communal traits or unanimity amongst the society’s different ethnicities. Given the fact that Malaysia is a multicultural country where the population consists of many races and ethnicities, there is an urge to instill unity amongst the people. In fact, uniting the nation is not a new phenomenon in Malaysia, and it dates back to the immediate post-independence period in 1957 when socio- economic and cultural differences led to racial tension. Years later in 1969, the ethnic conflict that occurred was not because of ethnic hate but due to socio-economic problems between the ethnicities. Since then, the government has been trying to tackle the issue of racial tension by introducing different programs, such as the New Economic Development (NED) introduced in 1971, to accomplish national unity. The current government has been promoting the 1Malaysia concept through various ways. Prime Minister Najib has instructed his government to first educate the current and future civil servants, community leaders and the politicians on the importance of national unity through the concept of 1Malaysia; then he asked the government to teach the general public the importance and value of 1Malaysia through a wide range of activities, one of which has been the propagation of the visual images of 1Malaysia through the media. National unity in a country where each ethnicity has its own unique culture and heritage, such as language, belief system, tradition and religion, is a strenuous task. To help the government promote the concept of 1Malaysia, media has been recruited to educate the grassroots on the significance of unity by promoting cross-cultural understanding, tolerance and acceptance of other ethnics, cultures and religions. Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) and many private media organizations have produced numerous programs to publicize 1Malaysia. The hiring and performances of hosts/actors with different ethnicities is one means of promoting national unity. The media has been instructed to instill in people the 1Malaysia concepts and its eight values namely 'the culture of Excellence, perseverance, humility, acceptance, loyalty, meritocracy, education and integrity.' Through the construction of images of 1Malaysia in the media, the government seeks to change the mentality of Malaysians from tolerance of differences to acceptance. This is because tolerance bears an undertone that people are too much exposed to an agonizing or unpleasant condition due to their religious and ethnic differences. However, acceptance denotes that all the people in Malaysia accept and comprehend the diversity of Malaysian multiracial nation which could be an asset to the country. Everyday people see images of 1Malaysia on the television, billboards and newspapers. 1Malaysia is being fetishized now so much so that even public