‘Catering to all races good for business’

Anas: Corporate leaders must do more to promote harmony

PETALING JAYA: The business community should make it an agenda to promote unity among Malaysians, says a businessman-social activist.

Anas Zubedy, managing director of Zubedy Sdn Bhd which has made it a top priority to promote unity and harmony, said business and corporate leaders should “jump onto the unity bandwagon”.

The staunch advocate of unity believes it would be “economically smart” for the country’s business community to also promote unity among the people.

“You cannot only depend on one race to do business successfully in this country.

“You must learn from the mamak and their teh tarik stalls. They have customers from every background, every age group... unity makes sense for businesses,” he said yesterday at the closing of the Zubedy’s #SaySomethingNice campaign 2017 at The School, Jaya One, which is dedicated to fostering the healthy development of youngsters.

He said a depressing reality about present-day Malaysia was that children were growing up within their own racial community.

“Our children are growing separately. You don’t see multicultural situations in schools... and we are living separately so our kids do not have a chance to mingle with each other,” he said, adding that it was only at work that Malaysians began to mingle. As such, Anas said the business community should ensure that promoting unity was a part of its overall agenda.

The job of cultivating unity should not be just shouldered by politicians, he added.

The #SaySomethingNice campaign 2017, which started on National Day and ended yesterday on Malaysia Day, has seen over 60 projects initiated under the campaign by various organisations and individuals working with Zubedy.

One of the fresh efforts this year was #RukunNegaraSomething Nice, which Anas described as going back to the spirit of Rukunegara to promote unity among the people.

“We tend to forget that there is also the cita-cita (ambition) behind Rukunegara, which encourages the move towards being a progressive nation, a democracy, and liberalism, so how do young people bring forth this ambition?” he asked, adding that it was also the first time that the #SaySomething Nice campaign, which was in its seventh year, was collaborating with the National Unity and Integration Department.

Tetap Tiara Sdn Bhd managing director Charles Wong agreed with Anas’ call for the business community to embrace unity. “It makes perfect sense to do it, as what make and shape a business are the people who work in the organisation, the different races and outlook that they bring.

“It’s smart economics at the end of the day,” said Wong, whose company joined hands with Zubedy for the #SaySomethingNice campaign for the fourth time.

The closing ceremony of #SaySomethingNice saw a special appearance by Suria FM deejay Roslinda Abdul Majid, popularly known as DJ Lin, with a zapin performance by Aswara and Negaraku sung by children from the Malaysian Federation of the Deaf.

The guests also took part in a game with Anas and staff of Zubedy.