Malaysians Say The Darndest Things!

Race Race Race Race Race Race

April 3, 2008

The concept of race breeds racists. That’s a known fact, and also, a known problem throughout the entire face of the Earth. Who in their life, has not heard of racism? Take some typical Malaysian racist thoughts for example:

“The Chinese are all greedy money-grabbers. Those fucking communists think that making money is their number one goal in life, and they will not hesitate to stab you in the back as long as they can gain from it.”

“All those Indians only know how to drink toddy and beat their wives.”

“Malays are all lazy and stupid.”

Sound familiar? If you’ve been around long enough in this wonderful country we call Malaysia (which some insist is still called Tanah Melayu), then the above phrases, or different permutations of it should be somewhat familiar to you.

Perhaps you’ve made a joke about it (Go ahead, admit it).

Perhaps you’ve heard your parents say it.

Perhaps you’ve encountered some blogs and their comments and read it.

Perhaps you’ve actually encountered someone that truly believes in it.

I wait for the day when people will stop looking at everything on the basis of race. As long as BN stays in powers with its current policies of “divide and rule” by race, I can live for another 50 fucking years and probably still hear those same statements above.

Here’s a pretty good read about race and diversity.

Diversity, not race, our strength (March 26th 2008)

I HAD two jaw dropping experiences this past week. The first was while viewing a video of an aspiring YB facing a group of citizens concerned about unfettered development in their area.

The potential YB not only refused to answer the questions directly but instead displayed a performance so outstandingly arrogant that you had to conclude that he did not really want to be elected. It was an abject lesson in how to lose an election.

Then I saw a report in a Chinese newspaper on how the newly appointed MB of Perak had stunned a Chinese crowd in Ipoh by speaking to them in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Tamil, English and Malay.

It may well have been no more than words of greeting but still, the very idea of a Malay politician speaking to a Chinese audience in their own language and dialects is novelty enough these days to be impressive.

Our recent elections has been a jaw dropping experience overall. Perhaps that is only because we are not used to these things that we find them unusual and curious.

As with anything else, there may soon come a day when seeing politicians and other public figures “cross over” racial lines becomes something very normal and no longer anything to remark on.

Perhaps the day when vertical thinking along racial lines is nearer than we dreamt.

I had the opportunity to listen for the second time to Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Renault and Nissan, the other night on how diversity should be viewed as a strength.

He said he was impressed with Malaysia because it was obvious that our success comes from our natural ethnic diversity.

Coming from a diverse background himself and successfully managing two very different car companies with very different cultures, Ghosn knows what he is talking about.

The important thing, he said, is to acknowledge and respect people’s separate identities and view that as a strength that can be tapped for success. These days, smart global companies don’t impose one type of management style all over the world but adapt to each cultural situation.

If only he knew how hard it is to convince our own people of this. People in political power still think that championing racial rights is their only raison d’etr.

Yet the elections have shown that people vote across racial lines because they are more concerned about pressing issues that affect everyone. They thought that people who used the racial rights argument were waving an old tattered banner, out of a lack of ideas.

To be sure, some issues affect some communities more than others. But these are not genetic; they are related to the circumstances that some members of these communities find themselves in.

The challenge is to alter those circumstances in a way that the communities themselves can find their way out of these problems.

We yearn these days for leaders with new ideas. We want to be given hope for the future, not revisit the same old problems over and over again. Not that we want history ignored because we need to know where to start from but we do want to see that shiny path ahead of us clearly and within reach.

I read the extraordinary speech made by US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Philadelphia where he tackled the problem of race.

In reviewing America’s history with race, he said: “I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.”

Some of the issues that have concerned Americans have also concerned us, and the lack of unity is one of them.

To this, Obama responded by acknowledging his mixed ethnic background and saying, “It is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.”

And indeed Democratic voters agreed with him and voted for him even in states that had seemed prejudiced against black men.

The same thing happened in our country. Unfortunately, race politics has not really died down yet, and some people reacted as if ethnic cleansing had just taken place.

Where is our own Obama to lead us into our future, with faith and hope? Have we heard yet one speech of optimism recently that inspires and unites us all?

The above was written by Marina Mahathir, whose blog can be found here. When will Malaysians take off their race-tinted glasses and embrace each others diversity? Why do we let race drive a wedge between us and drive us further apart?

Remember the song from the late 80s and 90s, the “Setia” song we used to listen on T.V. every night? The “Demi Negara” one?

“Demi agama, bangsa, dan negara”, it goes. When will Malaysians put negara first and take take bangsa out of the equation? Until that really happens, fuck bangsa.

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