It is sad that when a neighbouring country (which unlike us is a state member of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights) passes a bill aiming to criminalised racial and ethnic discrimination (see here) and the world is still in awe of the historical election results in the USA recently (see here) where a black man is now the President, our country still practices racism - openly and unashamedly!
I had no answer when asked by a student during my International Human Rights Law class recently on how racism is still so blatantly carried out here.
An example can be seen here.
In the first place, there exists such groups like the 'Gabungan Graduan Melayu Muda' which is waiting to be registered. A group which by the sounds of its name is exclusively meant for young graduates of a certain race only. But then again, coming from a country which practices race-based politics, should one be surprised at this?
Then, such a racist sounding group is free to take to the streets and shouts slogans like 'Hidup Melayu'. and all this was done to protest against a decision to have multi-language road signs which was proposed with tourism in mind!
p/s - where were the tear gas and water cannons? Or are those only reserved for people of other races?
Malaysia boleh!
4 comments:
Why racism still exists here? Its because we are all racists, it is just a question of how racist we are.
We discriminate ourselves since day one - we are thought to be only with the same race. The Chinese go for Chinese schools, Indians for Tamil schools and Malays for national or religious schools. Ong Ka Ting mentioned that roughly 90% of Chinese studied in Chinese schools, and he sounded really proud of it. Imagine 90% of Chinese, Malay and Indians live amongst themselves, no wonder we are getting more racist by the day - we are segregating ourselves. Now putting our dear politicians into the equation, surely there will be some jam packed action.
Try going to around the rural areas. The Malays have really bad perception about the Chinese and vice versa. Wait, this is still the case in urban areas. Just go to Bandar Utama, most of the residents are Chinese while Taman Tun, just opposite it is a Malay dominated area.
I hope you're satisfied with my answer.
no, actually, i'm not. finding it hard to see where you are coming at. racism, discrimination, segregation - similar? related? but not the same, surely.
eg - having chinese schools is not racist. it may be if they put themselves as superior over other 'race schools'. it will be discriminatory of it only takes in chinese people.
will the Gabungan Graduan Melayu Muda take me in as a member? If not, is it due to my race?
if it is true that 'we are all racists', then perhaps it is time we look deep into ourselves and change from within.
the road is long, the climb is steep - but i believe that change can be achieved!!
'yes, we can! yes, we can! yes, we can...'
I really hope so we do change for the better. At the rate things are going, it does not look good.
well, compared with 10 years ago, there is some positive change. let's not get weary! the road is long, the climb is steep. but we change for the better.
do you notice how is it that when we are back home, we are 'malays', 'chinese', 'indians' etc' but in the UK, we are all 'malaysians'? it is possible!
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