Racist we all are
August 22, 2010
Racist we all are, but despair not too much
by ZAINUL ARIFIN
zainul@nst.com.my
SOMEONE suggested to me that the level of racism is rather alarming these days.In the anonymity of the World Wide Web and the all-narcissistic social media, the tone is harsh and divisive. One can imagine the depth we have descended to in matters of race relations.
Having lived quite a bit, I would say that there were a few points in the nation’s history when race relations were far worse.But that surely is no comfort. It is just like saying, with apologies to cancer victims, some types of cancer are better than others.
I believe, we would rather not have to deal with this, and in an ideal world we should not have to. But deal with racism we must.
We are living in different times. Circumstances have changed. What was fine previously, is not any more. What was taboo then, is now spoken out loud. The challenge for us is to adapt to the changes forced upon us by circumstances, sensibilities and the environment that we live in.
The young people of today, for instance, are different from the generations of their parents or grandparents. They live in an era of possibilities, global in outlook and they see things differently. They are not weighed down by past baggage and are keen to look at issues the way they want to see them.
And there are more of them these days, by some counts more than two-thirds of the population. Now what have young people got to do with racism, one may ask? In fact, anecdotal evidence would suggest they are the least racially conscious. 1Malaysia is them, and they adapt to it rather well when compared with their older fellow citizens.
I have a theory. Because of their potentially game-changing role in the country’s political process — several millions more of them are eligible to be voters in the next general election than previously — they are much-sought after.
The astute politicians would have known this and it is no great stretch that they would tap into their worries and concerns, to be amplified and processed for good measure. Some would accentuate the positives, others the negatives.
The latter, of course, could be a contributor to racial issues. The older ones may see race issues as a fact of Malaysian life, but the young may look at it as something to be abhorred.
Race relations issues, good or bad, are constants in a multiracial country. These days, they are everywhere as the number of mono-ethnic nations is getting fewer.
Humans by nature are racist, the sooner we admit it, the better. In its most basic form, it is a sociological survival instinct and the desire to belong. In some ways, it is akin to us cheering and waving the flag when our badminton team plays — we call this nationalistic.
We tend to mingle with our own kind, marry or live with people of the same race. We observe our cultures, some of us think ours are better than others.
It is also when we allow racism to dominate discourse and chatter that racism becomes a problem. Incidentally, “racist” is also a label conveniently used to disparage or make a social pariah of someone. Who would want to be associated with racists or keep them company?
Most times, the label is used to silence, since who in his right mind, even dye-in-the-wool racist, would want to be known as one? It is worth pondering that when a person calls someone a racist, is he being a racist himself?
Are racists like addicts who do not see themselves as the problem? How do we define racism, especially in the Malaysian context, when everything is defined by race — from our politics, policies and economy?
Is someone championing vernacular education racist? Is someone calling for more Bumiputera participation in the economy racist? Is someone questioning the lack of Chinese in the armed forces or the number of Malays in the civil service racist? Is the New Economic Policy or its successor, the New Economic Model, racist?
Are terms such as meritocracy, equality, fairness, opportunity, dominance, incompetency, corruption, etc, code words for racism, even if discussions are as plain as vanilla? Can we say we are a functional realist-racist society? We know the issues and we talk about them, perhaps at times a tad too much, but we do not shy from it.
The level of discourse and the language used now seem to suggest the implicit is now explicit. The anonymity offered and prized by the Internet has become a good cover for private feelings, no matter how vile or how much bile in them, to be made public.
We can, of course, blame our favourite whipping boys, the politicians. To be fair, they are not entirely to be blamed, nor are they entirely blameless.
They work on the lowest common denominator and prey on our individual and collective fears that the “others” are getting, controlling or having more. Some argue for equality, as Bob Dylan said, like a wedding vow. Some call for fairness, a much more difficult concept, as the word would suggest.
People with doom and gloom often have a political agenda. They belong to the sub-species of politicians, who I like to call politicus animalus opportunistus.
They are quick to sense the mood on the ground, tap into it and amplify it, and could we suggest that it could be politically beneficial to be racist, if not in words but in subtle messages and actions that no one could miss? The knowledge of which button to push is, of course, advantageous.
Racism rears its ugly head easily and often. A teacher’s remark, a rapper’s parody, a columnist musing, a politician posturing, any of these can spark a new row. We latch on the negatives like drunks fortuitously lost in a brewery.
Racism unearths the worst in us, and, unfortunately, some of us seem to revel in it. We jump, point and moan the racial divide, and yet do our best, in our righteousness, to widen it further.
Are we not scraping the bottom of the barrel if we were to say that things are not that bad? We are not getting better, of course, but it is not something that we think will drive us at each other’s throats.
I would be worried of the racial situation now, but not despair too much. Could I say it is the norm? Well, that’s my ever-optimistic opinion.
Yet, we can expect racism to heighten further in our political processes. Race seems to be an underlying force in our politics, though few of us would readily admit it.
It is often not the words that are racist, but the actions and posturing that exude subtle yet so distinct messages that it cannot be missed for anything else but racism. But I suppose all is fair in love, war and politics.
We understand they are politicians, but such verbal agility and gymnastics is impressive, nonetheless. The idea is if you say it often enough some of the mud will stick, and it does not matter if it is the truth or not.
It is when we allow racism to consume us that it becomes a problem. These days, with active politics all year round, race is a convenient fallback to cater for the basest of fears, angers and insecurities.
Racism is a convenient and effective tool to use. It is also self-fulfilling, the more we lament it, the more it is going to be a problem. Nonetheless, racism can also turn around and bite us back.
Zainul Arifin’s article is weird but well timed, and I am weirder still for posting it. But I think he has made some telling points on the subject. For me, as someone of mixed parentage race has never been an issue. I grew up in a mixed and harmonious community in Alor Setar, Kedah in the 1950s.
Let us first try to get some understanding on the word “racist”. So thanks to the internet, I googled the word and this is what I found. The word racist can mean (the list is not exhaustive):
* Believing that races differ from each other.
* Believing that races differ from each other in important ways, like intelligence or physical abilities.
* Believing that races differ from each other in important ways, like intelligence or physical abilities, for genetic reasons rather than because of cultural or environmental circumstances.
* Believing that because of such differences, members of different races should have different political rights.
* Believing that a particular group of people who are racially different are also different in their culture.
* Believing that a particular group of people who are racially different are also different in their culture, for genetic rather than historically contingent reasons.
* Not liking the different culture associated with a different race and wanting that culture changed, opposed, corrected, or confronted.
* Because of believing that a member of a different race is likely to be different in a particular way, believing that this particular member of the different race is himself likely to be different in this particular way.
* Believing that this particular member of a different race is different in this way, even when you have got to know him individually and know that it isn’t so.
* Believing that all the members of a particular race should be murdered.
According to some definitions of “racist” almost everybody is racist (Zainul’s point of view), while according to other definitions, hardly anyone is. Who does not believe, for example, that races differ from one another? Who but a total ignoramus about the world and its ways sincerely believes that there is no such thing as a cultural difference associated with any racial difference, anywhere?
So frightened are we of being called racist that we would sooner deny everything on the list, whoever compiled it, rather than risk being thus labeled. The few brave or perhaps brutal souls who are prepared to admit to “racism”, that is, who tick yes to some of the items on the list, even as they strenuously deny others, demonstrate with their fate why denying everything makes sense.
Yet for the majority of thinking people to be denying everything is also very dangerous, because important truths get neglected in public debate, such as the exact truth about Islam and Islamic culture, and the exact things that ought, and ought not, to be done about this truth.
Equally dangerous is that if any of the items on the list are admitted through clenched teeth to be true, it is then liable to be assumed that therefore the entire racist agenda, racist by any definition, has been acknowledged to be correct, when in fact defensive lines can be dug in between different items, and should be. It is assumed, that is to say, that the one huge defensive line must be drawn this side of “racism” by any definition. But this is to concede that no worthwhile lines can or should be drawn between different items on the list.
It is this latter syndrome that the nastier racists stand ready to exploit, as soon as any of their more obviously true complaints are conceded to have merit. Few of us are nasty racists, but we want some of the more obvious truths about racial matters to be faced rather than funked in public debate. The problem is that the nasty racists will use what power they are able to garner with the truth to spread untruths and to do truly nasty things.
Zainul is correct to say that we must deal with racism. We know it is real in Malaysia and politicians on both sides of the political divide have to deal with this embedded cultural phenomenon with care. We vote along racial lines, we think in terms of race and we act as a race rather than as a nation. Policies like the NEP and concepts like Ketuanan Melayu and movements like Perkasa and Hindraf tend to accentuate our differences. So we must be wary of these elements that fan our emotions and make us less rational in our discourse and dangerous in our actions.
As a result, and 53 years now, we have not been able to entertain an alternative vision where race is not an issue, but where we can learn to respect our diversity and use that God given strength for national advantage. Yes, we are Malays, Chinese and Indians, separate and culturally distinct but we can be united in common purpose, that is, we can build a truly united Malaysia (1Malaysia if you like to call it). We need the political and social will to accomplish this gargantuan task.
Basically, this means that our policies must be modified to take race out of the development equation so there will be equal opportunities for all Malaysians to be the best that they can be. For this to happen, we need leaders who can rise above race and envision a pluralist nation where diversity is strength and there is unity in diversity.
Happy Birthday, Malaysia, you have come a long way but you still have a long way to go. As Malaysians, we must begin a process that can take us beyond our ethnicity, without denying it, and 50 years from now we will be identified as true Malaysians who are proud to be a people where race is no longer a factor in nation building and politics.–Din Merican
dinobeano - August 22, 2010 at 12:53 pm
There a many four-letter words deemed dirty. RACE is not one of them. In the hands of the unthinking and those with other agendas, RACE becomes a problem. Not otherwise…
Our country was perhaps unique in the way we started off with an imaginative power-sharing system among the races.. Take away the self-serving politicians and the system can still save us.
Isa Manteqi - August 22, 2010 at 1:43 pm
You cannot eliminate racism. But you can racial discrimination.
In Malaysia, racism has been institutionalized a natural consequence of a constitution which has been drafted to make race a ‘unifying issue’. Entire institutions have grown up and indeed would need race as impetus for growth because without ‘race’ they would lose their relevance Perkasa, Malaysia’s answer to the American tea party movement, is only the latest and not the last.
Entire generations of Malaysians have grown up made conscious of their racial identity and reminded of who they are as Malays, Chinese and Indians and others. Under a ruling party and a coalition that has life breathed into it by one word i.e. race, another generation is being prepared to replace the old. Unless our young are weaned off their addiction to everything racial and divisive and made to see that this zero sum game is not the only game in town, as a nation state, this country is on a self destruct mode. The only issue would be its timing.
The only way to fight racism is to make race irrelevant. The place to start would be with documents of identity which we have been forced to carry on our persons and which over the years have identified us as to who we are.
The fight by one woman to delete her religion as Islam on her ID (or do you still know it as IC) which has robbed Lina of her joy, is a fight we could all identify with. We could make her pain our pain.
The idea is to put ourselves on that journey of a thousand steps. A journey that cannot even begin unless we take that first step.
Mr Bean - August 22, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Mongkut Bean
MAS Inflight magazine Going Places this month feature your Grand Uncle Tunku Abdul Rahman and his legacy. A nice article written by Sharifah Intan Syed Hussein (Sharifah Khatijah), remembers the lives of Tunku as a family man and love for children.
During Ramadhan Federal Hotel used to feature the favorite foods of Tunku cooked by Sharifah Khatijah. Didn’t see it this Ramadhan. Guess Malaysians are still nostalgic about the era of the Tunku and the peaceful coexistence of all races under his rule.
semper fidelis - August 22, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Yes, Shrek. It is right here:
http://bunnysprints.blogspot.com/
Mr Bean - August 23, 2010 at 12:03 am
.. (1Malaysia if you like to call it). Din.
That slogan has zero value, Din. Besides the 1Israel Anwar brought up, i have a curious feeling the theme came from U2′s “One” version, except that they didn’t read nor understand the lyrics, thus the cynical attitude:
Menyalak-er - August 23, 2010 at 12:57 am
We are more racist now compared to 40 or 50 years ago, because this is a reaction to the institutionalised racist policy practised by our politicians.
However, our politicians & businessman are not “racist”. They are very muhibha when it come to their personal interest as can be seen in the typical example ofr “Lingam’s case” where it involved the Indian lawyer Lingam, Chinese businessman Vincent Tan, & Malay politicians & judge. Malay politicians also have their Chinese & Indian super-rich businessman cronies.
Wong - August 23, 2010 at 8:04 am