Racism (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

ARCHIVES 2013

By MT Webmaster On May 12, 2013

Racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The word ‘racism’ is currently being very freely used to describe what happened last Sunday. DAP accuses Umno of being racist while Umno accuses DAP of the same thing. The problem is some of these people do not understand what the word ‘racism’ means.

In fact, many Chinese readers have accused me of being a racist mainly because they do not understand what the word means. Maybe this is because there is no equivalent word in Chinese — as there is none in Bahasa Malaysia as well. What is the Bahasa Malaysia word for racist anyway (other than ‘rasis’)?

(Utusan Malaysia, 12 May 2013) — UMNO bukan parti rasis – PM: Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak menegaskan, UMNO bukan parti rasis kerana ia sentiasa memberi keadilan kepada rakyat tanpa mengira kaum di negara ini.

Many people are confused about the meaning of racism (the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others — or discrimination/prejudice based on race), parochialism (narrowly restricted in scope or outlook such as provincial) and nationalism (devotion to the interests or culture of one’s nation).

For example, during World War II, the Americans thought that Japanese pilots would never be able to beat American pilots because of the way the Japanese are ‘built’. Due to their short body and slit eyes, they make poor pilots. Or so the Americans thought until the Japanese whacked them good and proper.

This would be racism. The Americans considered the Japanese inferior to the ‘whites’ because the Japanese were not built like the ‘whites’.

For a long time, the European Christians (plus the Vatican) considered the natives of the Americas, in particular those of Latin America, as not human — a sort of animal on two legs that could talk. Hence it was not wrong to kill the Native Americans (or what they used to call the American Indians) because these people, just like animals, do not have a soul.

You only need to look into the eyes of the American Indian to know that they do not have a soul, said the Pope in Rome. And this, too, was why it was considered okay to capture and sell the black Africans as slaves and kill them like pigs if they resisted or tried to escape. It is because they are not white so that would mean they are not really human beings.

Now, what happens if Kelantanese want a ‘local’ political party to rule their state (such as PAS, as opposed to Umno, which is a ‘Kuala Lumpur’ party)? This would not be called racism. That is parochialism. It is not that the PAS candidate is Malay while the Umno candidate is Chinese. Both are Malay. But one Malay is from a ‘Kelantan’ political party while the other Malay is from an ‘outsider’ political party.

In Terengganu, if a person from Besut contests in, say, Kemaman, this Besut candidate would most likely lose. The voters may be Umno members but if the Umno candidate is from Besut while the PAS candidate is a local Kemaman chap, then there is a strong possibility that the Kemaman voters will vote PAS rather than Umno even if these voters are Umno members. Hence it is not party loyalty but the spirit of daerah (district/province) that prevails. ‘Anak Kemaman’ (a child of Kemaman) is more important to the Kemaman voters than keahlian Umno (Umno membership).

A Chinese born in Melaka can contest in Penang or a Chinese born in Penang can contest in Johor and would most likely win because the Chinese support the party. This may not work on the Malay voters. Only in rare cases can a Malay candidate cross state boundaries (or even district boundaries) and still win. The Malay candidate who crosses boundaries must be an extremely ‘strong’ personality to win in another kawasan (area).

But don’t think that the Chinese are not sometimes parochial as well. I have known DAP to get a ‘headache’ because the Hakka voters insisted that the DAP candidate must be Hakka. If not then they will vote MCA (who fielded a Hakka candidate) instead of DAP. Is this racism? How can it be racism when both candidates are Chinese? The only thing is he or she must be Hakka Chinese and not a non-Hakka Chinese.

As I said, there are ‘exceptions to the rule’, even amongst the more parochial Malays. For example, Onn Jaafar from Johor won in Kuala Terengganu and Mat Sabu from Penang won in Kelantan. Then we have Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, the PKR Sec-Gen, who was born in Singapore and yet won in both Kedah and Kelantan on a PKR and not PAS ticket (but lost this time around in Kedah against a ‘local boy’).

Finally, there is nationalism. Japanese will only buy Japanese products even when they travel to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur to shop. The Japanese are not racist for buying Japanese products. They are nationalistic in wanting to support Japanese industries. Some Malaysians only fly MAS even if they have to pay more or buy fuel from Petronas even if they have to drive farther to find a Petronas petrol station for the same reason.

I whack the Chinese. And for that I am being called a racist. But do I think that the Chinese are not ‘real’ citizens of Malaysia and therefore do not deserve equal treatment or I think that the Chinese are inferior people? Far from it! In fact, I think the opposite.

But I also whack the Malays (and have been doing so for a long time). So does that make me a racist when I am also Malay? A racist is supposed to be someone who discriminates or looks down on another race. You may argue that for the last two years I have not been whacking the Malays much whereas for the 20 years before that I was whacking the Malays kau-kau.

Well, what more can I say about the Malays that I have not already said? I have already repeated so many times the same criticism and anything more I can say about the Malays will just be more of the same thing, which I have already said hundreds of times (yes, hundreds of times at hundreds of articles a year over the last almost twenty years since 1994).

For 20 years I was never called a racist for whacking the Malays. In fact, I was called a ‘towering Malay’. Only when I started whacking the Chinese am I suddenly a racist.

The bottom line is you can whack your own race as much as you want, and the more the better, but you must never ‘touch’ the other race. In that case, should we criticise the Arab extremists for killing innocent Jewish schoolchildren when we are not Arab? Should Australians criticise the Umno Malays for what the ‘whites’ view as fraudulent general elections in Malaysia?

You can only whack someone of your own race but not someone from another race even if there is cruelty and injustice involved. So that would mean non-Malays or foreigners should not criticise Umno or the Arabs unless you are Malay or Arab. Is that how it works? And if you do not follow this ‘rule’ does that make you a racist?

Okay, let us now talk about the so-called Chinese Tsunami last Sunday, 5th May 2013. Never mind whether it was or was not a Chinese Tsunami. Umno says it was. DAP says it was not. However, even if it was a Chinese Tsunami, what is wrong with that? Is that racism? That is called parochialism. So you voted for your community. So what? That does not make you a racist.

Let’s go to another example. Would a Chinese win if he/she contested in, say, Besut? Let’s say a PAS Chinese candidate born in Bagan, Penang, contested in Besut against an Umno Malay candidate born in Jertih, Terengganu. Would the PAS members in Besut vote for PAS or for Umno?

Hence both PAS and Umno would not only field Malay candidates in Besut but the Malay must also be local born. Even Anwar Ibrahim may lose against a local boy like, say, Idris Jusoh. So this is not about race. This is about ‘good politics’. And it is not race that decides but parochialism. And that is the same reason why Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail will never win a seat in Singapore even though she was born in Singapore and even if Singapore laws allow her to contest. She is not Singaporean. Period.

Racism is foul. Parochialism is normal. Nationalism is commendable. Just don’t confuse one with the other. And do not label everything as racism. If not then the ‘Malay’ government of Malaysia will have no business to protest if one day the US attacks China. Umno is neither Chinese nor ‘white’.

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The exact definition of racism is controversial both because there is little scholarly agreement about the meaning of the concept “race”, and because there is also little agreement about what does and doesn’t constitute discrimination. Critics argue that the term is applied differentially, with a focus on such prejudices by whites, and defining mere observations of racial differences as racism. Some definitions would have it that any assumption that a person’s behaviour would be influenced by their racial categorization is racist, regardless of whether the action is intentionally harmful or pejorative. Other definitions only include consciously malignant forms of discrimination.

Among the questions about how to define racism are the question of whether to include forms of discrimination that are unintentional, such as making assumptions about preferences or abilities of others based on racial stereotypes, whether to include symbolic or institutionalized forms of discrimination such as the circulation of ethnic stereotypes through the media, and whether to include the socio-political dynamics of social stratification that sometimes have a racial component. Some definitions of racism also include discriminatory behaviours and beliefs based on cultural, national, ethnic, caste, or religious stereotypes.

Racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to the United Nations convention, there is no distinction between the terms racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination, and superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere.

In history, racism has been a major part of the political and ideological under-pinning of genocides such as The Holocaust, but also in colonial contexts such as the rubber booms in South America and the Congo, and in the European conquest of the Americas and colonization of Africa, Asia and Australia. It was also a driving force behind the transatlantic slave trade, and behind states based on racial segregation such as the USA in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and South Africa under apartheid. Practices and ideologies of racism are universally condemned by the United Nations in the Declaration of Human Rights.

READ MORE HERE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

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種族主義

“种族主义（英语：Racism）指一套意識型態，其基本信仰為人類可以被分類成不同及互不附屬的「種族」實體，因此主張遺傳的肉體特質直接決定人性、智識、道德等等文化及行為的特性，並主張某種族在本質上比其他種族優越。”—– 维基百科

原文：Raja Petra Kamarudin

譯文：方宙

‘種族主義’這個詞被很多人很隨意地運用來形容上星期天所發生的事情；行動黨用這個詞來形容巫統，而巫統也用同一個詞來形容行動黨。問題是，這些人都有可能不完全地明白這個詞的真正意思。

事實上，很多華裔讀者都因不明白這個詞而罵我是個種族主義者。可能在中文裏找不到一個意義相等的詞吧—-正如馬來文裏沒有這個詞一般。馬來文除了‘Rasis’以外還有別的詞嗎？

“(Utusan Malaysia, 12 May 2013) –UMNO bukan parti rasis – PM: Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak menegaskan, UMNO bukan parti rasis kerana ia sentiasa memberi keadilan kepada rakyat tanpa mengira kaum di negara ini”

很多人把‘種族主義racism’（相信種族會決定一個人的特質和本領，所以某些種族會比其他種族來得優越，或會看不起其他種族），‘地方/本位主義parochialism’（把眼界定得很狹小，泛指定在特定地區）和‘民族主義nationalism’（把一個國家的利益和文化放在第一位）給混淆了。

給你個例子，二戰期間，美國人都認爲日本飛行員沒有可能會強過美國飛行員的，因爲他們不夠‘大只’。日本飛行員都是身體矮小和單眼皮的，所以他們都是技術很差的飛行員。老美一直都是這樣地認爲，直到在戰場上日本人狠狠地幹掉爲止。

這就是種族歧視；美國人就只是因爲日本人的體格沒有美國人壯碩就認爲日本人比白人還要低一等。

有很長一段時間，歐洲的基督徒（包括梵蒂岡）都認爲美洲土著，特別是拉丁美洲的，都不是人，他們只是能夠講話且有兩只腳的動物而已。所以殺害這些土著（或者他們稱之爲美洲印第安人）並沒有錯，因爲正如動物，他們是沒有靈魂的。

羅馬的教宗曾經說過：只要你看進印第安人的眼睛，你就會知道他們是沒有靈魂的。這也是爲什麽販賣非洲黑人是OK的，而且在他們反抗或嘗試逃跑時把他們像豬一般給宰了也是沒問題的。就只是因爲他們的皮膚不是白色，他們就不算是人類。

現在，如果吉蘭丹人要一個‘本土’的政黨來管理他們的州屬（例如是伊黨，而不是‘來自吉隆坡的巫統’），那這算是什麽？這不算是種族主義，而應該是地方主義；這不是說伊黨的候選人是個馬來人而巫統是個華人；他們兩都是馬來人，但一個是‘吉蘭丹政黨’的馬來人而另一個是‘外來政黨’的馬來人。

再講講登嘉樓，如果一個Besut人到Kemaman競選的話，那這個人輸的幾率會很高。那些選民可能都是巫統的人，但如果伊黨派出一個Kemaman本土人對壘巫統的besut人的話，那這些選民很有可能會把票投給伊黨的Kemaman候選人。所以說這不是對黨忠心的問題而是對Daerah（地區）鍾愛的問題。‘Anak Kemaman（Kemaman之子）’在這比‘keahlian Umno（巫統黨籍）’更爲重要。

一個在馬六甲出生的華人可以在檳城競選或一個在檳城出生的華人可以在柔佛競選，而他們都很有可能會勝出，因爲華人都支持他們的政黨。但這對馬來人來講可能是行不通的。馬來人去到另一個州（甚至是另一個地區）勝出的情況是很少見的。那些過江的馬來候選人必須是條很猛的猛龍才能在其他地區勝出。

但請別因爲這樣就認爲華人是不具地方主義的。我知道行動黨曾經就因爲客家選民而頭疼。這些客家選民堅持要行動黨派客家人上陣，不然的話他們就會把票投個馬華的客家籍候選人。這是種族主義嗎？這兩個人都是華人呢！唯一的區別是這個候選人必須是個客家人而不是一般的華人。

當然在地方主義很重的馬來人地區，例外還是存在的。翁嘉化是個柔佛人，但他在瓜拉登傢樓勝出，Mat Sabu是個檳城人但他在吉蘭丹勝出。然後我們還有公正黨的縂秘書Saifuddin Nasution Ismail,他是在新加坡出生的，但他以公正黨黨旗在吉打和吉蘭丹勝出（但最近他在吉打輸給了個本地人）。

最後，讓我們來談談民族主義。日本人只會買日本產品，即使他們是在新加坡或大馬購物的話。他們只購買日本貨，但這並不代表他們都是種族主義者。他們是因愛國而想要支持日本的商傢們。有些馬來西亞人只會選擇乘搭馬航，即使他們必須多付錢，或他們只會打Petronas的汽油，即使他們需要去得更遠來尋找Petranas的加油站。他們背後的原因是一樣的。

我經常干屌華人，然後就被罵我有種族歧視。但我從來有想過華人並不是‘真正的’公民所以不應該得到同樣的對待，或我從來有認爲過華人是個低劣的人種嗎？從來沒有！事實上，我的看法還是相反的呢。

我也經常干屌馬來人（我一直以來都這樣做），但我也是個馬來人，我是不是個種族主義者呢？一個種族主義者應該是鄙視其他種族的。你可以抗議，說我在過去2年裏不大有罵馬來人，但在之前的20年裏我都是‘厚厚’地干屌馬來人的。所以請問我還有什麽是還未對馬來人說的？我已經對他們重復地批評了上百遍，我對他們的批判是找不出新玩意兒的了（是的，自1994年開始每年有上百篇文章，重復地寫了上百遍）。

20年來從來沒有人說我是個種族主義者，事實上他們還稱我為‘馬來巨人’。只是在我開始干屌華人后才有人罵我種族歧視。

底綫是，你可以盡情地罵你的族人，越狠越好，但你不可以‘動到’其他種族。如果是那樣的話，好，我們現在不是阿拉伯人，那我們又能否批判阿拉伯極端分子殘殺無辜的猶太學童呢？那澳大利亞人又否應該批評巫統，說大馬的選舉系統以‘白人的標準’來講是充滿舞弊的呢？

你只可以干屌你自己族人，而儅其他種族做出不公和殘暴的舉動時你是不可以出聲的。即是說，非馬來人或外國人是不可批評巫統或阿拉伯人的。這是對的嗎？如果你不遵從這些‘規則’你就是個種族主義者？

好了，讓我們回到5月5所謂的‘華人海嘯’，別理它到底是不是‘華人海嘯’了。巫統説是而行動黨說不是。但如果那真是一場‘華人海嘯’又如何？這是種族主義嗎？那是個地區主義，你把票投給了你的社區，所以呢？那並不會把你變成種族主義者。

給你另一個例子，如果有個華人在Besut競選的話他贏得了嗎？就講説一個檳城華人到Besut和巫統的出生在登嘉樓Jertih的候選人競選好了，你猜Besut區的伊黨黨員會把票投給誰？

所以說伊黨和巫統不止會派出馬來候選人，他們還會派出在本地出生的馬來人來競選。就連安華親自在此對陣一個本地人，名字叫Idris Jusoh好了，安華也會敗陣下來。所以這並不是種族的問題，而是‘良好政治’的問題。這不是看種族來決定的，而是看地區來決定的。這也是爲什麽如果新加坡法律允許旺姐在新加坡競選的話（她是在新加坡出生的），她也會敗下來。她不是新加坡人，如是而已。

種族主義是很卑污的，地方主義是很正常的，而民族主義是很可取的，但請別把它們都給混淆了。也請別把每樣東西都標簽為種族主義，不然如果有一天老美向老中開戰的話馬來西亞的‘馬來’政府將不能提出抗議。巫統它不是華人也不是‘白人’。

慾閲讀更多：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism