The cold hard truth about racial relationship in the country

By admin-s On May 27, 2024

Have you ever seen a Manchester United fan who wished Liverpool well? Of course not. A Manchester United fan might wish a Liverpool player like Mo Salah well, but they will never wish Liverpool FC well.

Nehru Sathiamoorthy

There was this news I just read in WeirdKaya about how a Chinese man took care of 3 Muslim children as he would his own children for 16 years, and when I read it, I thought to myself, “ if Malaysians truly think that such incidences are in any way relevant to improving racial relationship in the country, they are delusional.”

I also have friends who are from a different race and religion. One of them is Chinese and the other one is a Muslim. They are the only two friends I have and they are more than friends to me – I love and cherish them more than I do my own blood family – but just because my two brothers are Chinese and Muslims, it doesn’t mean I am for the Chinese or the Muslims.

I am not for the Chinese or the Muslims, because I am an Indian.

Being an Indian, I am chiefly for the Indians, regardless of whether I like the Indians or not.

Being an Indian in other words, is like being in a family. You don’t have to like your family in order to be a part of a family. When you are a part of your family, you have to bestow favors and come to their aid when they are in trouble not because you like them, but because it is your duty and an obligation.

You want your family to be big, strong and powerful, not because your family makes you happy, but because the bigger, stronger and more powerful your family is, the more likely they will be able to bestow you with favours and assistance.

Other than that, the bigger, more powerful and stronger your family is, the more likely you will be able to shape the world in your image as well.

A big part of who we are depends on the early indoctrination that we underwent. Our family is the most important component of our early indoctrination. What we find funny, tasty, acceptable and revolting are in large part due to the indoctrination we received during our impressionable age.

The bigger, more powerful and stronger our family is, the more we will be able to shape the world according to our preference. If the Indians are the most powerful nation in the world for example, nobody is going to eat beef. If the Muslims rule the world on the other hand, nobody is going to eat pork. If the Chinese rule the world, everybody is going to speak Mandarin. There is nothing particularly significant about eating beef, pork or speaking Mandarin in and off itself. They are just preferences that are either pleasant or revolting to us on account of the indoctrination we underwent. The more powerful and strong your family or race or nation is, the more we will be able to impose our preference on other people and shape the world in our image.

Now coming back to my Chinese and Muslim buddies, can I expect them to help me to fight for the Indians, help the Indians or be interested in the welfare and prospects of the Indians just because I am an Indian and I am their friend? Of course not.

Why should they expand their valuable time, effort, energy and resources to help the Indians when they gain nothing from it?

I am likely the only Indian that they love and cherish as they love and cherish themselves just like they are the only Chinese and Muslim that I love and cherish as I love and cherish myself. Just because I love and cherish them as I cherish myself, it doesn’t mean I love and cherish all the Chinese and the Muslims in the world.

As a matter of fact, my view of all the Chinese and Muslims in the world is the same as the view that a Manchester United fan has for Liverpool FC.

I know many people who are married to a spouse from a different race and who even have children who half belong to another race, but still, they don’t love or cherish that other race. This, by the way, is actually a rule rather than the exception. It is, because this is what having an identity is all about. There is nobody who belongs to one identity who can wish another identity group well, in the same way that there cannot be a fan of Manchester United who fully wishes Liverpool FC well. If they say they do, it can only mean that they are delusional or lying.

The thing we ultimately cherish and love in the world is ourselves. The only reason we even cherish God is because we cherish and love ourselves. If the skies were to open tomorrow and God were to speak and say that he wants to throw us all in hell just for the heck of it, we would be against God, even if it is God that created us and our world.

Because we ultimately only cherish ourselves, the only other thing in the world that we can cherish are things that remind us of ourselves.

We can love and cherish certain people from a different race or religious grouping because they remind us of ourselves, but we cannot love and cherish the entire race or religious grouping for as long as we belong in a different race or religious grouping.

Irrationally, we can even love and cherish some individuals from a different race and religious grouping, while wanting that race and religious grouping to fail and suffer defeat at the same time, even if at the back of our mind, we know that the individuals from that race and religious grouping that we cherish will only be able to do well if their race and religious grouping does well.

We can do this, because even if our desires conflict with each other, it doesn’t mean it is not real. It just means that we are being irrational, but the fact of the matter is that rationality alone doesn’t form our world – irrationality also forms half of our reality.

So what does having a Chinese man who loves and raised 3 Malay children as if they were his own children mean to racial relationships in the country?

It means the same as me loving my two Chinese and Muslim buddies more than I do even my own family.

It means a lot to us, but it doesn’t mean anything to the racial relationship in the country.

It means nothing because I might put myself into a lot of trouble to do my Chinese and Muslim buddies a favour or help them when they are in trouble, but if some other Chinese or Muslim needs a favour or is in trouble, I think it is other Chinese and other Muslims that should help them out, not me.