Time we call out racists, even those from our own community

 

I refuse to believe that the sheer lottery of being born into a particular ethnicity or religion somehow confers you with some superiority over others.

Adzhar Ibrahim, FMT

It’s the most divisive force in our nation. It’s the cause, and also the effect, of so many other human failings – insecurity, greed, hate – that jolt and buffet our existence. And it doesn’t seem to be going away.

If racism is the generalisation of other ethnicities in negative terms and worse still, further up (or down) the spectrum of racism, treating them according to these beliefs, then I’d say almost all of us are at least slightly racist.

Our form of racial prejudice is often made worse by other differences we have apart from ethnicity – religion, language, skin colour, nationality, wealth, or anything else that makes the others “others”, and not as one of “us”.

“Vive la difference” – long live the difference – say the French, though neither they nor any others have an exemplary record of celebrating our differences when it comes to race. That’s something easier said than done, even if you actually believe in it. And many don’t.

We certainly have many of these differences in our wonderful, beautiful, crazy country, whether celebrated or not. We’re one of the most diverse nations on earth, where diversity is core to our existence, and not a mere sideshow.

Some old fogies like to describe the time when all Malaysians – or going back further, Malayans – regardless of colour or creed sat down together in total harmony for coffee or perhaps something stronger, and make comparison with what goes on nowadays, when apparently people don’t do that any more.

While there’s some truth in their recollection, it’s also an exaggeration. Such kumbaya moments happened at most only on the fringe of our society where the various communities overlapped, often at schools and at work. It definitely wasn’t the defining feature of life back then.

Part of the blame must fall on the British colonial power. While they weren’t as ornery to the natives as the Dutch, Germans, Spanish, French, Portuguese etc, they did set in motion events whose reverberations are still felt today.

Basically, it was convenient for them to keep us apart. They divided and ruled. The Malays got to keep most of their traditions, feudal as they were, whilst migrant labour from China and India were brought in but kept apart in mines and plantations. They hardly mixed, staying in their own enclaves.

When we became a nation, stress cracks began to appear. We had nasty moments where we almost went over the edge, especially in 1969, which in turn created its own political and social reverberations felt to this day.

While we still have the diversity that gave us so much success and potential for more, Malaysians are also moving away from each other, fracturing over things such as the economy, education, language and lately, religion.

In global terms, are we the outlier on race relations? You’d have thought so, except that some recent events are proving otherwise.

The carnage in Gaza is one such event, pulling apart the veil that hides the fact that, whoever and wherever we are, ethnicity still plays a key part in our identity and behaviour.

The US is showing its ugly side, with their old racism propagated as well as exploited by the likes of Donald Trump and others. Europe too seems to be heaving further to the right, inching closer to their old fascist ways.

The rise of Asian powers certainly has stirred some old racial issues. China, especially, is being demonised by the west, possibly out of fear of losing their economic and military dominance and perhaps also as a continuation of the 19th century racist trope on the Asian “Yellow Peril”.

And China, and India too especially, aren’t free of their own racist policies, even if often cloaked under the cover of nationalism or economics or geopolitics. That needs to be said.

Let’s come back to home: start by pointing fingers as to who among Malaysians are the most prejudiced. Is there a clear winner?

There are two ways of looking at it. If you look back at our earlier definition of racism, I’d say we all come from stocks of rather racist and xenophobic people, whether from the Malay Peninsula or China or India. Feel free to choose your own “winner” here.

But based on who has gained the most from racist policies, that would have to be the Malays. The Malays have dominated Malaysia’s politics since the country’s inception, and have used their dominance to propagate increasingly discriminatory policies to their own advantage.

While many would say politics is about taking care of your own interests, their breaking of rules and norms and covenants through sheer political machination is unconscionable, often unIslamic and ultimately counterproductive.

This has often pained me, and I hope I’ve done more than just wallow in self-pity and have staked a position on the ground that this doesn’t represent me or what I stand for.

Am I blessed with a purer soul than many others on this? Did I luck out when God was divvying up conscience and soul?

I doubt it. What drives me is simple: I hate bullies. I hate it when those with advantages – power, wealth etc – oppress those without. I’ll always be on the side of the underdogs, even if the “underdogs” are not of my “kind”, while the bullies are.

That drives a lot of my belief on whatever is happening out there – from apartheid to slavery to genocide and oppression everywhere. I always stand with the underdog.

Another factor is my need to find balance. If somebody points a finger anywhere, I can also see that other fingers point back at them. It can get to be that if today I’m on the side of A against B, tomorrow, on another matter, I could easily be on the side of B against A.

And as it always happens, it’s when the powerful point fingers that the most damage happens. So, this tends to fit in with my always-for-the-underdog belief too.

I really hope that many Malaysians can come around to speaking out against powerful but malign forces attacking the weak or defenceless, wherever they are.

I refuse to believe that the sheer lottery of being born into a particular ethnicity or religion somehow confers you some superiority over others.

No, it doesn’t. It’s what you do after you’re born, the choices you make and the impacts you have on others that determine your worth as a human being.

Having said that, I don’t think the Malay people are inherently more prejudiced than other fellow Malaysians. There’s a deep streak of racial prejudice among Chinese and Indians, too, against those not of their “tribe”, possibly running even deeper than that of the Malays.

I don’t think this is something that has been openly addressed much. I find that many non-Malays are happy with my speaking out against Malay racism, but who somehow get offended when the finger is pointed their way. Remember folks – balance!

While being less racist for lack of opportunity – especially the political power to do so – has its virtues, it still doesn’t quite mean you’re “clean”.

A very racial poster on social media recently said ”the truth hurts” in defence of the vile post. I couldn’t help but reflect that every single racist in existence, including those whose racism is directed against this person’s own race, believes exactly the same way.

The truth that should really hurt is that we’re all actually more alike than we are different. It’s ridiculous being racist when we are of the same race – the human race.