Racial Problems in M'sia

Our current "hoohah" in Malaysian politics has made it onto Newsweek and The Economist... Well, for once, the foreign media seems to have got some of the facts right... It's remarkable that we've been able to prosper in peace for the last 50 years or so... However, just scratch the surface a little, and racial issues will always pop up... Why??

Simply because, we've never out-grown the "divide-and-conquer" policy used by our various colonial masters in the past.. We've all learned it in our history books... the Malays were given positions in public administration, the Chinese were given business rights and the Indians worked in the plantations... As long as the races weren't united, it was easy to keep each one under control..

Then, an anomaly happened after WW2... The various races banded together and asked for independence... And guess what?? We got it... At about that time, all the races were happily co-existing with each other... There was a great spirit of "muhibbah" and all that... Things were good for a while... But then, for some reason, things began to go south very quickly... And everyone reverted back to the original tribal affiliations... And we were back to our racial mindset... Why??

One of the reasons is obviously Article 153 of the constitution... This article enshrined the policy of "racial preference" in our constitution... Well, nature tends to chaos... Racism happens everywhere... Getting it out in the open and putting it down on paper makes some sense in that way... However, you cannot help it if the people start identifying by race when the constitution encourages people to do so with such a construct in it...

Another thing that i find rather disturbing at times, is the distortion of the facts of 13 May 1969... That's supposedly the day our whole country errupted in racial violence resulting in "deaths of an unimaginable scale"... But the the violence was mainly contained to only a very small part of the country, KL... Most of the country was going about business as usual... Now, people did die, and it was an ugly thing... However, spreading this kind of FUD isn't going to help matters...

Another reason is simply because of racial politics... Everything in BN is divided up by race... Number of seats in parliament, control of various ministries, and other power sharing agreements... This is a case of "cakap tak serupa bikin"... The leaders ask us to stand united as one, when they themselves stand divided, tied up by fairly intangible and fluid back room contracts and controls...

Then, look at all the forms in the country... For practically every form in the country, the first 3 questions will typically be: (1) Name (2) Age/Gender (3) Race/Religion... That can't be a good thing...

Well, things are not ALL bad yet... There are still moderates on various sides that try their best to keep the fragile peace in place... Because everyone knows, that if this peace is not maintained, things'll go really bad for everyone, and no one will win... Spill-over effects will ensure that even our neighbours are affected...

However, it is exactly, that: a fragile peace... Makes me depressed just thinking about it...