(Image source: http://www.essex.ac.uk)
Remember when the thick headed Malaysian politicians killed the proposed Race Relations Act with laughable but truly stupid reason?
RPK take a shot of it and said this in his blog: –
Indonesia is not safe for the Chinese, many Malays will tell you. They kill Chinese in Indonesia. And that is why many Chinese have left Indonesia and have migrated to another country. The Chinese are more fortunate in Malaysia. In no other country are the Chinese as lucky as the Chinese in Malaysia. This is the belief of most Malays.
Well, in November 2008, Indonesia passed the Non-discrimination Act (UU No. 62/58) that makes it a crime to discriminate against any ethnic group. Indonesia’s aim is to unite all the races. Sure, there may have been problems in Indonesia in the past.
Malaysia too has been having problems on and off since even before Merdeka. But Indonesia is trying to change all that. Malaysia is not only perpetuating racial problems but we even have institutionalised racial discrimination.
The truth cannot be clearer than this and the longer we drag our feet on the reality, it won’t be long before, as RPK said, “our money is going to exodus to our neighbour and one day, soon, we are going to be poorer than that largest Muslim country in the world”
Only in Malaysia, racial discrimination is encoded as law and is celebrated by those in power.
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I honestly believe that you can have all the laws in the world to outlaw racial discrimination but bigotry is something that comes from ones mind. It isn’t something you can outlaw. People might behave in a less racist way but their minds will still be fixated on the fact that someone else with a different skin color, race or religion ought to be despised.
Things like bigotry can only be solved if we as the people of this nation decided to open up to others regardless of race or religion and communicate. A cultural discourse is what’s needed to solidy a society that is united and understanding.
But in the current climate where Indians think that Malays are out to get them and Malays worry that their religion and race are being threatened, we cannot possibly further any of our social agendas. ‘Fear’ is truly holding this nation back.
Aston – true.
Everyone discriminates based on race once in a while but to stop a widespread of racial discriminates, waiting for one to open up is going to take a very long to materialise. Until then, some kind of law and sanction may lead the society to the correct direction.