Vengeful racism

Last week, I wrote a very dire piece on Malaysia and how we will be stuck with racism. I will continue on that dire tone because – like it or not – racism is easy to spot with no monopoly of any one particular ethnic group in Malaysia.

It is easy to be racist in Malaysia, and most of it is due to our own society's actions in self sabotage. You don't have to look far to notice the obvious, just walk into any government department.

The civil service is majority Malay. Where are the non-Malays in the civil service?

I once naively said that it was due to the low wages, while some have told me that there was a barrier stopping them from advancing. I found that odd considering even our Ministry of International Trade and Industry is led by Tan Sri Rebecca Santa Maria as secretary-general.

Yet, there will continue to be some sordid tale of how racism stopped a parent, an uncle, or some cousin or a friend of a friend of a friend from advancing up the ranks. And yet, if such was going on, why not make it public then?

Apparently, that wouldn't be very Malaysian.

Of course not. To be Malaysian is to save such a sordid tale for the next generation to become racists by telling them not to go into the civil service because of such a sordid tale of woe that could be romanticised into a movie worthy to be directed by Ang Lee.

This vengeful racism is even in the schools and even spread to kindergartens.

Someone gets ostracised due to racism, therefore the next generation should ostracise based on race too, as if somehow this avenges some perceived injustice worthy of the girl in Pacific Rim yelling "For my family!".

As if this wasn't dumb enough, it gets dumber.

Run an "ikan bakar" franchise, ruin it for political mileage, and then blame it on everyone else but yourself.

Then lead a bunch of rednecks into downtown Kuala Lumpur. As a sequel, now threaten to lead a riot on Petaling Street.

Why?

Because he could not get the authorities to approve his desire for an "ikan bakar" branch there a decade ago. Someone get this guy to Quentin Tarantino. Honestly, it is a very twisted tale worthy of chronicles as "The Chief of Big River", or even the "Odd Tales of Munchausen's" suffered by a right-wing mobster.

There you have it. Racism begets racism begets racism, or as I term it, "laissez faire racism" that has remained sustainable for almost 60 years and counting.

And look, it wasn't even political. If you look back at all three, it was all revenge, revenge and more revenge.

Teach all of these people to sing and dance, and we won't even need Bollywood movies anymore.

The worst thing of all is the marketed solution. Get the constitution amended, abolish the pro-Bumiputera policies and have some anti-racism law, and somehow we will all end up happy like Harry Potter sending his kids to Hogwarts altogether as one egalitarian non-racist society with a happy ending.

There might even be a march into Dataran Merdeka singing Les Miserables' "Do You Hear The People Sing" without even caring that Victor Hugo killed them all at the end, affected no change whatsoever because they couldn't get support from the masses who did not support them.

It is easy to be hopeful that one day Malaysians of all races can sit together and sing Kumbaya, but it is right now as believable as you throwing a pig off the KL Tower and saying it can fly.

As one friend tweeted his boss's words; hoping is not a strategy.

You can take all the Facebook photos you want and say "look, we are all different races holding placards together" all you want to somehow show your pro-diversity, but take a look at any restaurant table or even a school canteen during the day.

It will tell you a far different story. Heck, just walking into some companies will tell you it is a different story. So what should Malaysians do?

Well, there are a few options. We can keep spewing "Everything is Awesome" and then be shocked when it hits us in the face, as it did during the first "red shirt" rally.

Or, we could simply stop letting it affect us and get on with more important things in our lives, most preferably without bumping into a kid in a tutu telling us she "won't speak to strangers, especially Malays, because they are stupid" or her parents, as mentioned in that viral Facebook post.

Racism will only affect us if we let it. I choose to be very, very sarcastic instead. – September 29, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.