Dansong,

You might want to revise your points about my point of view because they are incomplete. I don't think this article should be written when the discussion about the refering article has yet to complete. This is another example as of the previous article of commenting based on rashful reaction.

Or you could treat Dan's article as yet another voice in the same discussion--which is not complete and probably will not be complete for a very long time. (Dan could just as well have posted everything in this article in the comments thread of the previous post; but that's not efficient since there are already so many comments there.)

whybegay - Once again, I encourage you to write up your opinion about this issue without any reference to the video at all, rather than telling Dan when he can or cannot write his article?

So I think you basically perceive that any article that contains any tiniest reference to the video is an article damaging to the society that has to be trashed/removed. Then again, with your absolute view on this issue, you are extremely consistent in your comment to Dan's article.

By the way, when is the discussion complete? Is it a staged process that you will like to further elaborate?

"the public, made up of each and every individual, cannot stop discriminations" is a statement of fact, whether you choose to bury your head in the sand or not. It is how we react to the discrimination that is the measure of civility in society. Marina Mahathir compared the reaction of Christians/Catholics to the screening of Da Vinci Code and the Muslim fanatics' response to the Danish Cartoons. Surely you don't expect the banning of Bak Kwa sales this Chinese New Year just because of political correctness?

Surely you don't expect the banning of Bak Kwa sales this Chinese New Year just because of political correctness?

"Ban"? Just did a page search using my browser and the first time the word "ban" appears is in your comment.

There is nothing wrong with selling Bak Kwa either during Chinese New Year or at any other time during the year. And it is entirely reasonable to believe that my Muslim fellow countrymen have no problems with it either. But going door to door to hard sell Bak Kwa and being insistent despite the fact that the resident has repeatedly told you that the family is Muslim and do not eat pork... that's something else.

But what do I know. I'm just another bo liao commenter on the net.

wbg:
So what you are saying is that anyone who engages you before you stop talking/writing completely is rashful. Tell you what, if I bother at all, I'll write your 'intellectual' biography when you finally do stop writing - and don't be bashful, just tell me when.

Brayden:
I don't have sand in my ears, you should check yours. Flaws in your argument. First, you state that the public cannot stop discrimination is a fact, but you give no evidence. The civil rights movement, the anti-colonial movements around the world, in the immediate post-War era in the last century, are examples for my argument that the public CAN stop discrimination. Second, I agree with your statement, 'It is how we react to the discrimination that is the measure of civility in society', but does not this 'reaction', public opinion, when organized and targeted at the discrimination, just as SN was trying to do, stop future discriminations? Third, I don't follow the logical link between the following comments on Marina Mahathir and Bak Kwa and the previous two statements. What has MM's comparison got to do with the public stopping discrimination? And in my argument, why would I expect the banning of Bak Kwa sales? I don't subscribe to PC-ness, and besides, the example of Bak Kwa ban is so ludicrous, as Zhen Wuliao points out, that it seems calculated on your point to paint Muslim sensitivities as unreasonably despotic and to use a cherished Chinese food item as a justification for prejudice.

I apologise but i do not see the reason why part 2 is both racially and religiously sensitive. My personal view is that it could be religiously sensitive (not racially though).

And on a side note, i would think that ppl who find the clip distasteful would similarly find Borat (both the movie and in the Ali G show) done in bad taste. Am i wrong? Just wondering, cos i find similarities.

Ivan:
That's a good question which has given me a thoughtful pause. I would define racial prejudice as the view or belief that one's race is intrinscially (biologically) superior to another's race, and ethnic prejudice as the view or beleif that one's ethnicity is culturally superior to another's culture. The thing is that race and ethnicity is often conflated in Singapore, so that one's ethnic culture is seen as biologically linked to one's, as it is often said, 'blood'. Now, my own opinion on the podcast is that it is more class prejudice than racial and religious prejudice, though both the latter exist in Part 2. This is one way in which Part 2 expresses racial prejudice (I'll let others add other ways in which it may express racial prejudice):

The stereotyped Indian speech, accent and mannerisms are mimicked by a middle-class Chinese actor, to be laughed at AS SUCH. Together with the repeated 'pok' sounds, this Indian stereotype mocks a group's way of speaking and way of life, creating a caricature of silliness to be laughed at. The superiority of the middle-class Chinese actor, who can speak English 'the right way' and cosmopolitan enough to eat anything without being unencumbered by religious and/or ethnic traditions, is therefore expressed.

Now, let's say you are a middle-class Chinese and when you talk to an Indian colleague, you start mimicking his speech and mannerisms and laugh, do you think he will be offended? Now, imagine you are a middle-class Chinese and talking to a British colleague, he starts mimicking your speech and mannerisms and laugh, will you be offended? Why?

Dansong:

hmmm... i suspected tt might be your response, and for a long time it was my view as well. Personally, race to be is biological, one's chinese as one's born to to chinese parents. However, accent (and of course religion) are not biological. It is easy and in fact natural to conflate accent with race. But ponder upon the Hong Kong accent, Mainland chinese accent, aren't they as Chinese as a race as us Chinese in Singapore?

I can see why it might be and be slightly racial (now), for in Singapore, stereotyping dictates that the indian speaks the accent as seen in the clip. Yet to me, it seems more of a class and cultural problem than a racial one.

It might seem petty, for me to draw fine lines where to the naked eye none seem to exist. But (a big on in fact) then again, searching within, could we not say the same line we don't draw or don't see will add to the race divide we see in society. If we could actually remove race from accent, is that not 1 reason less to discriminate based on race? Alas we don't live in utopia though some of strive towards it, and to a great many or almost all, it will be race race race and race. The indian that is wery smart, the chinese that spek boken eglish, and the malay that relacs in the koner. And never about class, culture and upbringing - something that is common to all races, bridging the great biological divide.

To your scenario:
I would be offended, hell yeah, for he takes to be fresh off the boat. And the indian colleague would be offended too. But why? Because i tried to mimic an indian accent? Or because i did an indian accent that would suggest a class inferiority?

Let me suggest an additional scenario, to draw the lines clearly.
Suppose a British colleague called/insinuated that the Chinese are a dumber, shorter, or just innately incapable of genius. Why would you be offended (i'm taking that you would be)?

Ivan:
From a social scientific point of view, which is akin to the utopia you mention, where people are rational or, at least, reasonable, I agree with you completely. Yup, I think it is more class and ethnic-cultural than racial-biological. The problem is that in BOTH official and popular understanding here, race is conflated with ethnicity and culture. So we become strictly C or M or I or O - I can change my name with a deed poll and sex through an operation, but the race given to me by the bureaucrat is perpetually fixed, and thus I must learn Chinese language and culture.

In the first place, following most scientists and research on genetics, there is no basis for the category of race - there is no such thing as Chinese blood or Indian genes. There is no biological affinity between me and a Hong Konger or a Shanghainese, or to put it another way, there is biological affinity between me and the rest of humankind. I would agree with you that removing accent from race is one less way to discriminate based on race, but I would go further, we need to remove race from ethnicity.

But given that both race and ethnicity are still conflated in public discourse, and that these podcasters are obviously targetting this public discourse with their production, they are also conflating race and ethnicity and are therefore expressing their racial prejudice. My point is that an analysis of the podcast cannot just consider the podcast itself, but must take into account the public discourse (the conflated race-ethnic CMIO view) the podcast is embedded in and the authors (Chinese middle-class taking their leisurely piss at the others) and main audience (Chinese middle-class like Xiaxue who finds it hilarious) of the podcast. Likewise, the scenarios I give are located in the social milieu of localization and globalization today.

In my logic of detaching race from ethnicity, I would not be personally offended by the hypothetical British of your scenario, since I don't identify myself racially in any way except being of the Homo genus. I would write him off as a stupid bigot though, and cease to befriend him and would stand as a witness in court to attest to his racist views in an event he acts out his prejudice. On the other hand, for those scenarios I give you, because they are targetted at the juncture of race-ethnicity and class, at my cultural practices and mannerisms whether called Chinese middle-class or not, I would be offended, and boy, what a scene it would be.

The route down the slippery slope:
"Religious officials are urging couples in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Brunei to shun Valentine's Day tomorrow, saying it conflicts with Islamic principles and could cause moral erosion."

>You cannot be a moral relativist and chide others for expressing their moral viewpoint.

I would like to make a point that by definition, moral relativists make an absolute statement that _none_ of the rest of us are allowed to make moral viewpoints unless it is like their own-- relativistic.

On the post itself: The trouble is that people are not aware of the concept of how people can act and comment on "principles" as opposed to "what's in it for me" or "how it offends me on a personal level.

List of racial discriminations in Malaysia, practiced by government as well as government agencies. This list is an open secret. Best verified by government itself because it got the statistics.

This list is not in the order of importance, that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean least important.

This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc) who were being racially discriminated.

Figures in this list are estimates only and please take it as a guide only. Government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is government of Malaysia too ashamed to publish their racist acts by publishing racial statistics?

This list cover a period of about 50 years since independence (1957).

List of racial discriminations (Malaysia):

(1) Out of all the 5 major banks, only one bank is multi-racial, the rest are controlled by malays

(2) 99% of Petronas directors are malays

(3) 3% of Petronas employees are Chinese

(4) 99% of 2000 Petronas gasoline stations are owned by malays

(5) 100% all contractors working under Petronas projects must be bumis status

(6) 0% of non-malay staffs is legally required in malay companies. But there must be 30% malay staffs in Chinese companies

(7) 5% of all new intake for government army, nurses, polices, is non-malays

(8) 2% is the present Chinese staff in Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), drop from 40% in 1960

(9) 2% is the percentage of non-malay government servants in Putrajaya. But malays make up 98%

(10) 7% is the percentage of Chinese government servants in the whole government (in 2004), drop from 30% in 1960

(11) 95% of government contracts are given to malays

(12) 100% all business licensees are controlled by malay government e.g. Approved Permits, Taxi Permits, etc

(13) 80% of the Chinese rice millers in Kedah had to be sold to malay controlled Bernas in 1980s. Otherwise, life is make difficult for Chinese rice millers

(14) 100 big companies set up, managed and owned by Chinese Malaysians were taken over by government, and later managed by malays since 1970s e.g. MISC, UMBC, UTC, etc

(15) At least 10 Chinese owned bus companies (throughout Malaysia, throughout 40 years) had to be sold to MARA or other malay transport companies due to rejection by malay authority to Chinese application for bus routes and rejection for their application for new buses

(16) 2 Chinese taxi drivers were barred from driving in Johor Larkin bus station. There are about 30 taxi drivers and 3 are Chinese in October 2004. Spoiling taxi club properties was the reason given

(17) 0 non-malays are allowed to get shop lots in the new Muar bus station (November 2004)

(18) 8000 billion ringgit is the total amount the government channeled to malay pockets through ASB, ASN, MARA, privatisation of government agencies, Tabung Haji etc, through NEP over 34 years period

(19) 48 Chinese primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

(20) 144 Indian primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

(21) 2637 malay primary schools built since 1968 - 2000

(22) 2.5% is government budget for Chinese primary schools. Indian schools got only 1%, malay schools got 96.5%

(23) While a Chinese parent with RM1000 salary (monthly) cannot get school-text-book-loan, a malay parent with RM2000 salary is eligible

(24) 10 all public universities vice chancellors are malays

(25) 5% - the government universities lecturers of non-malay origins had been reduced from about 70% in 1965 to only 5% in 2004

(26) Only 5% is given to non-malays for government scholarships over 40 years

(27) 0 Chinese or Indians were sent to Japan and Korea under "Look East Policy"

(28) 128 STPM Chinese top students could not get into the course that they aspired e.g. Medicine (in 2004)

(29) 10% place for non-bumi students for MARA science schools beginning from year 2003, but only 7% are filled. Before that it was 100% malays

(30) 50 cases whereby Chinese and Indian Malaysians, are beaten up in the National Service program in 2003

(31) 25% is Malaysian Chinese population in 2004, drop from 45% in 1957

(32) 7% is the present Malaysian Indians population (2004), a drop from 12% in 1957

(33) 2 million Chinese Malaysians had emigrated to overseas since 40 years ago

(34) 0.5 million Indian Malaysians had emigrated to overseas

(35) 3 million Indonesians had migrated into Malaysia and became Malaysian citizens with bumis status

(36) 600000 are the Chinese and Indian Malaysians with red IC and were rejected repeatedly when applying for citizenship for 40 years. Perhaps 60% of them had already passed away due to old age. This shows racism of how easily Indonesians got their citizenship compare with the Chinese and Indians

(37) 5% - 15% discount for a malay to buy a house, regardless whether the malay is poor or rich

(38) 2% is what Chinese new villages get compare with 98% of what malay villages got for rural development budget

(39) 50 road names (at least) had been changed from Chinese names to other names

(40) 1 Dewan Gan Boon Leong (in Malacca) was altered to other name (e.g. Dewan Serbaguna or sort) when it was being officially used for a few days. Government try to shun Chinese names. This racism happened in around year 2000 or sort

(41) 0 churches/temples were built for each housing estate. But every housing estate got at least one mosque/surau built

(42) 3000 mosques/surau were built in all housing estates throughout Malaysia since 1970. No churches, no temples are required to be built in housing estates

(43) 1 Catholic church in Shah Alam took 20 years to apply to be constructed. But told by malay authority that it must look like a factory and not look like a church. Still not yet approved in 2004

(44) 1 publishing of Bible in Iban language banned (in 2002)

(45) 0 of the government TV stations (RTM1, RTM2, TV3) are directors of non-malay origins

(46) 30 government produced TV dramas and films always showed that the bad guys had Chinese face, and the good guys had malay face. You can check it out since 1970s. Recent years, this tendency becomes less

(47) 10 times, at least, malays (especially Umno) had threatened to massacre the Chinese Malaysians using May 13 since 1969

(48) 20 constituencies won by DAP would not get funds from the government to develop. Or these Chinese majority constituencies would be the last to be developed

(49) 100 constituencies (parliaments and states) had been racistly re-delineated so Chinese voters were diluted that Chinese candidates, particularly DAP candidates lost in election since 1970s

(50) Only 3 out of 12 human rights items are ratified by Malaysia government since 1960

(51) 0 - elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (UN Human Rights) is not ratified by Malaysia government since 1960s

(52) 20 reported cases whereby malay ambulance attendances treated Chinese patients inhumanely, and malay government hospital staffs purposely delay attending to Chinese patients in 2003. Unreported cases may be 200

(53) 50 cases each year whereby Chinese, especially Chinese youths being beaten up by malay youths in public places. We may check at police reports provided the police took the report, otherwise there will be no record

(54) 20 cases every year whereby Chinese drivers who accidentally knocked down malays were seriously assaulted or killed by malays

(55) 12% is what ASB/ASN got per annum while banks fixed deposit is only about 3.5% per annum

There are hundreds more racial discriminations in Malaysia to add to this list of "colossal" racism. It is hope that the victims of racism will write in to expose racism.

Malaysia government should publish statistics showing how much malays had benefited from the "special rights" of malays and at the same time tell the statistics of how much other minority races are being discriminated.

Hence, the responsibility lies in the Malaysia government itself to publish unadulterated statistics of racial discrimination.

If the Malaysia government hides the statistics above, then there must be some evil doings, immoral doings, shameful doings and sinful doings, like the Nazi, going on onto the non-malays of Malaysia.

Civilized nation, unlike evil Nazi, must publish statistics to show its treatment on its minority races. This is what Malaysia must publish.

We are asking for the publication of the statistics showing how "implementation of special rights of malays" had inflicted colossal racial discrimination onto non-malays.