Bias, Prejudice and Perception

Let Desi put in simple language his layman definitions of the three terms before applyig to some current issues besetting the nation, or the world, or our "human" reality.

Bias -- attitude or feeling of taking a certain side on an issue or regarding a person/party;

Prejudice -- preconceived view or attitude towards an issue or regarding a person/party;

Perception -- what a person thinks or feels about an issue or person (which may or may not conincide with the facts or reality)

The Star frontpage features a call by esteemed Prime Minister speaking at that world forum and lamenting Man's perennial problems ...yes, stemming much from Bias, Prejudice and (Mis-)Perception


Stop the bias



NEW YORK: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi made an impassioned plea to Western countries to have a better understanding of Islam and not be prejudiced by the works of extremists.

“Much of the ills in the affairs of our world were the result of irrational actions caused by prejudices,” said the Prime Minister, adding that much of the prejudices stemmed from ignorance about what Islam stands for.

Abdullah told the 61st UN general assembly here on Wednesday night of his concerns over the growing schism between the West and the Muslim world, citing that dialogues which had taken place involved parties “talking at” instead of “talking to” one another.

Calling for more honest dialogues, he said: “Any dialogue would certainly fail if it is already predetermined that certain states are ‘rogues’ or that certain countries are necessarily ‘evil’.”

He explained that Islam was not the source of intolerance between peoples of different faiths.

The “perverse words and evil deeds” of extremists from the fringes of Muslim societies must not be confused as a reflection of Islamic culture, he stressed.

“The demonisation of Islam must be stopped and Islamophobia must be removed,” he said.

The suppression of Palestine, the invasion of Afghanistan and the destruction of Lebanon, among others, were carried out in the name of the war against terrorism, he said, but the Muslim world would view these actions as a complicity to humiliate Muslim countries.

“The fact is that the sense of humiliation felt by the Muslim world is the root cause for the loss of trust between the Muslim world and the Judeo-Christian civilisation.”

He pointed out that the greatest discord today existed among the descendants of Abraham – the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam – who had shared a common beginning which was the religion of Abraham.

Abdullah also reminded UN member countries that the world body was created to be a “Parliament of Man”.

“Six decades since then, we have yet to achieve the intentions of the UN Charter,” he said.

The “human family”, he said, still could not find solutions to their own problems.

He also urged the UN to stop social and economic injustices such as poverty and disease.


DESIDERATA:

The Prime Minister was taking the world stage as his canvas yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly, and he spoke like a statesman, not a politician. The UN has not been able to achieve its main mission of "world peace", some 60 years after its formation. This annual gathering of world leaders allows for national leaders and statesmen to engage in self-glorified speech-making -- often in self-centred verbiage, full of grandiose semantics, but on close examination, the meat is all meandering on the peripheries of the core problems besieging the world.

It's Man's perennial problems -- inherent by its very nature of being a member of the species called Homo sapiens.

So is the diagnosis by Pak Lah anything new, or fundamentally fresh?

My short answer is a BIG NO.


Fundamentally, the issues and problems he outlined have always been, are and will continue to be the stuff of more such speeches on the world stage. It's only the local MSM who'd like to make us believe as if the nation's leader has come up with something new or fresh. No, the same old problems will always beset the peoples of the world. And the leaders will contiue to beat around the bush.

A prime example Pak Lah cited is a good case of what MIS-Perception is, viz: "The suppression of Palestine, the invasion of Afghanistan and the destruction of Lebanon, among others, were carried out in the name of the war against terrorism, he said, but the Muslim world would view these actions as a complicity to humiliate Muslim countries.

One party "deems" it a war against terror -- but another party "thinks" it a complot against it.
Party A deems Party B as The Terorists;
Party B deems themselves as Freedom Fighters. And call Party A The Terrorists!
Differences in Perception? Or it's all Semantics again?



So who can reconcile the oposing views?

It's not for a small fry such as you or Desi to offer solutiuons.
We are human beings watching, waiting. Maybe sometimes we pray. We indeed live from century to century -- about the maximum life-span of the individual human possible at the moment -- quite an advance from perhaps 50 years some few centuries back. Mainly thanks to scientists, no, not the politicians. We don't know if the Madcaps out there will terminate the Earth we know today with the next World War -- or as some parties put it, the last World War has already started.

Big Brother the USA will always "talk at" or "talk down" to other nations, especially after the dismantling of the other "balancing" super-power The Soviet Union. Until and unless maybe China or Germany can rise to be near equals half a century hence?

"Talking to" is only possible among Equals, and the US is not about to recognise ant other nation to being "close" to be an equal.

The clash of Muslim world and the Christian-Judeo civiklization will pose the greatest challnge facing us. Nay, this clash may even be the determinant of the survival of the human race -- and the sad answer is that world leaders are nowhere nearer to an Answer since the end of World War II in 1945 that led to the birth of the UN, hoping to succeed where its, The League of Nations, had failed.

But Pak Lah has done his expected duties on the world stage. What awaits him at home when he returns to face similar challenges in NegaraKu -- is a microcosm of the BIG prolems on a lesser scale. Bias, Prejudice and Perception. Can he arrest the yawning chasm between Islam followers and members of the other minorities, believers of Christianity, Hnduism, and Buddhism, and what have you. All chiefly flowing from Bias, Prejudice and Mis-Perception, much comp[licated by self-serving politicians? The politicians p(o)ut on the face of a Statesman on the world stage.