Young&Articulate ... Part 4 (Final)

desiderata.civilsociety

sub-title: THE MALAYSIAN DILEMMA -- LAMENTS OF THE YOUTH TODAY (Final, part4)


I first sighted John Ling's writings when he appeared as GUEST BLOGGER at http://yvonnefoong.blogspot.com in conjunction with a marathon bogging event to raise funds for charity. Then I learnt he's a published writer with strong interests in ethnopolitics and peacekeeping. You can find out more about him and his work at http://www.johnling.net. Desi had the pleasure of ENJOYING his two-part narrative THE ASCENSION as part of the INTEGRITY SERIES recently hosted at sabrinawstan.blogsome.com. It's a small, small world they say, as today I host yet another awesome Young&Articulate, and following in first GuestBlogger Sabrina's footsteps here, John Ling and Sabrina hail from a campus somewhere reminding Desi of the trilogy of Lord Of the Rings as Christmas approaches.

I thank the Young&Articulate John for reprising his Essay on Institutionalised Racism, a subject I believe has its domestic reference points, and would surely attract some debate, among Malaysians, be you home-based, or presently studying or working abroad. Desi feels RACISM is something throbbing at our daily heartbeats everyday, whether you like it or not.

Without fail, you can easily spot the DIFFERENTIATED PRICES on that huge billboard advertising the new housing scheme in your neighbourhood, don't you?The faster that such a landscape disappears from the Malaysian horizon, the faster will nation-building start or progress ...Desi's constant take here.

So here comes an international perspective with its local reverberations of a core problem within THE MALAYSIAN DILEMMA (the emphasis in BOLD is Desi's...):

******* You are enjoying a stroll down a sidewalk in some foreign country. The approaching hum of an engine fills your ears. You turn just in time to see a face lean out from a passing car.
“Hey, chink. Go home! We don’t want you here stealing our jobs!”
You are stunned. Frozen. Then, the anger hits.
“I am a student, you idiot!”

The car’s engine accelerates into a roar, tires screeching. It rockets around the corner and disappears. The person who had just insulted you is gone. You are not sure whether he even heard your retort.
Later, you complain to a friend about your brush with racial discrimination. She smiles knowingly and corrects you.
“That’s not discrimination. That is merely prejudice.”
You scratch your head and wonder what the difference is.

Racism has been a feature of humanity since the dawn of history. A Jew is regarded as manipulative. A Chinese is greedy. A white man is a redneck. A black man is dishonest.
We unconsciously fear what we do not understand. Our fear gives birth to prejudice. Prejudice gives birth to stereotype.
And we are all guilty of stereotyping. Each time we disapprove of our offspring dating someone of another race. Each time we crack a joke about a Malay colleague taking excessive sick leave. Each time we use the term ‘diaper head’ when referring to practising Sikhs.

The United Nations characterises racial discrimination as:
Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
Which leads us to one expression of discrimination: institutionalised racism.

WHAT IS INSTITUTIONALISED RACISM?

Also known as affirmative action or positive discrimination, institutionalised racism gives institutions such as government divisions, universities and corporations the power to grant or withhold rights based on race.
It first emerged as a product of colonialism. Non-European cultures were seen as barbaric and immature, and as part of the white man’s burden, Westerners believed they had a responsibility to rule and guide the development of non-Europeans. While benevolent in theory, it was malevolent in practice. The apartheid system in South Africa is a classic example of visible, unproductive discrimination against blacks in favour of whites.

From a socioeconomic standpoint, colonialism could not be sustained. It was impossible to continually hijack the productive resources of a country while shutting out talented and capable people based on race from participation.


As such, the collapse of colonialism over the last half-century led to the rise of race-based policies. It was argued that races that were previously oppressed under colonialism should be given preferential access to jobs and schooling. By changing the distribution of economic and educational opportunities, an egalitarian society with greater social welfare would be possible. Former American President Lyndon B. Johnson once said in defense of affirmative action for blacks, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line in a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others', and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."
Sounds good. But is affirmative action all that it is cracked up to be? Or is it simply a sugarcoated version of racism?

SHADY COLOURS

It has been known for some time that affirmative action creates a condition known as moral hazard.
For example, a person with insurance is far more likely to ski recklessly down a mountainside than a person without any. In the same way, those with preferential access to economic and educational opportunities are susceptible to abusing them in two ways. The first is to use preferential access as a safety net to avoid the risks associated with competition. The second is to use it to illicitly enrich oneself.
Take a government project that is given to a contractor with preferential access. Instead of working exclusively on it, he keeps it as a backup, while he ventures into riskier, costlier projects. He knows that even if these fail, he can comfortably fall back to the safety of the government project that was allocated to him.

This is done at the expense of taxpayers, and leads to enormous wastage and inefficiency. Countries that practise institutionalised racism have a lower GDP per capita than progressive countries that do not.

Furthermore, institutionalised racism has brought about some serious consequences for the fabric of society. Racial prejudice does not lead to racial discrimination, but racial discrimination, in contrast, leads to racial prejudice. Preferential access on the basis of race, rather than true neediness, reinforces stereotypes and erases individuality. At birth, the future potential of each citizen is already mapped out by the law. A person is lumped into a fixed category, and preconceptions about racial superiority and inferiority are thereby cemented.

The surest sign of patriotism is the willingness of citizens to sacrifice for the sake of improving a country. But if entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists are given the shorter end of the stick based solely on race, then a nation may end up back where it started. Talented and capable people are shut out from participation. By choice, they may be unwilling to go the extra mile for a system that discriminates against them.*******"

PS to johnling: You are the Ho(R)st holding court here for the fulltime 24-hour play while I act as the Water-Boy answering to those thirsty individual, not institutionalised, actors. OK, add also 'actresses', lest some accuse Desi of discriminasi, and I do need to jaga my rice-bowl, don't I?
So feel free to kick the ball into John's court. No penalty shots, right!


"Patriotism is to support your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain