You will be happy to know that obscenity charges against this singer have been dropped by the Malaysian moral police. You couldn't really fault Malaysian authorities when in our own backyard artists like Khushboo are continuously hounded.Yet, there is a sign that conservatism is on the rise in Malaysia.
In August, pop star Gwen Stefani was told to dress "modestly" for a concert after the National Union of Malaysia Muslim Students protested on the grounds that she would bring an "American hegemonic background," said the group's president, Hilmi Ramli. Last month, singer Beyonce Knowles canceled her Nov. 1 debut concert in Malaysia. [..]Student groups are very active supporters of these measures. As Rushdie said in his book Midnight's Children, it is funny that in these cultures students actually clamor for more control!
Authorities have required Malaysian rock stars to cut their hair or forfeit the opportunity to appear on TV or radio, and frequently remind Malaysians of the consequences for openly addressing "sensitive" issues such as race and religion. In 2005, the standards were extended to foreign performers, who were required to be covered from shoulder to knees and prohibited from hugging or kissing fellow artists or audience members, jumping or shouting, cursing, or exchanging objects with the audience.
"They have to dress decently ... and behave in a manner appropriate in Malaysia," said Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Rais Yatim. [link]
Of course, none of this really concerns us and according to some, shouldn't concern us. Alas, if only everyone accepted this dictum of national boundaries and statehood vs. identity. We have a situation where if a butterfly flutters its wings anywhere, we get into trouble. There is a pattern and predictability to these things, for instance, all the bloggers protesting against the crackdown on ethnic Hindus are actually ethnic Chinese.
Yeah, okay, calling the economic and social hardships of Malaysian Indian society an "ethnic cleansing" isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world you could do, because 1) no one will take you seriously, and 2) it only offers the Government free ammunition. (Re: Tian Chua.) Also, the people of Darfur would like to have a word with you. It was an outrageous statement, and the Hindraf leaders can't possibly be stupid enough to believe it.Before coming to the ethnic cleansing claims, one more from the same blogger:
But at the same time... it worked, didn't it? Hindraf's been around since, what, May? Now, I haven't been in Malaysia since February, but I seriously doubt most people even heard of Hindraf. (I did, but never heard from them again.) They were about as effective as, well, a Malaysian opposition, really. [link]
Everyone's dodging the real issue, of course: that Indians have been fucked around more than any other race in Malaysian history. Don't give me that nonsense about how other races have it bad too - no one has it as bad as the Malaysian Indians. It's not even up for debate. The Malays have the bumi thing going for them. The Chinese have the business world practically locked up. (Yes, I'm generalising here. Doesn't make it less true.) What do the Indians have? They don't even have opportunities. (Again, generalising, but you get the idea by now.) So let's not pretend that "we're all suffering equally". [emphasis in original]However, none of this is surprising or new. It is hardly surprising that only the ethnic Chinese will support the Hindus in Malaysia, just as it isn't surprising that the Chinese will not have too much problems in Malaysia. First of all, ethnic Chinese people control all the powerful and economically advanced states in the region - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. If Malays mess with Chinese they will get their ass kicked all over South China Sea. What is important is how strongly the Malaysian Government reacted to the allegations of ethnic cleansing:
In a statement reflective of the growing tension in Malaysia over ethnic clashes, the country’s Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on Sunday offered to resign if the allegation of ethnic cleansing of Indian Tamils was proved. Outraged at the allegations levelled against his government by a local Hindu group, Badawi said the statements were aimed at dividing Malaysia. "I rarely get angry but this time I am very angry and this is something I cannot accept," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times. [link]This is merely the PR front, action is being taken behind the scenes as well. The Government has ordered the detention of Hindraf leaders. Contrast this with the allegations of genocide in India and the reaction of our people friendly Government.
Whether we can support Hindraf or not, we should be thankful to them for forcing an objective evaluation of terms such as genocide, pogrom etc., which are being thrown around too casually for far too long.
2 comments:
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.
>> 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. >>
Do you expect the Indian government to ask Malaysia not to hide such important statistics ?
>> 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. >>
Even though the Indian government has unmatched expertise in this area, I am not sure how we can help.
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