Malaysian Chinese Forum kicks off with a bang; Chua-Lim showdown!

Soi Lek fires salvos at Guan Eng ahead of debate



 Chua: People the winner in the debate

Chua and Penang chief minister Guan Eng agreed to keep the debate professional and not as a platform to decide who is the winner or loser.

KUALA LUMPUR: The people has emerged as the ultimate winner in the debate between the MCA and DAP here today as it allowed the Malaysian public to evaluate for themselves the policies and stands of the Barisan Nasional and the opposition.

“The winner is the rakyat and not Lim Guan Eng (DAP secretary-general) or Chua Soi Lek,” said MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek in a joint news conference soon after concluding the debate, which drew a hugh public interest, especially from the Chinese community and was telecast live on Astro, that is on Astro AEC and Awani.

“An engagement like this will allow the rakyat to see the stands of BN and Pakatan,” he said after the hour-long debate titled “Is the two-party system becoming a two-race system?” organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) and MCA’s think-tank, Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap).

Right from the beginning, Chua and his fellow debater, the Penang chief minister, agreed to keep the debate professional and not as a platform to decide who is the winner or loser.

The debate was conducted in Mandarin and was moderated by Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall chief executive officer Tan Ah Chai.

On a question whether both parties had answered the questions raised in the debate, Chua said he believed he could have provided better explanation if they were given more time and opportunity.

Meanwhile, Lim said the debate could be a good beginning to become a more matured democratic society, adding that such an event should be more frequently organised.

“I think this is something good and I hope this will not be the first and last. I feel it will open up the mind of our rakyat because issues must be debated rationally,” he said.

Lim said both he and Chua had agreed to meet again for another round of public debate, which would be in Bahasa Malaysia or English, and they would decide later on other details of the debate including topics, time and venue.

Lim added the ultimate debate that the people were awaiting to see would be between Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Bernama

11:42AM Feb 18, 2012

MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek kicked off the much anticipated ‘Malaysian Chinese At the Political Crossroads’ conference today with an all out verbal assault against Pakatan Rakyat, ahead of his debate against DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Hall erupts as MCA, DAP titans face off

4.55PM Feb 18, 2012

Two of the most prominent Chinese politicians go head-to-head in a rare televised debate with MCA president Chua Soi Lek facing off DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

The debate topic is titled 'Chinese at the crossroads: Is the two-party system becoming a two-race system?'.

Tensions runs high in the packed ballroom at the Berjaya Hotel, Kuala Lumpur with a 600-strong crowd.

About 200 more who failed to secure entry passes are viewing following the debate through a big screen outside the hall (left).

LIVE REPORTS

4.55pm: The ballroom erupts as rival supporters chant stands up to chant the respective names of the debators as they take the stage.

5pm: Moderator Tan Ah Chai, chief executive officer of the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, kicks off the session by explaining the rules.

For the opening speeches, each debator will be allowed to speak for eight minutes.

5.02pm: The duo draw steps up to the moderator's podium to lots enclosed in a envelope, to choose the first speaker. Chua Soi Lek will go first.

5.05pm: After March 8, 2008. DAP has been practising the politics of hatred, says Chua.

He adds DAP has changed and is now teaming up with PAS, which wants to implement a theocratic state. He says DAP cannot stop PAS.

"DAP is just talking big," said Chua, triggering the first major applause from the floor, albiet from the MCA side.

He backs up his argument by stating that Kedah practice gender segregation while PAS is opposing to cinemas in Bangi, Selangor.

5.07pm: DAP likes to tell the Chinese that voting the opposition would improve living standards, pointing to how a DAP candidate can become a chief minister of Penang, says Chua.

Chua says DAP was giving false hopes to the Chinese that such a situation can happen in other states too.

5.10pm: Chua says that in multi-cultural country, Malaysians cannot support PAS because of its Islamic state agenda.

"Who is PAS' biggest ally?" asks Chua, to which the MCA crowd shouts in unison "DAP!".

5.12pm: It's now Lim Guan Eng's turn.

He thanks the organisers for organising the debate but says that what the public wants to see is a debate between PM Najib Razak and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

5.14pm: "We in Pakatan Rakyat don't make use of each other. Our concern is how the public makes use of us.

"We aren't against the Malays. We aren't against the Chinese. We are against corruption," says Lim, whipping the Pakatan crowd into a frenzy...

By ISABELLE LAI

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Chinese at a Political Crossroads forum kicked off with a bang Saturday as MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek brought down the house with his fiery opening speech.

Dr Chua appeared to be metaphorically rolling up his sleeves in preparation for his debate with political opponent, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in the evening.

"He (Lim) is more interested in issuing countless statements to condemn or challenge others, behaving like a true street fighter. He has forgotten that he has a state to look after," said Dr Chua to tumultous applause.

The forum, jointly-organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute and MCA think-tank Insap, is being held at Berjaya Times Square here, with the highly-anticipated debate set to begin at 5pm.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak also could not resist referring to the Dr Chua-Lim showdown, saying with a grin that he heard there would be a "boxing match" in the evening.

"He (Chua) is going into the ring. As I can see from his speech, he is very well prepared.

"So we wish him all the very best, and as the boxing term goes, we hope he will punch above his weight," quipped Najib in his speech.

Both DAP and MCA delegates as well as members of the public will comprise the 750-strong audience who will later witness the debate, which will be conducted in Mandarin.

Overseas radio listeners can tune in to The Star's 988FM live broadcast via the station's website. www.988.com.my.

Local listeners should tune in to these frequencies: Kedah, Perlis,Langkawi (FM96.1), Taiping (FM96.1/94.5), Kuantan and Pahang (FM90.4),north Johor and Malacca (FM98.2), Penang (FM94.5), Ipoh (FM99.8), KlangValley (FM98.8), Negri Sembilan (FM93.3) and south Johor and Singapore (FM99.9).

Astro AEC (Channel 301) will also air the debate live, with a repeat telecast at 11pm while live streaming is available via its website www.astro.com.my/bendiquan.

Non-Mandarin speakers can watch the Bahasa Malaysia version on Astro Awani (Channel 501).

The debate will also be aired live on Astro AEC (Channel 301).

Malaysian Two Party System Becoming a Two-Race System?” A question of one or two sarongs!

Malaysian Politics: Chua-Lim Debate Sets New Standard

Malaysian Chinese at a Political Crossroads forum; Chua-Lim Debate, all hype but no climax

Is the Two-Party-Sytem becoming a Two-Race-System? Online spars started ahead of tomorrow Chua-Lim debate! 

Unconventional Thinking: Small is Beautiful!

Cover via Amazon

Lessons from unconventional thinking

THINK ASIAN By ANDREW SHENG

AT a time when there is great awareness that mainstream economic theory is seriously flawed, many of us are looking for alternative models of economic thinking.

I have in my collection a book by an English economist EF Schumacher called Small is Beautiful, first published in 1973, but never read it. Last month, I finally read it and was overwhelmed by its brilliant and unconventional approach to economic thinking.

The book became almost cult reading when it came out 40 years ago, in the aftermath of the first energy crisis.

The author was a Jewish refugee from Germany to England who studied in Oxford and Columbia Universities. He became the Economic Advisor to the British National Coal Board and was sent in 1955 to work in Burma as an economic development advisor.

It was from his experience there, including staying in a Buddhist monastery that he evolved highly a non-Western way to consider human development, including living within the limits of natural resources and using intermediate technology.

This explains why Chapter 4 of this book was called Buddhist Economics.

The book is actually a collection of essays written at different times. Like his teachers, Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, Schumacher wrote in elegant and striking prose:-

“One of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. The illusion... is mainly due to our inability to recognise that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which it has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income.”

He immediately plunges into an attack on the whole philosophy of modern economics that reduces everything into monetary values as measured by GDP, arguing that the logic of limitless growth is wrong: “... that economic growth, which viewed from the point of view of economics, physics, chemistry, and technology, has no discernable limit must necessary run into decisive bottlenecks when viewed from the point of view of the environmental sciences. An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth in short, materialism does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”



Being a system-wide thinker, he deplored the narrowness of economics:-

“Economists themselves, like most specialists, normally suffer from a kind of metaphysical blindness, assuming that theirs is a science of absolute and invariable truths, without any presuppositions.”

He was probably the earliest to recognise that the concepts of GDP ignored the costs of depletion of natural resources and the high social damage through pollution: “It is inherent in the methodology of economics to ignore man's dependence on the natural world.”

Most recent reviewers of his book commended him on the accuracy of his forecasts (forty years ago) on population and the rate of consumption of energy resources.

Some reviewers consider that the book brilliantly explained the “Why” of the need to conserve, but not the “how”. I think he went deeper than that.

Schumacher was not just a social philosopher but a practical observer of large scale social organisations, particularly bureaucracies. The realist side of him can be found from this quote: “An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.”

Indeed, he was very insightful of the importance of smallness in large organisation. This was because as organisations become larger and larger, they become more impersonal.

He recognised the inherent contradictions within large organisations that have alternating phases of centralising and decentralising.

Here, he noted that the solution is not either-or, but the-one-and-the-other-at-the-same-time. In other words, contradictions and illogical situations are inherent in large systems.

This is because all organisations struggle to have “the orderliness of order and the disorderliness of creative freedom.” Every organisation struggles with the orderly administrator versus the creative (disorderly) entrepreneur or innovator.

From this basic contradiction, Schumacher has a theory of large-scale organisation divided into five principles, which are worthwhile researching further.

The first principle is Subsidiarity which is that the upper authority should delegate to the lower level powers where it is obvious that the lower levels can function more efficiently than the central authority.

The second principle is Vindication namely, governance by exception. The centre delegates and only intervenes under exceptional circumstances which are clearly defined.

The third principle is Identification the subsidiary must have clear accounting in the form of balance sheets and profit and loss account.

The fourth principle is Motivation here he recognises that motivation at the lower levels of large organisation is low if everything is directed from the top. This is where the values of the organisation become critical in addition to rewards in terms of money.

The fifth is the Principle of the Middle Axiom. He notes that “the centre can easily look after order; it is not so easy to look after freedom and creativity.”

The word “Axiom” means a self-evident truth. The Principle of the Middle Axiom is “an order from above which is yet not an order.”

In practical terms, you set out an objective, but do not detail and direct how that objective is to be achieved, giving some degree of innovation and freedom for the subsidiary levels of the organisation to achieve the objectives.

What is amazing is that 40 years ago, Schumacher quoted Chairman Mao for the best formulation of the necessary interplay between theory and practice: “Go to the practical people, learn from them; then synthesise their experience into principles and theories; and then return to the practical people and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and achieve freedom and happiness.”

All these sound very simple, but are actually quite hard to practice. Schumacher has certainly convinced me that there are good alternatives to current conventional economic thinking.

Tan Sri Andrew Sheng is President of the Fung Global Institute (as@andrewsheng.net)

  Related articles

• Small is beautiful ... but Schumacher's economics of scale runs deeper | Andrew Simms (guardian.co.uk)
• The Top Ten Management Primer on Buddhism and Its Economic Implications: All That You Need to Know About &Ldquo;gross National Happiness" (socyberty.com)
• The Big Ideas podcast: EF Schumacher's 'small is beautiful' (guardian.co.uk)
• Economics is lost - it must rediscover life's values | Victoria Chick (guardian.co.uk)
• An Indexing Matter - Part 2 (astoried.wordpress.com)

China's Helping Hand for Europe

Made In China by CHOW HOW BAN

China has promised to help the EU deal with its debt problems through the stability facilities, but it should not be misread as a pledge to buy more European government bonds.

Sino-EU ties: Chinese vice-premier Li Keqiang (right) talking to Barroso (left) and Van Rompuy during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday. — AFP

EUROPE has played a big role in China’s economic successes throughout the past three decades. That was the main tone the European Union (EU) brought to Beijing for the China-EU Summit on Tuesday.

And China’s response was that it would offer the EU more help to overcome the eurozone sovereign debt crisis – an assurance from the economic powerhouse that the EU pretty much hoped for.

The friendly exchanges between the Chinese and EU leaders laid the foundation for the success of the summit. Sino-EU trade relations have continued to thrive amid the debt crisis in Europe, with trade volume surpassing €460bil (RM1.83 trillion) last year. Europe is China’s biggest export destination.



 “Over the past decades, China has become an even greater force in regional and global affairs and its economic and social development has been immense,” European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said after the summit attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, his Cabinet members and European Council president Herman Van Rompuy.

“Europe can only rejoice at this success. I believe that Europe can legitimately claim some parts of the success because China’s economy has greatly benefited from Europe’s open policies and open markets.

“As Europe and China are inter-connected and inter-dependent, we should work even more closely on different fronts to deepen our relations.”

He assured the Chinese leaders that the EU was doing what it takes to restore the confidence of investors and international stakeholders and its partners amid the crisis.

Wen said China was ready to help Europe deal with its debt problems but the EU would have to take its own initiatives as well as address the issues.

“China’s willingness to support the EU in dealing with its debt crisis is sincere and resolute. China will continue to join hands with the EU for mutual benefit despite the fast-changing global economic situation,” he said.

Last week, Wen had told German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting during her official visit to China that China would consider getting more involved in solving the debt woes in Europe, especially through the European Stability Mechanism and European Financial Stability Facility.

“Resolving the debt crisis relies fundamentally on the efforts made by the EU itself.

“We expect the debt-stricken nations, according to their own situations, to strengthen fiscal consolidation, reduce their deficits and lower their debt risks,” he said.

However, analysts said that Wen’s promise to help the EU deal with its debt problems through the stability facilities should not be misread as China’s intention to buy more European government bonds.

Speaking at a forum on Monday, Lou Jiwei, chairman of China Investment Corporation (CIC), a sovereign wealth fund tasked with managing China’s foreign exchange reserves of US$3.2 trillion (RM9.7 trillion), said Merkel expressed her hope that long-term investors like CIC would buy German, French, Italian and Spanish debts.

“Some people think that there have been some positive improvements in the eurozone debt crisis in the short-term as the EU came up with some fiscal policies. But they have not got to the root of the problem and we should be able to see the effects in June or July,” he said.

He said it would be more likely for investors to invest in infrastructure and industrial projects, which would help in the economic recovery of the European nations.

In its editorial, People’s Daily said the eurozone debt crisis stemmed from the zone’s monetary and financial systems and its flaws in economic governance and policy-making mechanism.

“The unification of the euro currency has failed to promote fiscal unification because the EU member states are reluctant to give up their control over tax revenues,” it said.

“EU politicians may have the determination to safeguard the eurozone but they do not have fiscal resources which can be channelled in a unified way to troubled nations and do not have a proper mechanism to solve the debt issue. This has resulted in a worsening of the crisis.”

During its short trip to China, besides having deeper exchanges of views on EU-China relations with the Chinese leaders, the EU delegation was also on a mission to convince Chinese scholars and investors that Europe was on the right track to come through the crisis.

“Incomplete governance and surveillance in the euro area have caused imbalances and divergences in competitiveness. The sovereign debt crisis has been a wake-up call,” Barroso said.

“But the EU has acted decisively to tackle the crisis, strengthen economic governance, stabilise public finances and implement structural reforms such as the European Stability Mechanism and European Financial Stability Facility with a combined fund of €500bil (RM1.99 trillion) as financial aid for some member states.

“Other measures aimed at creating more jobs and ensuring sustainable growth include the EU2020 Strategy, a blueprint which will get the economy back on track over the next eight years with education, research and innovation as key drivers.

“In my view, what Europe has been doing, particularly during the most recent period, constitutes a basis for investors to regain confidence in Europe.”

US-China heralded a new 'great power relationship'

China seeks ‘great power relationship’ with U.S. but warns against meddling in Tibet, Taiwan

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

China's Vice President Xi Jinping: “China welcomes the United States playing a constructive role in promoting the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, and at the same time we hope the U.S. side will truly respect the interests and concerns of countries in the region, including China.”hare

By Chris Buckley and Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON – China’s Vice President Xi Jinping on Wednesday offered deeper co-operation with the United States on trade and hot spots like North Korea and Iran, but warned Washington to heed Beijing’s demands on Tibet, Taiwan and other contentious issues.

“Sino-U.S. relations stand at a new historic starting point,” China’s expected next leader told U.S. business groups after meetings on Tuesday with President Barack Obama and other top U.S. officials.

China and the United States should strive to create “a new type of great power relationship for the 21st century,” Xi said.

But he said the two powers also had to “strive to avoid misunderstandings and avert misjudgments” and should “truly respect each other’s core interests and major concerns.”

Xi’s visit to United States this week presents a chance for him to boost his international standing before his expected promotion to head of China’s communist party later this year and president of the world’s most populous nation in 2013.

Even as Xi continued his U.S. visit, Obama, at a campaign-style stop in Milwaukee, took aim at China’s trade practices, saying he will not stand idly by when American’s competitors “don’t play by the rules.” “I directed my administration to create a Trade Enforcement Unit with one job: investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China,” Obama told factory workers.

Xi met with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Harry Reid on Wednesday morning and after his speech was headed to Iowa for the next leg of his trip, which finishes later this week in Los Angeles.

Xi addressed a number of sore spots in the U.S.-China relationship, including Beijing’s currency policy.

Many U.S. lawmakers complain the yuan is significantly undervalued, giving Chinese companies an unfair price advantage that helped lift the U.S. trade deficit with China to a record US$295.5-billion in 2011.

Xi said currency reforms already taken by Beijing helped boost U.S. exports to China to more than US$100-billion in 2011 and has significantly reduced China’s overall trade surplus.

“China has become the United States’ fastest growing export market,” Xi said. “The trade surplus as a proportion of GDP has been falling from over 7% to 2%, at a level internationally recognized as reasonable.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner acknowledged on Wednesday that Beijing is gradually letting its currency rise, but not fast enough to please the United States.

“We think they have some ways to go, we would like them to move more quickly,” he told a congressional panel.



SHARED CHALLENGES

Xi is poised to become China’s next leader following a decade in which it has risen to become the world’s second largest economy while the United States has fought two wars and endured the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression that sapped its resources.

“The world is currently undergoing profound changes, and China and the United States face shared challenges and shared responsibilities in international affairs,” Xi said.

“We should further use bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to enhance coordination between China and the United States on hotspots, including developments on the Korean peninsula and the Iran nuclear issue,” he said.

At the same time, he urged Washington not to support movements in Taiwan and Tibet for independence.

China deems the self-ruled island of Taiwan to be an illegitimate breakaway from mainland rule since 1949, and has warned that the island must accept eventual reunification.

In recent years, tensions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have eased as economic flows have grown. But Beijing remains wary of U.S. involvement in the issue, which it calls an internal affair.

In early 2010, the Obama administrations decision to move forward with proposed arms sales to Taiwan triggered vehement criticism from Beijing, including warnings of sanctions against U.S. companies involved in the sales. Those warnings petered out, but Xi made clear that Taiwan remains an acute concern for Beijing’s dealings with Washington.

Tensions over Chinese control of Tibet have flared in past months when a succession of protests and self-immolations have exposed volatile discontent. Chinese officials have repeatedly blamed those tensions on separatists or supporters of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader of the region.

Xi also acknowledged the Obama administration’s recent “pivot” toward Asia, but warned it not to push too far.

“China welcomes the United States playing a constructive role in promoting the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, and at the same time we hope the U.S. side will truly respect the interests and concerns of countries in the region, including China.”

© Thomson Reuters 2012

Xi sees new 'starting point' for US-China ties

By Andrew Beatty (AFP) 

WASHINGTON — Chinese heir apparent Xi Jinping heralded "a new historical starting point" for ties with the United States, wooing US business leaders with a glimpse of a more cooperative future.

Speaking during a lavish ballroom luncheon with the upper crust of corporate America, Vice President Xi described deeper Sino-American ties as an "unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead."

Glossing over the tumultuous twists and turns in 30 years of Cold War-dominated relations, Xi said interests had become ever-more intertwined. "It is a course that cannot be stopped or reversed," he said.

Xi welcomed Washington's interest in the Asia Pacific region, and said cooperation was needed on a range of challenges from North Korea to Iran, so long as China's interests are also respected.

Xi is on his maiden visit to the United States as a top official, a trip many hope will help close a chapter in relations characterized by mistrust and mudslinging, particularly in the commercial sphere.

As the tectonic plates of global trade have shifted in recent decades, China and the United States -- the world's two largest economies -- have frequently collided, jutted and bumped against each other, sometimes to damaging effect for both.

With Xi widely tipped to lead China from 2013 and Obama in a November re-election battle, the visit is being seen as a dress rehearsal for the next generation of US-China relations.

During the trip, Xi has worked US constituencies key to the bilateral ties: official Washington, corporate leaders and, in Iowa, a return to small-town America which he visited more than two decades ago.

His stops in Washington have included the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, Congress and the US-China Business Council.

Throughout his trip Xi has received the trappings of a state visit -- even if he is only head of state in waiting.

In a broad-ranging speech that was short on specifics Wednesday, Xi told business leaders that increased understanding, mutual respect for core interests, trade and cooperation in international affairs should form the basis for relations.

"Over the past 33 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the friendship between our two peoples has deepened, mutually beneficial cooperation has expanded and our interests have become increasingly interconnected," he said.

At the luncheon Xi was introduced by former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger whose secret trip to China in 1971 paved the way for the normalization of relations between Washington and Beijing.

The pair were flanked by a cadre of Chinese Communist Party officials, as well as executives from Coca Cola, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Procter & Gamble and Estee Lauder.

Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent expressed the cautious optimism felt in the US business community about future ties with China.

He described Xi's visit as "another important milestone toward building an enduring and constructive relationship between our two nations."

The Chinese vice president largely steered clear of specific policy pronouncements, but stressed the mutual benefits of trade, pointing out that 47 of 50 US states had seen their exports with China grow in the last decade.

Despite deepening ties, many Americans and their lawmakers angrily accuse Beijing of not playing by the rules.

They accuse China of keeping the value of its currency unfairly low to fuel inexpensive exports, which have catalyzed China's headlong dash toward becoming an economic superpower.

From June 2010, Beijing has allowed the yuan to rise 8.5 percent against the dollar, in part because of domestic inflation pressures -- making the yuan an increasingly dubious scapegoat for lopsided trade.

In the last decade, trade between the two countries has increased over 275 percent and is now worth half a trillion dollars a year.

But Chinese exports still make up 80 percent of bilateral trade, despite China joining the World Trade Organization a decade ago, leading to accusations of protectionism from US industry.

Xi, repeating a long standing gripe, said the US would need to reform its own trade restrictions on exports to China in order to right that imbalance.

"It is very important for addressing the China-US trade imbalance that the United States adjusts its economic policies and structure, including removing various restrictions on exports to China, in particular easing control on civilian high-tech exports to China as soon as possible," he said.

China has often blamed the US deficit on Washington's own rules on exporting sensitive equipment that could be adapted for military or intelligence use.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved

How frail the Malaysian unity!

How frail our unity is

WHY NOT? By WONG SAI WAN saiwan@thestar.com.my

Malaysians always boast about how we can live with each other but yet that multi-racial fabric is easily torn.

REPORTERS for English newspapers in Malaysia are taught from their very first day not to write their reports on racial lines but to promote national unity and, more importantly, not to incite racial hatred.

The most common example of this is reporting on court cases.

This is why court reporters go out of the way to find out the occupations of the protagonists in the trial.

More often than not, one would read in a paper like ours that “a factory worker was charged with stabbing a clerk at a shopping complex”, without reference to the ethnicity of the people involved.

The thinking of our newspaper gurus in the early days was that although we were made up of various communities, it was best we saw each other as Malaysians, and to mention someone’s ethnic background was considered bad form.

Of course, there was an underlying reason for it.

Editors those days were also conscious of promoting unity and maintaining good race relations.

Imagine the sort of problems that could arise if the story above read: “A Malay factory worker was charged with stabbing a Chinese clerk at a shopping complex.”

Such writing, it was argued, would do nothing for the development of the country or race relations.

In fact, there were some who argued that such a writing style would only inflame hatred, especially if the report was about violence.

It would not be wrong to say such thinking became even more pronounced after the racial riots of May 13, 1969.

I was taught this no-race mantra when I joined this newspaper in 1984. In fact, my editor told me, the mere mention of the name would be a dead giveaway of the person’s race (his words, not mine).



“Wong Sai Wan cannot be an Indian person” was his favourite reminder to me each time he caught me writing an article where I mentioned someone by his ethnicity.

However, things have changed over the past three decades.

Although most English language newspapers in this country still do not report crime and court articles according to ethnicity, most of us now allow mention of language or ethnicity if it gives perspective to an article, especially features.

After 40 years, we would have all thought that we would be mature enough to handle any form of differences without referring to it in terms of race or religion.

Along with the millions of other Malaysians, I often shake my head in disbelief when opportunist politicians try to use the race card to shore up their flagging popularity.

I was so proud to see young Malaysians reject the position taken by these older politicians from both sides of the divide and instead to treat any issue based on merit and not on the colour of one’s skin.

Since 2008, I have been slowly converted to the position that Malaysia has become mature enough to handle conflicts and criminal violence even if the perpetrators were identified by race or religion.

Yes, our society has created code words to describe each other and most of the time these descriptions are taken in good humour.

These code words evolve with time. For example, during my younger days, all Malays were referred to as Ah Mat, Chinese as Ah Chong and Indians as Muthu.

Nowadays, the nicknames have changed to Mat Rempit, Ah Beng and Macha.

These monikers are slightly crude, but not derogatory – at least that’s what I think and see from the reaction within our modern society.

However, then came the infamous I-City KFC incident.  It was a simple case of a restaurant worker losing his cool and punching a customer who obviously also lost his cool.

However, the incident, unlike similar fights that had happened numerous times in other restaurants, was captured on video and uploaded on YouTube.

It went viral after it was shared on Facebook. The clip was uploaded without moderation to give it some sort of perspective.

The person who taped it with a handphone described it as a fight at KFC.

What happened over the next few hours of the uploading of the video on cyberspace was truly disgusting. Malaysians put a racial slant on the incident.

Most of those who took the side of the customer, Danny Ng, were non-Malays, while the restaurant staff were mainly defended by Malays.

On Facebook, supporters on either side started to verbally attack each other – with some making up various stories of how the incident started, and the supposed quarrel between Ng and the staff.

The words used by the two groups to attack each other were derogatory and racist. The so-called unity we boast about was shattered.

Ng has since denied that the incident was racial in nature and clarified that neither he nor the KFC staff used any racial slurs.

However, those on the social media ignored this and continued to make all sorts of comments.

Facebook and YouTube are the most popular forms of social media. Opinions are shaped on these two websites.

Comments there become a strong reflection of the state of our own society.

Sadly, in this case, we failed big time. Malaysians have come across as immature, racist and unforgiving.

Malaysians need to show the world that we can handle ourselves, accept each other and celebrate our differences.

Fortunately, the “quarrel” occurred over cyberspace, and maybe it was a good place to let off steam without taking it into the real world.

This incident has shown that our unity is very fragile and our race relations far from adequate.

Our leaders must realise this and not rely on bigotry to gain popularity with only a certain segment of society.

> Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan loves his fried chicken but also hates poor service.

 Related post:


Let’s all be Malaysians first !