Farish has given an ideological slant to interpretation of events in Belgium. He says “Belgium’s colonial policies abroad have always been predicated on the logic of divide and rule”. He blames this policy of divide-and-rule racialised Rwandan politics “that finally boiled over and led to the inter-racial civil war and genocide the world has witnessed live on TV anyway” (a reference to the Tutsis/Hutu conflict). And then he blames the current political impasse in Belgium – where owing to the differences between the 52% Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north and 32% French speaking Walloons of the south, Yves Leterme, head of the Dutch-speaking Flemish Christian Democrat party with 60.4% of votes couldn’t secure consensus, after 3 months standoff, to be prime minister and form the government – to the Belgian’s racialised/imperial “mindset that sees human beings not as members of one human family but rather as sub-sets to be divided and antagonized”.

According to Farish, this same mindset that in the heydays had been exported to Belgian colonies in Asia and Africa and kept unruly natives at bay, has now “come home to roost”, repeating its communally sectarian and divisive logic at the heart of Brussels.

Come on, this has nothing to do with imperial policies of divide and rule and Belgian mindset in particular. That’s an ideological interpretation. Lets admit to a realistic one.

What happens in Belgium merely underscores the point that beyond the veneer of sophistication and civilization, it is innate human nature universally to be racist, whether, historically, the peoples had been a colonial/imperial power or a colonized people or neither of both (though it is admitted that colonial policies bringing different peoples to the same place, and implementing divide and rule for maintenance of colonial power had made such a place no more homogeneous (culturally, linguistically, racially or in terms of religion) and therefore had exacerbated and accentuated greater opportunities for this innate universal human tendency to be suspicious or antagonistic of others of different race, language, culture and religion to express itself in blatant ugly form.

In a word it is human tribalism that is so deeply rooted that even education and relative prosperity of a community like Belgians does not transcend it – albeit, offering little consolation to us in Malaysia noting that.

For Belgium is not comparable in same stature with the underdeveloped countries of Africa or developing countries of Asia including Malaysia and the racial divisions in these countries.

Belgium is comparatively a rich democratic European country noted for her contributions to the development of science and technology as well as arts (painting and architecture) and besides all these have also given us one of the best chocolates (Neuhaus, and Godiva) in the world!

And yet the slightly bigger majority of North cannot see eye to eye and unite with those of the South because although all are whites, they speak different language and have different culture and religion.

In terms of a realistic interpretation, what are they really fighting for ? Ultimately it is for political power for access to Money.

Differences in race, religion or language are universally used as tools to unite the stronger and more cohesive group against others in order that the national cake in terms of goodies represented or purchasable by moneys can be appropriated more for the benefit of the stronger group with less sharing with the other marginalised group.

Bottomline, it always boils down to having something to do with money as medium of exchange for all that humans desire. Everyone and every group wants to take more and share less with others.

They need a a justification to differentiate and exclude others.

Race is convenient excuse (as what is happening in ex colonies) but where skin colour is the same (as in Belgium now, in war torn Ireland and other places) then differences in religion, language and culture will be just as good another excuse.

What is Farish talking about this mindset that sees human beings as members of one human family ? We’re still not there after several thousand years of human history and evolution.

What has evolved – and the point where we have arrived is merely sophisticated hypocrisy and the capacity to preach, to even back up that preaching by having laws against outward racial and religious or cultural discrimination though the insidious sentiments of race and religion still flutter quietly within the human heart, well camouflaged though outwardly and for political correctness we pretend otherwise to show that we’re civilised. :)

Now, one blemish on our record of “transparency” and failure to call a spade a spade is our denial that we’re corrupt. We come out with excuses, notwithstanding the Auditor’s General Report. We give soft loan of RM4.6 billion for Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) bailout as if no corruption is implicated but merely bad commercial decision. And ever so occasionally when we did admit there was corruption as in RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal more than two decades ago, then premier TDM said it was a crime with no criminals – what an oxymoron! If we want to shed hypocrisy and claim honesty, take a leaf from the Americans – redefine corruption, legalise or put a cap on some parts of it and call it by other names (lobbying for interest groups) and seriously prosecute the balance of it, crossing the limit. Corruption like prostitution is a social evil or problem that cannot be eradicated or even ameliorated by just declaring war against it (with no real fight or will to fight involved). What cannot be avoided, no matter how pernicious, has to be tolerated, in the sense regulated (rather than denied that it is even there) so that the excess does not proceed to absurd levels by lackadasical or selective enforcement.