“The complaint by …. Sheena Moorthy of the disgraceful conduct of the Minister …. making racist and derogatory remarks about Malaysian Indians..” Kit

UMNO Ministers in Malaysia are guilty of making remarks which could not only be interpreted as ‘racist’ but are racist, on almost a daily basis either in private or in public. But racism is institutionalized in Malaysia. Am I missing anything here??

This is just one more instance – except that words capable of taking on racial undertones were made away from the ‘capital of racism’ and in the ‘capital of the free world’ where racial discrimination is illegal.

It is not as if the likes of Sheena Moorthy has never heard anything like it before when she in Malaysia. Worse remarks are being heard in Parliament today.

The words chosen by the visiting Minister were not carefully chosen as was his attitude. Those remarks whilst not being blatantly racist do have racial undertones and are remarks we are used to hearing from UMNO politicians back home – but are, nevertheless, remarks which should be received for what they are i.e. remarks unwittingly made by the Minister which could be interpreted as such.

He should have chosen his words more carefully. I do not believe he intended his words to be received as such.

It is his thinking and his attitude that led to his wrong choice of words. But hey! Which Minister or MP is not guilty of that back in Malaysia. He is not alone.

Sheena Moorthy lives in the U.S. where racist remarks would have caused an uproar among the audience followed by members of the audience walking out of the meeting, conference or whatever. It is their First Amendment right to do so i.e. walk out as much as it is the right of the speaker to be racist in his remarks.

But here is a third world politician on a visit to the U.S. giving a talk to a closed audience of Malaysian students.

Let’s keep matters in perspective.

For comparison to the ‘racist’ remarks supposed to have been made by a visiting Minister to the U.S. and one Sheena Moorthy’s reaction or over reaction:

FuturePolitician has made the following remarks (in another thread):

“just spoke to a young chap from trengganu, well mannered mix parentage malay guy. He has mix parentage chinese and thai, he is a malay but really well manner, well spoken english and surviving in our harst business environment.”

So a Malay is not well-mannered, unable to articulate in English properly and unable to survive in a harsh business environment (I believe he is referring to resilience) Are we to take these remarks as ‘racist’?

The reference to “lighter skinned” Indians to “darker skinned” Indians has no relevance to the issue of who deserves government assistance, is wrong and is culturally insensitive.

I doubt if the Minister realizes that some Indians would take offense e.g. the Malayalis or the Gujeratis and the Punjabis are lighter skinned as opposed to Tamils like Samy Vellu. The latter has no more reason to object to the remark!