Ahhh, the easy questions are best kind! Are you doing a series of these? I look forward to voting on “Is the Pope a Catholic?” and “Do Bears sh!t in the woods?”

It could be misleadingly worded, couldn’t it? In what sense can a ‘country’ be racist? The hills, jungles, beaches and rivers cannot be racist. The nation’s laws are racist, so an outsider might easily mistake Malaysia for a ‘racist country’.

Even if the racist legislation were removed, Malaysia would still be full of racists. Appalling, convulsive, lifelong racists. You are a racist, when you fail to avoid describing Malaysians as “Chinese, Indians and Uthas”, as though “Utha” is a race of little green men with aerials on their heads.

Racism is an unavoidable consequence of being animals. Whenever a man forgets that he is part of a community based on a reasonable level of altruism, he turns on his fellows and does what any decent animal would do – rip them to shreds for easy access to territory, food and good-looking rump. As much as we must each individually resist the urge. As thinking animals, we must put in place institutions that keep animalistic instincts at bay. Malaysia has manifestly failed to do this.

It’s impossible to accuse the people of failing in their duty to be altruistic members of a greater community when their government forces them to be racists. The government has to change first.

most country are racist
No this isn’t true. Racism was only tackled in the UK with some effort in the last 40 years or so. When my parents got married and started a family, they could still see housing advertisements with “No Irish” tags.

When I was in my twenties, I spent a brief spell working in Aberdeen. My first night out with my colleagues in a city-centre pub, some of my colleagues asked me what my full name was. When I told them one of them screamed “You ufkcnig Fenian Abtsrad!” and swung a punch at my face. It missed, but I didn’t wait for another. As I sprinted out of the door I heard “Go back to the bog!”. Now you would not normally confuse me for anything other than a whiteman. I am so white, you can practically see my organs through my skin on a bright day.

I grew up near London, which while it is certainly not some “Love Thy Funny-Looking Neighbour” Paradise, is closer to the origin of Race Relations legislation and much more mixed than other places in the UK. I had never heard of “Fenian”, so I phoned my mum and asked her what it was! When she explained my sole reaction was “but that’s irrelevant”. And it is. It’s history. It is of no concern to me in my day to day life. Why should it be of concern to others?

Race Relations has nothing to do with ‘political correctness’ digard. Some of the legislation is problematically worded, and in some countries (such as the UK) part of the legislation is an obligation on institutions to show that their anti-discrimination policies are ‘working’. Nonsense like the banning of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” in some schools is over-zealous silly-billies desperately trying to find something that ‘works’. The problem is there is no measuring stick which you can measure racial discrimination with – it’s hard to know which instance is ‘worse’ than the other.

Additionally, if things are bad, you can’t simply use a ‘proportional’ response. Know any engineers? Ask them about Control Theory – Wiener attempted to apply it to society, he wrote an interesting book about it called “Cybernetics” or something… memory fails me. Google won’t. A proportional response will only ever reduce the problem, not completely correct it. To correct the problem, it’s necessary to push it hard back toward the other side. There might be some overshoot, and that can be a source of irritation. My dad can be heard almost every day screaming “Ufkcnig TV! Nothing but gay wogs!”

make any reference to race illegal

Even if Pakatan Rakyat wanted to do this very sensible one thing, wouldn’t they be straight into Kamunting for the appalling crime of ‘questioning’?

Perhaps I appeared overly cynical. As you’ll see from my psosts above, the UK is not free of racism, even if you believe you look the same as an ‘archetypal Briton’! Also – the occasional unfortunate experience at the hands of racists in Oz and UK may actually be a result of anti-racist legislation and the positive effort that’s required to change from one ‘norm’ to a (it is to be hoped) better one.

Malaysia’s a completely different case. While it’s tempting to attribute the lack of personal, individual friction to a greater common bond, things are rarely so simple. Malaysia’s population has soared over the last few hundred years, hasn’t it? I imagine there are very few Malaysians who are really deeply convinced their ancestors arrived here before anyone else’s. Probably most sensible Malaysian realise that their own ancestors had to work equally hard alongside those of their neighbours to build the nation they call home.

as animals we are inherently racist
Uh yes – but just in case anybody thinks I was granting them carte blanche to gaily going about thinking they were better than everybody else because their parents are more closely related than anyone else’s – which is usually a bad thing, biologically speaking – animals, by and large, are also inherently rapists and murderers. We find it easy to decry the government-sponsored rape and murder that still goes on in some countries today, why cling to racism as though it’s somehow excusable?
Being an animal is only an explanation for the occasional, genuine failure to be a human, not an excuse for a lifelong commitment to failure, nor lifelong adherence to a bestial way of life for its short-term individual benefits over long-term destruction of the society you live in.