a naked look at racial politics

here is a very interesting article by one of my favourite writer, dr farish a. nor, taken from malaysiakini.

actually in this article, dr farish was reviewing a book by collin abraham entittled ‘the naked social order: the roots of racial polarisation in malaysia’, a book published by pelanduk. do a search on books on politics, economics and asean studies at pelanduk site and you’ll get to see a short review of the book.

an excerpt from the article:

———-
Collin’s reminder that while the Malays ‘suffered political
disenfranchisement, economic marginalisation and alienation from the
modernisation process’, the other communities were likewise the victims of
the same colonial system needs to be borne in mind constantly. As he points
out: ‘literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Indian immigrants were
impoverished, suffered ill health arising from unbearable working
conditions, often resulting in death’.

This is a fact that none of us can ignore, and the Malay ethno-nationalists
and chauvinists who harp on and on about how the non-Malays had ‘come to
conquer’ their homeland should remember that thousands of those non-Malays
were also victims of the same racist colonial enterprise. The ‘debasement
and abuse of the labour force’ that was inflicted on the Chinese and Indian
immigrant labourers have scarcely been recorded in the annals of official
Malaysian historiography, though they deserve to be mentioned. The Chinese
and Indians – along with the Malays – helped to make Malaysia what it is
today, and thousands of them paid the price for this with their lives.
———

ok ok i know you can’t get to read the full article in malaysiakini if you are not a member, that’s why sweet me created a place for you to read these kind of articles. point your browser to my twin mental jog.