In love with racism

Openly or behind closed doors, racism cannot be condoned

Tay Tian Yan

My original title for this article should have been Titiwangsa or: How I learned to stop worrying and love racism. Sounding weird, isn't it? What the hell is it?

Sorry, I could have got excessively intoxicated by Stanley Kubrick, whose Dr.Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb talked about the narrow nationalism and threats of nuclear bombs during the Cold War era.

Under the influence of his ideological education, an aggressive American general initiated the nuclear warhead to launch attack on Soviet targets, sending the world in utter annihilation.

Nuclear bombs are too dangerous and should not have existed in the first place. But thanks to politics, they had become a tool for the manipulation of world leaders and everyone just fell in love with them.

Kubrick successfully made such a dry and gloomy topic into a comedy, one that the industry has labelled the most outstanding satire ever made in human history.

Even the title of the movie itself became a popular pun during those years. And the same is still applicable in the Malaysian context today. For instance, Namewee should perhaps write another song titled : How I learned to stop saying "Nah" and sing "Hallelujah," while Encik Jamal should rephrase his words: How I learned to stop saying Chinese education is bullshit and love the Dongjiaozhong.

Going a bit too far, right? What I'm supposed to talk about here is actually our Encik Johari.

I checked with the "Johari: We don't need Chinese and Indian votes" on Youtube and found that the clip has been visited more than 300,000 times, a whole lot more than Namewee's "Nah!"

Johari has apologised twice, but he also said the clip was altered and fabricated by some ill-intentioned people and that he had never been a racist himself, adding that Titiwangsa Umno indeed needed Chinese and Indian votes more now than ever.

Since he was no racist, and that the video clip had been altered and fabricated, it was indeed too harsh on him to get him apologise two times.

Why on earth has someone publicised speeches supposedly held behind closed doors, and why did people choose to hold two by-elections at such a timing?

Why Ahmad Ismail did not need to apologise back then, and Johari needed to do it twice?

Why could people sing racism loudly in the past, but even doing it behind closed doors now is strictly forbidden?

Time has changed. Yes, people are getting more intelligent and ballots become important now. Racism has been given a new, politically correct definition.

People used to stay away from racist talks, but now the same can become a topic to joke about.

So, I have learned to stop worrying and start loving racism. - Sin Chew Daily