Danger of Chinese ghettorization

In Malaysiakini's The red shirts and the futility of Malay privilege, its author, Commander (retd) S Thayaparan (Aneh as I call him), wrote the following (extract of two paragraphs which aren't specifically on titled subject):

A couple of years ago, I wrote this: “What is really destroying the MCA is not the propaganda of the DAP but the acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that no representation in the government is better than MCA representation.”

In other words, the “accursed” DAP is supported by the majority of the Chinese community, which means that Jamal’s main problem is with the majority of the Chinese community who support the DAP.

It seems the old saying that the Chinese are like the Jews is in a way coming true.

What do I mean by '... in a way coming true.'? Shouldn't it be just 'coming true'?

That old saying about Chinese being like Jews was related more to their common business acumen and cleverness in making money (and reputed obsession in saving it).

But there is another likeness between them that is far more troubling, that of 'social ghettorization'.

I must clarify what I mean by 'social ghettorization', because it's quite different from mere 'ghettorization'.

The dictionary defines ghetto as: a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.

The word is of Italian origin and refers to the original name of an island near Venice, where Jews in the 16th century were then forced to reside there.

Ghettos became particularly notorious after we learnt about the Nazis in Europe persecuting and confining the Jews in ghettos in German occupied Poland.

Wikipedia tells us:

Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland were established during World War II in hundreds of locations across occupied Poland. Most Jewish ghettos had been created by Nazi Germany between October 1939 and July 1942 in order to confine and segregate Poland's Jewish population of about 3.5 million for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation. 

In smaller towns, ghettos often served as staging points for Jewish slave-labor and mass deportation actions, while in the urban centers they resembled walled-off prison-islands described by some historians as little more than instruments of "slow, passive murder," with dead bodies littering the streets.

In most cases, the larger ghettos did not correspond to traditional Jewish neighborhoods, and non-Jewish Poles and members of other ethnic groups were ordered to take up residence elsewhere. Smaller Jewish communities with populations under 500 were terminated through expulsion soon after the invasion.

I want you to read again, very thoughtfully, the 1st sentence of the 3rd paragraph above, which says: "... the larger ghettos did not correspond to traditional Jewish neighborhoods ...".

Okay, if you've read that carefully as well as given it much thought to its subtext or implied meaning, what elucidation could you get from it?

Well, it means that prior to the Nazi's oppressive ghettorization of European Jews in Poland, those Jews had already lived or chosen to live in 'social ghettos', meaning among their own ethnic communities, practising their own religion, culture and traditions as would be in "... traditional Jewish neighborhoods ...".

We also need to bear in mind that prior to the Jewish Holocaust, religiously-tolerant Poland had for eight long centuries been the biggest home and cultural centre for World Jewry, when by the 16th Century three-quarters of Jewish population throughout the world lived in Poland.

Prior to World War II, there were more than three million Jews in Poland alone. After the war, 90% or about three million Jews alongside 3 million non-Jews were found killed by the Nazis.

Anyway, prior to the horrors of WWII, Jews had already practised 'social ghettorization' by their intuitive inclination to live among their own ethnic communities for almost 800 years, mainly because of their unique-to-Jews religion or Judaism. Nazi-imposed physical ghettorization was to come only during German occupation of Poland.

The latter, Nazi-imposed ghettorization, would be ironically akin to what today's Israelis are imposing on Palestinians, especially those in Gaza and to a lesser extent in the West Bank by virtue of the latter's bigger space, much as the Israelis pretend to and arguing with the world they (Israelis) are not.

Yes, ironical, isn't it, that the so-called 'children' of European Jews are now inflicting on a race they considered as untermenschen (subhuman) what the German Nazis did to their forefathers whom the Nazis considered as untermenschen.

But let's leave the Jews, Nazis, Israelis and Palestinians for now, because today's post is about 'social ghettorization'.

'Social ghettorization' is an ethnicity's instinctive or intuitive inclination to stick to its own kind, more so in European Jews than Chinese because of the former's unique-to-Jews religion, which (and let's not deny it) discourages if not prohibits racial mingling.

The Chinese are a wee less predisposed in their visceral attraction towards their own ethnic grouping, but only because their religion(s) do not discourage nor prohibit mingling with other races.

European Jews of earlier years were mainly religiously circumcised, prayed to their Middle-Eastern god, attended their own ethnic gatherings in synagogues either for prayers or for cultural events, ate kosher food in accordance with Judaic dietary laws, their children attending their own Jewish schools, married within their own ethnic community where they very rarely married outside their own race, etc.

Traditional Chinese of earlier years would be almost the same as European Jews, except there was no such thing as kosher food unless they were RTA-type Muslims, wakakaka, their daughters were allowed to marry outside their race (but rarely their sons) and they were free to worship any god in Taoism including the King of Hell to nature-spirits in Shamanism, wakakaka.

[Note: no god in Confucianism, and Buddhism has only Buddha and some Bodhisattvas].

They can also worship all religions together at the same time, wakakaka.

Yes, in earlier years, Chinese were more concerned about the relationship within society, namely, between man and man, ordinary or stratified/social class, while the Jews were more concerned about man and god & god's laws.

After all, the Chinese greatest social teacher, Confucius, told Chinese 'to revere the gods but keep them at a distance', wakakaka.

And as for children attending vernacular schools, well, I have never been in favour of such segregation because it's bad for multi-culturalism, but alas, a series of UMNO Education Ministers have f**ked up our national type school system kau kau with consequential dropping of education standards to abysmal level so much so that most of the Chinese Malaysians were virtually driven into the only-too-welcoming arms of the Chinese educationists - I have already posted often on this.

And Helen Ang (in her 'previous life', wakakaka) had once written 'The Chinese vernacular boat had left the harbour and sailed too far to turn back.'

Eight years ago, in December 2008, when Mukhriz Mahathir made threats about closing down Chinese vernacular schools, Helen penned an article in Malaysiakini to discuss the hullaballoo following Mukhriz Mahathir’s alleged call for vernacular schools to be closed or absorbed into mainstream (national) schools so as to avoid polarization among school children and in that process, to strengthen Malaysian unity.

Oh, by the by, Mukhriz subsequently denied he mentioned that, and Hishamuddin who was then the Education Minister, asserted Mukhriz was misquoted – see Malaysiakini Mukhriz was misquoted: Hisham.

Then, in her article titled Di mana bumi ku pijak, Helen Ang lambasted Mukhriz for wrongly identifying the source of polarization among kids. She suggested that the then-MP for Jerlun visit national schools to see for himself the obvious ethnic segregation already existing there.

As further evidence of that, she told Mukhriz his own sister, sweetie Marina, had pulled her own children out of these schools for picking up some undesirable learnings (of an ethnocentric nature).

But having chided Mukhriz, Helen stated “Mukhriz may be guilty of posturing but he is nonetheless echoing a genuine sentiment and outlook of the Malay grassroots.”

Indeed.

Helen was also acutely aware of the feelings of Chinese Malaysians when she wrote:

“Chinese on the other hand will ‘riot’ if ever mother tongue instruction was to be withdrawn."

"An integrated system of education could have been implemented at an earlier point in time but this is water under the bridge; the boat has left the harbour and sailed too far to turn back now.”

I have to reiterate and re-emphasize this:

Thanks to a series of UMNO Education Ministers, including Mahathir, Anwar Ibrahim and Najib Razak, our national type school system has been f**ked up kau kau with consequential dropping of education standards to abysmal level, so much so that most of the Chinese Malaysians were virtually driven into the only-too-welcoming arms of the Chinese educationists.

Anyway, I want to return to what I have intended to write about, namely Aneh's succinct statement (at beginning of this post) which I will now repeat for your perusing convenience, as follows:

A couple of years ago, I wrote this: “What is really destroying the MCA is not the propaganda of the DAP but the acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that no representation in the government is better than MCA representation.”

In other words, the “accursed” DAP is supported by the majority of the Chinese community, which means that Jamal’s main problem is with the majority of the Chinese community who support the DAP.

Please read again what Aneh had written, to wit "... but the acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that no representation in the government is better than MCA representation." 

This means that Chinese Malaysians are quiet happy to enter not just into 'social ghettorization' once again, but also 'political ghettorization' because they are prepared to (reject MCA and Gerakan and) have no representation in the government.

Maybe most Chinese Malaysians believe they can survive by themselves in their own social and political ghettos (as the Jews once did in Poland), and f**k the Malay government?

What do you think of my assumption?

This is not healthy for a multi-ethnic Malaysia where we should and must believe in and consider ourselves as Malaysians rather than Chinese, Malays, Indians, etc, in the way citizens of the USA, no matter what ethnicity they belong to, consider themselves as Americans, and citizens of Australia consider themselves as Australians, and citizens in Thailand consider themselves as Thais, etc.

We cannot afford any ghettorization. It's far too dangerous for our society.

If you have time, please read what Clive Kessler has written in the Malay Mail Online about Umno’s two souls.

The Chinese Malaysians must avoid political and social ghettorization, and indeed all of us must strive to restore UMNO back to its pre-Mahathir days, as Kessler has written, as follows:

The heroic Umno of 1946: the Umno of Hidup Melayu and now Ketuanan Melayu; and the Umno of 1951, and especially 1955, to 1957: the Umno of constructive inter-ethnic conciliation and compromise, the Umno of modern, inclusive, progressive democratic nation-building.

The Umno that, with its political partners, looked forward to — and sought to create the foundations for — a Malaya and then Malaysia that would be the common, shared and equal inheritance of all its children, no matter by what different converging pathways their parents and forebears had come into membership as citizens of that modern new nation.

That is the Umno of the original Merdeka Constitution and its informing understandings — a charter of shared nationhood, not “Ketuanan Melayu”, which is this nation’s founding “social contract”: the only social contract that this nation has ever had.

This does NOT mean we should vote BN, wakakaka, but UMNO has an important role as Kessler said. Yes, maybe in the future, UMNO has a role in federal opposition?