It has to be a coincidence that after blogging about the absence of debates in the Malaysian political landscape, DAP and MCA are soon locked in an engagement to debate each other, with Lim Guan Eng and Chua Soi Lek representing each party.
The Star online wrote about this here.
Ok, this is just another sparring between both sides at the upper political echelon. What has got the attention of young Malaysians in grips these days?
The KFC brawl? More accurately an assault, since the Chinese fella did not retaliate with force.
The 28-second video has gone viral, it's true. I did not take time to read the various comments posted, but it is apparent that racism pervades throughout the episode, forcing the parties involved, both victim and witness, to come forward and clarify the non-existence of racism.
For those who hoped that the younger generation would be better than they were and not taken in by racism, this must be most disappointing indeed. Before our very eyes, we see strangers of Chinese and Malay youngsters bashing each other on the Net, solid evidence of racism trickled down from our the politics of our fathers' generations.
One day, the leaders we see today will be replaced. If the citizens of this nation do not experience a paradigm shift and continue to muddle in unprofitable bickering, fuelled by ugly racism, it does not bode well for this country and those who have her best interests at heart. Politicians will always dance to the tune of the electorate, and where there are racists, there are racist leaders.
Only a minority adopted different views of this KFC issue, the majority adopting the racist approach. Be it Chinese scolding Malays or Malays bashing Chinese, both are guilty of racism. I have always heard grumblings that Malays are racially prejudiced against the rest, but racism can only happen if both sides allow it to spiral.
I prefer the view that it is rather pathetic to wait an hour for fried chicken. I do not know why and how, but I find a society to be ill when its members are willing to wait for an hour for a franchise's food. Has capitalism conquered us to our very core, that we must, by hook or crook, have the putative product? And when we don't, we anger ourselves and vent it out against others, leading to fracas.
Coming back home to Malaysia, I hope all Malaysian youngsters to see the entire issue as not centring on the colour of our skin, but a piece of chicken that was not there. Racism is but the ugly guise of capitalism having conquered us as a society.
When there was no chicken, plus an hour already wasted, we've got nothing else better to do but to raise our voice and be angry, angry over a chicken. Then we go back to our rooms and share that pitiful picture of starving African kids, topping it all with an emphatic status update.
It's a good thing this debate is coming along, aired nationally. Every Mandarin speaker should watch it. We need to wise up.
"If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons." -Pope John Paul II
1 comment:
just a little bit of information on why it was crowded and people waited so long for fried chicken at that particular outlet on that night -> they gave out vouchers that can only be claimed on that outlet and would expire the next day. the assaulted customer had a voucher worth more than RM100.
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