Opening a Can of Worms

As if Ahmad Ismail's stance was not disturbing enough, more of his types are crawling out of the woodwork.

From Malaysiakini's report:

Penang Umno secretary Azhar Ibrahim has stood by his call for the Sin Chew reporter in question to “be shot” should a May 13-type racial riot breaks out. Contacted today, Azhar reiterated firmly that, “the journalist deserved to be shot if her article causes another May 13".

This kind of racial hostility makes me shudder. It is truly scary. If I were the journalist in question, I'd be hiring a lawyer and filing a police report against Azhar's threatening statements right now. Heck, I'd even consider uprooting my family to an undisclosed location and hiring bodyguards. And while I'm at the police station filing that report, I'd file one for sedition too:

3(e) to promote feelings of ill will or hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia

How do you deal with people like this? Lock them up in jail and throw away the key? Will they be all "rehabilitated" when they see the light of day years later? Everyone has discriminatory tendencies. We assign groups of people certain traits because its easier and more economical for our brains to process vast amounts of information by classification. However, when we attach negative emotions of aggression and hostility towards people based on race, then that is racism. And that is wrong.

What then is the "cure"? One would assume the more you interact with people of different races, the more open-minded you will be. Ahmad Ismail and Azhar live in Chinese-majority Penang island, not in the Malay heartland. Clearly, exposure is not enough to cure small-mindedness.

I don't have the answer but the culprit is easy to see: the government's entrenched affirmative action policies. All these years of protecting the Malays' "special rights" has bred a younger generation that does not know how to effectively get along with other races and an older generation that is paranoid and fearful of societal change.

Wouldn't it be the greatest irony if the affirmative action policy set in place after May 13, 1969 to reduce racial disparity was the root cause of another racial riot 40 years later? Nauzubillah, God forbid.