i hope i don't get sued for libel.

maybe i'm digging myself into a big hole here. maybe it's too soon to post about it. and maybe i shouldn't be talking about it at all. but it's something that's come up and has got me thinking, it's stirred up a lot of emotion in myself and other people, so i think i'm going to talk about it anyway.

it's time to talk about race and politics.

more specifically, tonight [or last night, seeing as it's 2.20am now], the nottingham malaysian society had its AGM, in which the new committee was elected. before the election, there were rumblings of vote fixing, phantom voters, etc. from what someone has told me, this election was going to be a hot one, with 4 or 5 people running for president. there was one malay candidate, and 3 chinese ones. the rumour going around prior to the election is that the current president and members of the committee were rallying around the malay candidate, drumming up votes for him, because they were also malay. in other words, it became a racial issue.

and he won. my guess is that the malay vote all went to him, and that the chinese/indian vote was split between the other 3 candidates. now i wasn't there, and i'm not saying that he didn't deserve to win. but what i am saying is that a lot of people left the AGM disillusioned. and the question is, were people voting for him because they thought he would do the best job, or were they voting along racial lines?

the other candidates were more than qualified, having proven themselves handling a very big event- malaysian night- that the malaysian soc puts on every year. to be fair, the winner of the pres election was also involved. but what interests me is the race issue. even if he hadn't been involved in malaysian night, would he have won anyway, because of his race?

what interests me is that what people say is wrong about this election is what people say is wrong about the malaysian government. to put it simply and bluntly, it is the issue of race, and the privileging of it. it's no secret that people of malay descent get special privileges, and access to more resources than people of chinese or indian origin. scholarships, priority entry into education systems, malay quotas in companies, the whole political system... mahathir once said that the privileges that malays have received are like crutches to them. are the concessions given to them now holding them back?

i realise i'm speaking from a biased point of view. i am, after all, chinese. my mind revolts at the thought of the many deserving chinese or indian people who have been passed up for promotion and not given a scholarship or having to do much, much better at something, just to receive the same treatment.. it is discrimination, and it is so written into our culture, our government, our country that sometimes it feels like hitting your head against a brick wall. look at the uproar when mahathir talked about rolling back some preferential treatment. of course, if u were on the other side, if i were malay, i would probably have a different view. but i'm not, so this is the view i take. there is discrimination in our country, and it is unfair, and it is wrong.

we are thousands of miles away from malaysia. we are at a university in england, we live in a country where liberalism and egalitarianism influence policy-making at the highest levels of government. a liberal democracy, against discrimination, for equal treatment for everyone, regardless of race, gender, social status or sexual orientation. yet despite this, despite being removed from our native country, the same issues that come up in malaysia come up here. why? because we have taken where with us, over the ocean, a certain mindset. we have carried over a frame of reference, a way of acting and behaving, a way of thinking that tells us what is acceptable and what is right. and our experiences of race relations, of voting and of politics, has remained firmly in the malaysian mindset.

may the best candidate win. that is bullshit, cuz we all know that the best candidate doesn't necessarily win, in any election, at the student level, the local level, the state level, the national level. there are all kinds of constraints on that statement. it depends on who's running, who's got the most friends, who's got charisma and can talk the talk. and an election is an election, the candidates with the most votes win. and i know that the world is unfair, race matters, not just in elections, but in our daily lives. race matters sometimes in our friendships- who we choose to be friends with, who we don't, and sometimes in our judgements of people. life is unfair, we discriminate all the time, we judge people, perhaps too quickly. i am guilty of it, i am not exonerating myself. but it takes an election to really bring these issues to the fore.

allegations of block voting by a racial group, allegations of phantom voters, of ballot-box stuffing, of dodgy finance... some of these are serious stuff, going beyond race into actual misconduct and election-fixing. and this is why sometimes i hate poltiics, because it brings out the worst in people. and this is coming from a student of politics. but this is why we need to take an interest in politics, because to not know is to not care, and not to care means that these things can go on, unnoticed, uninterrupted.

student elections are dodgy at the best of times. there are personal loyalties, breach of codes of conduct, and many, many muttering and rumours. not all will be true, or are true, or are partially true, or downright false. and what do i care? i'm leaving in june, the malaysian soc doesn't concern me. but i have heard so much talk about malaysian politics, about malay concessions and preferential treatment, so much disillusionment and anger and frustration... and it just reminds me of that. and it just reminds me of the fact that race is still an issue, maybe because our state implicitly makes it an issue. by making race the basis of discrimination, we see everything through race.

i don't want to pass judgement on the malaysian soc election. but so many emotions have been riled up, have yet to be smoothed over.... so fast do thoughts turn to race. the question is, is anything going to be done about it? what can we do about it? will things always be the same?

these are far too big questions to be thought about at 3am, when it seems that all thoughts turn pessimistic and dark. it is that time of night when all seems lost, there isn't a way out, and the world is bad and we can't do anything about it. so i'm going to bed, perhaps unwisely pressing the 'publish post' button. so goodnight, and congratulations for reading to the end of the post. it's a long one, if nothing else, at least u say u have perseverance!