A bit on understanding the Chinese

Chinese people, in general, have been described as inscrutable, selfish, self-centred, 'kiasu' (afraid to lose out on anything), and so on, and especially in Malaysia, racists. 'How can we not be racist in Malaysia?', my wife used to comment, 'when everything has to do with race?'

Before others condemned the Chinese for being racists and keeping to themselves, they must also find out why. It has more to do with reacting to our government policies which openly discriminate according to race: from education, employment and promotion, to business opportunities. Therefore it was more a reaction to government actions which created this sense of hopelessness and resignation, and which led to their instinctive self reliance.

KTemoc sums up in his critique on Chandra Muzzafar's statement on Chinese education as...

My point is that if the quest or objective is for national unity then we should not just assess the Chinese educational push in isolation. The Chinese wish for mother tongue education has been the consequence of a combination of inter-related factors, namely (just some examples):

(a) the Chinese socio-cultural reverence for education for more than 2000 years because it represents hope for their children’s future,

(b) UMNO bastardization of educational standards leading to Chinese abandonment of a pathetic system,

(c) Chinese perception of marginalization by the UMNO-led government in virtually all aspects of Malaysian life which has convinced the community to go it alone, etc.

We have to deal with all these and not just the Chinese vernacular educational wish alone, and unless we do so, no Chinese parent will ever see Dr Muzzafar’s point, nor will Dr Muzzafar’s wish for national unity be ever achieved with just a good national type education system when the so-called Malaysian society is not Malaysian at all but Muhyiddin’s ‘Malay UMNO First’.

More:
Chandra Muzzafar's silos
http://ktemoc.blogspot.com/2012/06/chandra-muzzafars-silos.html

Raja Petra in his post, The Silent racist, condemned the Chinese for being selective in their criticisms...
http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/50113-the-silent-racist

During breakfast, I used to joke about two friends who I nickname as 'Knows All' and 'Knows Better', and when they meet, we are guaranteed endless arguments over any topic of the day. Surprisingly, one of them will give up soon after! I would classify Raja Petra as a combination of 'Knows all and Knows better' and since I know only a bit, I rather not challenge him!

I would just like to point out to him that until recently, the Chinese in Malaysia have always been careful in what they say for fear of being arrested. We try our best to avoid race (if at all possible!), religion (cannot comment since we are not Muslims), and of course, royalty (just a tweet could land Nizar in big trouble!).

Raja Petra himself is a Malay and a member of Selangor's extended royal family, so what he could criticize we could only applaud if it touched on sensitive matters and we happen to agree on. It is better for Malays themselves to criticize their own race or religious practices. We criticize on incidents of large scale corruption because they involved public funds, and chances are higher that these involved Malays. We also criticize MCA and Gerakan leaders for being involved either directly or indirectly, and their loss of support in the last general election was clear enough.

He complained about cases which he mentioned but not followed up by others. How are we to comment if we know next to nothing about them? We have seen how he himself got into trouble for biting off more than he could chew. We have seen affidavits could be changed the following day. Can we trust what we read anymore? We have seen how even senior police officers themselves got into trouble for speaking out. Are we expected to get involved when we know those with the real authority are behind efforts to cover up? We appreciate the exposes by Raja Petra, but what more are we expected to do?
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