Jul

14

un.JPGWhat is this country’s authorities up to? It’s like after having concocted an original lie, they now have to keep piling on more lies to cover up the original lie.

What on earth do we need an Institute of Ethnic Relations set up for? Read today’s NST if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

I think most of us know how to have good relations with our neighbours, irrespective of race or colour. I don’t know about the rest of you but my elders, including my teachers and scoutmasters, have taught me to care for people, to be polite, to respect other cultures and so on and so forth.

Do we really need an institute to tell us these things? Like I said in a previous post, the source of our racial problems are the mono-ethnic parties in the government who are acting like children trying to keep the biggest slice of the cake for themselves. Of course, everyone else only gets to pick their slice after Umno has taken theirs…

And, by the way, the original lie is that the Alliance (and later Barisan Nasional), represents the different communities in Malaysia. Yes, they may have gotten together to win the most votes, but they are far from working in the interest of the community, much less the communities.

If anything, this form of political practice is archaic in this globalised world. Well, I would go one step further to say that it’s not far from apartheid.

You think that’s far fetched? Well, let me share a little bit about customary international law. In public international law (the law betwen nations), there are four sources of law and customary international law is one of them.

I’m not a law lecturer, so I’ll quote from AustLII Human Rights Resources:

“In a discussion of customary international law, it is necessary to mention the concept of jus cogens. Rules of jus cogens are also referred to as ‘peremptory norms’ of general international law. These are rules of customary law so fundamental that they cannot be departed from or set aside by treaty… Commonly asserted examples of jus cogens include the prohibitions of slavery, genocide, racial discrimination and the use of force by States, as well as the principle of self-determination.”

And how does this connect to apartheid? Well, take a look at Judge Tanaka’s dissenting judgment in the South West Africa Case. This may be a dissenting judgment but the discussion on the principle of equality and the practice of apartheid is widely accepted by the international legal community.

Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, our nation is in breach of a most fundamental international law, and yet we are pussyfooting around ethnic relations and pretending that we can resolve it by coming up with an institute.

Just face the facts: this racial problem is never going away as long as Umno-BN is allowed to practice racial politics and rule us by insidiously dividing us along communal lines.


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2 Comments so far

  1. Malaysian X » Reconciliation and Unity Commission on July 22, 2007 10:41 am

    [...] after some reflection about my “apartheid posting”, I believe there is a better way forward for Malaysia. At least in terms of patching up racial [...]

  2. Race, royalty and resolve : Malaysian X on August 7, 2007 11:58 am

    [...] more than a matter of “political equality”. In terms of international law, I think Malaysia ought to be a international pariah. In terms of morality, I don’t see how any self-respecting and socially-aware person can [...]

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