7/01/2009

Discrimination - Another point to add

Another major difference between Malaysia and Singapore is that in Malaysia, racial discrimination is official, legal and morally a right thing to do. Anyone opposing such discrimination can be threatened with bodily harm or attacked by mobs running amok. In Singapore, the official position is no discrimination. It is against the law. The govt is embarrassed by whatever little signs of discimination and took pains to explain why it was a necessary evil, a temporary one. When conditions are favourable, we can see that all discriminations will be removed in a matter of time. In Malaysia, discrimination is institutionalised, a way of life, official govt policies and will be there to stay.

6 comments:

  1. What is official in Singapore is only discrimination between races.

    But what is official may not be the reality as can be seen from the arm forces promotions, scholarship awards and even our dear leader tells us that Singapore is not ready for a Prime Minister of any other race other than Chinese.

    And in fact, discrimination runs so foul that our court discriminate against Singaporeans by handling out heavier sentences compared to foreigners committing the same crime. Foreigners are welcome to drive any car registered in any countries into Singapore as long as they pay the VEP while Singaporeans are treated as a criminal and fined $500 for doing exactly the same thing.

    Then, we have the blatant discrimination between the rich and the not-so-rich. Health care is one such example.

    The truth is, at the very least Malaysia is not so hypocritical about it. They discriminate and they dare say they discriminate.

    If anyone believes the crap that there is no discrimination in Singapore just because someone with the Lee surname said so, yeah, then I am sure you believe that Singapore is a democracy and our elections are fair and our ministers being paid millions for doing nothing is us getting a bargain.

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  2. I agree that in Malaysia they discriminate and openly said so.

    Here, where can you find discrimination. It is against the law, so no discrimination as far as the law is converned.

    When they openly denied upgrading to opposition voters it is not discrimination. I wonder what to call that.

    When they denied the opposition any permit to hold a cycling event, when the ruling party's own members are holding such events frequently, that is not discriminition. I wonder what to call that also.

    Lost Citizen

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  3. Hi Lost Citizen;

    maybe discrimination is not in their vocabulary.

    It was Law Enforcements as the Authority has the POWER to interpret Laws according to their needs and advantages.

    patriot

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  4. IMO the anecdotal points made about positive discrimination (aka "affirmative action" ) toward S'porean Malays is inaccurate and the flawed reasoning can be attributed to a logical fallacy called the confirmation bias.

    There is no concrete evidence to suggest, nor prove Malays in Singapore are given "special treatment" as a matter of state policy.

    Malaysia is completely different: The constitution clearly states that bumiputra's get special treatment. On a positive note, the definition of "bumiputra" has changed to include people other than those of Malay descent. Although there's a long way to go, at least the process has started.

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  5. the best person to confirm such things are the Malay ministers and MPs. they know the policies and what were being done.

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  6. Shanmugam has just confirmed what i said. all things being equal, they will pick a minority to ensure that there is diversity or proportional representation. they could simply go to the other extreme of meritocracy and ignore the minorities. that will be bad and destructive in the long term.

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