Apartheid in the Malaysian context
Posted by admin
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 19:14
I would confidently say Malaysia's NEP and NDP are more akin to apartheid than affirmative action not only in their morality but also in the way they have been implemented.
Dr Boo Cheng Hau, Malaysian Mirror
Apartheid was officially defined in South Africa as 'separate development'. But apartheid is really an elite regime with concentration of power in the hands of a few.
Apartheid involves the complete domination of one race over the other – economically, politically and socially.
South Africa is still struggling with the socio-economic sequels of apartheid itself. I do not think one should be obsessed with the physical aspect of apartheid [segregation] but rather be more concerned about its longstanding socio-economic deprivation and mental humiliation of not only being labelled according to skin colour but more factually to your native status.
umno2.jpgMany have mistaken apartheid as a form of racial discrimination based on white superiority. It has been well-documented that it is actually a preferential treatment for white Afrikaners (South Africans of Dutch descent) following victimisation by the British colonists during the Boer War where thousands of Boer Trekkers died in wartime.
Umno's Ketuanan Melayu is race-based dominance in a multiracial country and is the exact ideology employed by the single-race National Party which imposed apartheid rule in South Africa. The National Party portrayed themselves as the champions of 'Afrikaner Sovereignty' and 'white supremacy'.
Similarly, Umno's ideological basis for its political struggle has been Malay nationalism and bumiputeraism. Like the National Party, Umno has also imposed a heavily state-guided capitalist economic system. Malaysiatoday....