NEWPACES

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Malaysia RACIAL MELTING POT Cracking After 50 Years; Deep Rooted Racism, Discrimination & Bigotry Under Unity & Peace Facade; People Living Separately

Thursday March 29, 2007
Survey: Many youngsters aren't concerned about racial integration
By SIMRIT KAUR; STAR

PETALING JAYA: Racial integration among the younger generation in Malaysia still has some way to go, judging by the results of a nationwide survey of 4,400 Form Four students. Only 52% of the teenagers said they had a friend of a different race. In fact, mixing with other races was not something that concerned many of the respondents. Only 12.8% felt that it was an issue, while 63.9% were more worried about contracting a disease. The Cognitive and PsychoSocial Profile of Malaysian Adolescents (CoPs) study was carried out in August by a group of academics from the Education Faculty of Universiti Malaya (UM).

Prof John Arul Phillips, a former UM academic and current dean of the Arts and Social Sciences Faculty at Open University Malaysia, said this was the most complete study of its kind because of the large sampling. “We went to 44 schools in rural areas, towns and cities across Malaysia, including Sabah and Sarawak,” he said. A total of 16.6% of the 16-year-olds surveyed also admitted to smoking. They cited emotional pressure (27.6%), a desire to be accepted by friends (25.5%) and wanting to be cool and macho (20.1%) as the most common reasons for taking up the habit. Another 12.6% said they were influenced by the mass media.

Other findings include:
# 8.8% reported using drugs;
# 10.7% never eat breakfast;
# 8% have never used a computer; and
# 3% said they were often not interested in studies.

The study also compared different groups of students. There was no major difference in resilience and self-esteem levels between males and females, but non-smokers were found to be more resilient and had higher self-esteem. In addition, males reported better relationships with their teachers compared with females. CoPs project leader Assoc Prof Dr Fatimah Hashim from UM’s Education Faculty said: “There was very low correlation between academic performance in PMR and psycho-social attributes such as self-esteem, resiliency and family bonding.” In the area of general knowledge, only 23.3% of respondents identified Lee Hsien Loong as the Prime Minister of Singapore and 43.3% knew that Bill Gates founded Microsoft. However, 81% knew that Manchester United was an English football club. Students were poor in civic knowledge, too. For example, only 58.4% knew that Parliament consisted of the Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara.
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Malaysia is just about to be 5o years old and it is too much to expect the major racial components be close to each other in such a short time. From the Christian era we have heard the term “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). It was an ironic statement, for in that society no man loved his neighbor, but distrusted him heartily.

In terms of time evolution, mankind had come to the point where it delighted so in distinctions and differences amongst the different races, those even in small geographical areas - multitudinous groups, cults and nationalities were assembled, each proudly asserting its own individuality and worth over others. In the beginning in those terms, man’s emerging consciousness needed the freedom to disperse itself, to become different, to originate bases for various characteristics and assert individuations and hence the evolution of various races within the human species.

You must realize that your present race is the one into which you were born, in your terms in this place and time. But most of you cannot recall and remember each of you have been members of different races and so each of you have shared in both the advantages and ignominies attached, in historic terms, to such conditions of birth. But alas short is your memory and long is your pain and you have forgotten your many accents and have to be relearned them. Those who remembered are few and can find no identity as a race but as a human species. You are a cooperative species and a loving one.

Your misunderstandings and your distrusts in each other real as they are seldom committed out of any intent to be evil, but because of severe misinterpretations about the nature of good, and the means that can be taken towards its actualization. Many of these will be directly or indirectly connected with old myths and beliefs of your forefathers
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