From: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean,soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: China/Chua, KhengHwa/Re: An open letter to Emperor Akihito
Date: 29 Aug 92 02:16:15 GMT
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

s8923098@macgraw.mqcs.mq.oz.au (Josef WIDJAJA) writes:

This is usually not called racist. Biased, maybe if his observation is
not correct. If his observation is generally true,(at least more applicabale
than other generalizations), he is "pragmatic".

: single member of that culture or ethnic group. A racist, for example,
: believes that all Muslims are violent and are willing to kill other
: people to defend their faith, therefore people from countries where
: there is a Muslim majority are violenmta

This example is a form of generalisation which I think is generally true. So
I do not call the speaker racist.
	If you disallow this generalization, then all text books and articles
that generalize such as talk about Americans as defenders of human rights
 are therefore racist. I do not seem to recall any learned books that do not 
generalise, but the better ones will point out exceptions.

However a lot of people in this group uses generalisation as a form of racism,
whether true of not. As long as Chinese, Malays, Christians, Muslims are
mentioned, either true of false, that is called racism. This attitude is
common in ASEAN. Language is defined by the user so the asean people may have
redefined the word racism to mean this "cultural generalisation".

My standard for racism is the Nazis. The nazis believe that anyone with
Aryan Gene, must be more intelligent, beautiful etc. than other races.

It can be argued that this is also a form of generalisation but it involves
"gene" and "belief", and "always true" and "only have good characteristics".
It could be true, at least to my eyes the Aryan women tend to me more beautiful
than our own people. They also believe that if anyone do not have this "belief",
he is not a true "aryan", his gene must have been corrupted.

They have ignored the fact that culture/behaviour can be trained. A german jew
can have german culture and he will behave differently from a British jew,
although they have the same gene.

:  
: |
: |A racist insists that Chinese-cu = Chinese-ge.

This statement is true because of the word "insist".

: 
: A person who adopts Chinese-culture and tradition (eg. celebrating 
: Lunar New Year) is more likely to have Chinese ancestors. So
: Chinese-cu = Chinese-ge in 99% of  cases. What is so racist
: with that?. Note the above relationship is not commutative.

"insist" maans 100% or do not believe that the 1% are truely chinese
(wrt past glories and forgetting any weaknesses such as atrocities) because
they do not behave in the superior culture(chinese). 

Such genetically pure chinese,i.e. those whose parents are both chinese and so
are the previous generations, but were brought up Malays(very common in
Malaysia), are not considered as chinese any more by the racists, especially
when the chinese culture is attacked, true or not does not matter.
	In time of peace, true racism does not really exist(subdued or 
not discussed) but the racial tendencies exist almost all the time. The
tendencies become more extreme in time of stress, such as war.

Joseph, I do not bother to answer any of your proposterous comments but this
time you look so intellectual that it may fool someone.

: A person of Chinese origin may throw away Chinese culture altogether.
: But whether you like it or not, they are still called Chinese by 
: the non-Chinese. I have met many ABC's (Australian born Chinese)

The question is whether they are still considered as chinese by the
"racist" chinese.

: who do not practise Chinese culture but still declare themselves
: to be Chinese and are still called Chinese (and 'Australian' is
: sometimes added as adjective or modifier) by their non-Chinese
: friends. The same goes for Australian born Italians and Greeks and
: there are an awful lot of them here.
It shows that they have not removed their parent culture completely.
The Malay brought-up chinese no longer call themselves chinese, rather 
"malay" which is synonymous with "muslim" in asean.
	 In Sabah we still 
talk about various races like Bajau, Suluk, Simunul, Illanun, Dusun, Kadazan,
Murut because of the languages that these people use. However Malay language
had been accepted even before Malaysia, and without any force,simply because
it is easier to learn than English.

--
Othman bin Ahmad, School of EEE,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2263.
Internet Email: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
Bitnet Email: eoahmad@ntuvax.bitnet
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean,soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.asean