Politicians are the most ‘racist’ people in Malaysia, research shows

CILISOS recently got invited to the 11th National Conference on Non-Discrimination by Pusat KOMAS, an NGO that advocates against racism and race discrimination. The conference itself had talks about the ongoing trends of racism in Malaysia, but more relevant to our article: it was also where the Malaysia Racism Report 2022 was launched.

So the Malaysia Racism Report is a yearly report that aims to document instances of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia in Malaysia, and after checking out this year’s edition, it looks like…

Malaysian politicians are the most ‘racist’ people in Malaysia

Before we go on, though, it should be noted that Pusat KOMAS themselves said that the report is not a scientific study, and their methodology reflects that. Their definitions for ‘racism’, ‘racial discrimination’, and ‘xenophobia’ aren’t as clear cut as one would expect…

…some of the reported incidents of ‘racism’ can be argued otherwise…

…and the charts are all in shades of grey, which strained our eyes a bit. Despite that, the report is still valuable, because like we mentioned earlier, Pusat KOMAS have been compiling data since 2015, so they’re aware of broad trends of racism that have been going on.

And the broad trend in 2022 seemed to be a massive rise in race and religion politics. While race/religion politics has always ranked high on Pusat KOMAS’s charts, the number of incidents of racial and/or religious politics last year (46 incidents) broke the previous highest record (37 incidents in 2018). If we look at the pie chart below, over half of incidents of racism that happened last year were linked to politicians resorting to race/religion rhetoric:

In terms of specific race/religion political tactics used by coalitions in the GE15 campaigns, the report has identified three main trends:

• Fearmongering – ‘This bad thing will happen if you don’t vote for us’
  • Example: Ibrahim Ali, president of PUTRA and ex-MP for Pasir Mas, claimed that Malays will lose their land in 20 years without ‘proper protection’

• Race/Religion Representation – ‘We’re the same race/religion as you, so we’re the best people to protect you’
  • Example: MCA President Wee Ka Siong rallying Chinese folk to vote for him so he can do more for the Chinese community

• Race/Religion Supremacy – ‘Our race/religion is better than the others’
  • Example: Actor Zul Huzaimy making a remark to ‘slaughter infidels’ in PAS campaign

And even though most coalitions partook in fearmongering tactics, Perikatan Nasional (PN) was responsible for the most messages of Fearmongering and Race/Religion Supremacy, and Barisan Nasional was responsible for the most messages of Race/Religion Representation:

Based on the report’s findings from their social media monitoring project, race/religion politics remain an ‘effective tool’ to secure votes, and a study done by researchers at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute supports that notion. Right now, you probably have this question swimming in your head…

So politicians are ‘racist’. What do I do with that information?

Even though politicians oftentimes resort to race/religion politics simply to get votes, their actions can have far reaching effects. They can strain relations between races by creating negative stereotypes and prejudices that otherwise aren’t there. Having said that, we admit it’s not easy for politicians to just stop pushing race/religion agendas – racism in Malaysia is a complex issue spanning generations, and many of our political parties are rooted in ethnic identities.

It’s really up to us constituents to call politicians out when they turn to these tactics – when there’s no demand, they’ll stop the supply eventually. It’s a bit like how McDonald’s stopped selling salads cuz no one’s buying them.

And then there’s the usual, boring ol’ education for us regular folk. When there’s more of an understanding of other races, cultures and ways of life, there’s gonna be more understanding and tolerance in general. There is hope yet: Malaysian Gen Z’ers seem to base their voting choices on policies rather than on specific parties, which means voting for MCA or DAP just because you’re Chinese (for example) will be less of a thing going forward. You go, young’ins.