Racism II

bantalburuk, it's not the point that no offence was intended. The point is, the term is offensive in itself. Try calling a black man "orang hitam." See what reaction you get. Calling a white man white has never been offensive. Try calling a black man "nigger," and try to argue that you didn't intend for it to be offensive. I bet if you say that in Harlem or Hackney, you'd get into a lot of unwanted trouble.

Trial, here I've only listed racial problems concerning derogatory terms and prejudice. I haven't even begun to explore systematic racial discrimination. I didn't say Bruneians have an agenda to degrade non-Malays. What I'm saying is that in some people the racism is more deep-rooted, and sometimes even subsconscious. It may be not as bad as Malaysia, whose government system favours Malays much more than the other ethnicities.

And if you only hear people even use the word 'kedai kaling,' then I guess I must know more racist people than you, sadly. Even the term 'kedai kaling' is still offensive. Yes, 'a little racism is still racism.'

Yes, most of the racism in Brunei is verbal. But then that shows that racism is indeed a trait in some. If we let it be and don't do anything about it, then this racism will evolve into something worse. Physical, systematical abuse even. It'd be extreme to say we'll have a Malay KKK. I don't think it'll come to that. But it can come to the point where someone can be - say - overlooked for a promotion because he's not Malay. I know, it's not as bad as some countries. But it's still bad.

And the difference is in UK, even though a minority do that, it's a shocking thing for them. When they hear someone is being abused racially, there's a national outcry. People condemn it publicly. It's unacceptable. A few years back in the news, someone said the word 'nigger' on live television in the UK. It caused nationwide condemnation. A teacher says racist things to a student, and it will get on the news.

In Brunei, such things don't even get a mention. If someone in a group is being racist, the most typical reaction will be to dismiss it as funny or intended to be inoffensive. Any racism is in nature offensive.

CORRECTION FOR GHAZ:

After a bit of researching, I found the word ghaz in the time of the Quran was written did not refer to gas. Ghaz was derived from the word gas. It was an arabicised word. The word gas itself came from a Dutch (?) scientist.

I am sensible enough to point out when one fact is wrong.

Don't celebrate yet though. I've still got the other ones right:

[1] the fact that earth and smoke (or heavens) was never together at the beginning, since Earth existed only millions of years after the Big Bang. Even earth to mean soil is inaccurate, because there were no rocks, no ground. Not even matter.
[2] the abundant use of that imagery even before the Quran was written. The Quran could've gotten this imagery from a variety of sources
[3] the wrong assumption that there are only two entities, the earth and the universe