You call me a ‘Paki’? Did you?! I’ll sue ya …. Now, where is this Bangsa Bolehland? I hear Pakis can go on to be prime ministers in that country.
The Bangsa Malaysia types, along with the PKR Nathaniels, Elis, and the Malaysiakini Swee Engs, look to Britain for inspiration on multiculturalism (no Kadazans, no Dayaks, no Chinese, no Malays, no Indians, only Malaysians – how cool!), and which they have only a vague idea about. From Tim Black at the Spiked! is a lesson in multiculturalism for these types…
First, the background:
It seems that two weeks ago (Laila) Rouass, whose mother is Indian and father Morrocan, emerged from the BBC’s Star Bar having just had quite a severe fake-tan session. Beke caught one glimpse of her Dale Wintonesque appearance and quipped, quick as a flash, ‘Oh my god, you look like a Paki’. In (Anton Du) Beke’s head, it was probably hilarious. Unfortunately, outside of Beke’s head the audience was not quite as simple-minded. Rouass, who had apparently already been annoyed by Beke’s numbskulled exclamation upon discovering her foreign parentage – ‘You’re not a terrorist are you?’ – glared at him in silence for a bit, before collecting her stuff from the dressing room and going home in a huff. And that was that.
Then the fallout:
Politicians (…) spotted an opportunity to prove their anti-racist credentials, with Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda declaring: ‘[That] kind of language is totally unacceptable. It sounds to me as if Anton Du Beke needs to be sent on a race awareness course.’ Which sounds like a great idea.
Perhaps they could turn it into a show.
(… A) spokesman for Hope Not Hate, a campaign run by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, was therefore able to conclude: ‘If calling someone a Paki is not racist behaviour then what is?’
After that, the apology:
‘There was no racist intent whatsoever (said Beke), but I accept that it is a term which causes offence and I regret my use of it, which was done without thought or consideration of how others would react.’
It is a strange kind of apology, but it is also very revealing.
… ‘If calling someone a Paki is not racist behaviour then what it is?’ And therein lies the rub. What exactly is racist behaviour these days?
And here is the legal definition by a White judge, who is equal to saying that you can go to jail for calling Mahathir Mohamad ‘mamak’:
Lord Macpherson provided a broad definition of racism as ‘unwitting racism’. Writing of the police, he wrote that such racism ‘can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.’ And if people do not know that they are racist, not to worry; it is enough for others to judge them as such. Or in the words of the report, racism is evident in ‘any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or by any other person’ (emphasis added).
See, it isn’t only Malaysian judges who write inane judgements; they studied under the Macpherson types, for whom crime is, suddenly, to be “thoughtless”, to be “ignorant”, and the other, any other, person has only to “perceive”, that is, to accuse, in order to get a conviction. Such is a White man’s multicultural, all inclusive, equal rights law they promote and sell to the world: “I perceive, therefore you’re racist. And therefore you’re guilty.” Tim Black concludes:
While racism is certainly not what it was, neither is anti-racism. Being against racism, the act of taking offence, almost always on others’ behalf, has become a self-affirming posture for politicians and media proxies alike, a moral crusade in times of limited purpose. … Even the most informal of social relations (Ed. note: the fracas had started as a banter, innocently enough, in privacy, between two friends), the most knotted of negotiations, are now fodder for official anti-racists to pick over and dissect for offence potential. The effect has been stifling and petty. Contemporary Britain resembles not so much a comedy, as a tragedy of manners.
But Black (Oops! Was that racist?) might be mistaken on one count: No, there is no tragedy in the lesson because, once accused of racism, you are guilty until proven innocent. Britain is never tragic, the White man had it good for more than a century; the UK is an international, imperial joke today. White Britain introduced, and actually wrote, racism into the Malaysian federal constitution more than 50 years ago. Now, to see British, white on white, brown on white and so on, drive stakes into each other, spit at each other, tear at one another, over the word ‘Paki’, said so in jest, is so poetic; sweet justice, as they say. Many in the rest of the world pray for it to continue down that way. It’s, as Sharon Stone says, karma. Cheers, mate!
