Expatypus

hi,

It's the same in any country. Why does your race and religion have anything to do with a job unless the job is race or religion specific.

What happens is that all companies get as much info, relevant or not, about you. And folks, needing a job, are blackmailed into filling the questions. Trying to be honest and put agnostic isn't what the companies want. It won't register. But they don't mind if you tell them what they want to hear as it's part of the game.

It's the same with most stuff, especially entrenched political and business interests. Why would the ruling elite want anything to change? Malaysia, the UK, or anywhere else - all the same. You have to play the game, or leave and sadly earth is the only current option.

scott

Religious and etnic profiling happen in every country.
Where Malaysia may be different is that they are inked in the constitution.
As a result, the positive discrimination (i.e. NEP/NEM) is in favor of the majority, which is kinda odd when you think about it.
At the same time it brought peace to a young nation state with a cultural mix of culture and religion. Not an easy feat.

My feeling is that more and more are challenging the status quo and questioning the present social pact. They want their opinion and choices to be acknowledged. Which I believe to be a radical shift from the Asian culture.

Choice is seen in Asia not just a way of defining and asserting their individuality, like in the West, but a way to create harmony and unity. By deferring their power to choose to people they trust and respect, usually their elders or parents, Asian put the collectivity well being above their personal one.

This can explain why the Chinese, Singaporean, or to a lesser degree the Malaysian, tend to constrain the options their constituent can choose from. Such authoritarianism has been particularly effective at generating growth over the past 50 years, and for a while, it was a win win situation.

The problem now is that the western culture of choice is spreading fast in Asia; the most visible symbol of this phenomenon being the many mega-shopping-center mushrooming across the region. More importantly, this trend is spreading from the economic to the political arena.

The past ten years have seen an immense shift, with people from Taiwan, Indonesia, or Malaysia starting to get their voice heard more and more. I believe this trend will only strengthen over the next few years, and I hope Asian (and especially Malaysian) authorities will be wise enough to understand it and accept it.

Well, I have to say that I rarely experienced religious or ethnic profiling during my time in Glasgow. The occasions when I did, it was explained clearly that it was for information-gathering purposes as opposed to the way it's done here. Sad to say, my family make blatantly racist comments too (sigh) but like I said, some things never change. My family being a very conservative and traditional (Malaysian) Chinese family, have always been racist and I suppose always will be.

From a personal point of view, even though I see the point you're trying to make, Jacques; I wouldn't say that I was in a position to defer decisions and choices to my parents. Rather, I was brought up without the option of making any decisions until the point I decided it was time for me to make a stand and to take control of my life. And that required a lot of digging in of my heels to get my message across to my parents. Of course, it was only after my first exposure to a more liberal lifestyle that I started to question things.

Undoubtedly the younger generation in Malaysia are getting more aware of their choices and are more educated, hence the shift of mentality, though I do think that as long as religion remains such a cornerstone of the culture here, progress will be slow and the authorities will remain resistant. We can't even have a demonstration by ethnic minorities here without the police coming along and chucking the demonstrators in prison without trial (I'm not being racist here, just stating the facts). But of course, change takes a looooong time! I do think we need a neutral government in place to effect progress. It's always been the same argument, the Malays are prioritised in the government's political, social and economic agenda and the rest of us are treated like second-class citizens. Pardon my French(!), but 1Malaysia my a**! I would like to see more action and less talk. But maybe there have been developments I'm not aware of?

My apologies for sounding so negative and unpatriotic, but it's hard to sit and accept these things when I know that it's not right. The Malaysians have been putting up with it for generations and generations, but that doesn't make it right. It just makes it much harder to turn things around. Admittedly, with the pervasiveness of the Internet these days, we are becoming much better informed and the world is becoming a smaller place.

Interestingly enough, as a side topic, talking about religious profiling, what do you think about the French policy in disallowing religious headgear to be worn in public? I can understand on the one hand, the argument that women living in the West should be free to dress as they please, but surely on the other hand, they should be free to be religious if they choose to? It's sad to see that people who choose to practice their religious beliefs should be made a target when the West preaches freedom of expression and frowns upon discrimination. It's a little two-faced, if I may say so *chuckle*. I guess it's hard to strike the right balance when it comes to protecting the nation's culture and being politically correct at the same time.

Religious or ethnic profiling is done differently in the West. It will never be acknowledged directly, but should you look at statistics, they will show that developed countries do discriminate based on gender, social and ethnic criteria. The same goes in Malaysia in some Chinese companies. Their management will not represent the multi-cultural nation that is Malaysia.

That's actually the point I was trying to get across. Youngsters in Asia are waking up to the fact that they can make choices for themselves and are starting to challenge the status quo. As always, the power-that-be will try to keep hold of it for as long as possible, but the demographics are on the youth side. I simply hope that this will not go down to a show-down.

How can a government be neutral? There is always a majority and a minority. Neutrality is kinda hard, unless you live in country that practice as close a democracy as one can be like Switzerland. In place of neutrality, i hope that Malaysia will peacefully transition towards a political scene with two or three big political parties, where power is shared and shift from one to the other on a regular basis. Only then would Malaysians be able to keep them in check as best as possible.

Actually, the hijab can be worn in public in France. It is the Burqa (the full veils, which conceal all of a woman's body including the eyes) that has been banished. Personally, I understand the "security" arguments used to pass this law, but I am not a fan of its political connotation as very few French Muslims wear it - 300 if we trust the secret services counting services... though how they count them is beyond me. Banning it is more of a political move than anything else.

But the previous ban of the hijab in public school is a good thing IMHO. France has been separating Church and State since 1901 and religious symbols shall not be ostentatious in public school. A hijab, as a head gear falls in this category.

I have to say that having to live overseas would not make a person as misfit as can be in Malaysia. I find quite a number of Malaysians who find that they just can't conform to the general social norm and expectation even when they have always been living in this country since birth.

For one, I found myself in that situation many times.

Where discrimination is concern, I feel it even more. Not being Malay is fine when I am among Malays but Malays find it a bit hard to relate to me being in the same category as theirs when I am not a Muslim. On one occasion, a former colleague thought it funny that I should be able to have an ASB account. Now, being an indigenous, why shouldn't I be able to have one? Again, not being Chinese is also another issue. I've experienced a difference in the way people warm up to me on a couple of occasion when they finally found out that I am not Chinese. But this is true normally among the lesser exposed and lesser educated of the population.

But far from that, the most annoying thing I find is the way people gently expected me to ally myself to one of the major races (normally either Malays or Chinese) which I normally don't like to do. At the end of the day, all I want to be is just another Malaysian in general. In this case, I normally find myself rather a loner.

Being discriminated due to my status as a single mom caring for my child on my own, once, cost me a job too.

This is rather true as per my experience as well as that of a few of those that I know. One of my cousins works in Penang and experience this the hard way in that not being of the right race cost him a few things despite the fact that he is able to troubleshoot a few technical problems that his own immediate superior was not able to do. Most of those of the wrong race decided to leave the company when they feel that they have enough experience to move on but... I don't think the management sees it wrong to favour one race in their company and how ugly it is where our nation is concern.

At the end of the day, it's always "I help my race first" mentality that comes first because everybody always thinks that they are being discriminated...

roguegirl wrote:

But far from that, the most annoying thing I find is the way people gently expected me to ally myself to one of the major races (normally either Malays or Chinese) which I normally don't like to do. At the end of the day, all I want to be is just another Malaysian in general. In this case, I normally find myself rather a loner.

I completely agree with you there. For me at the end of the day it is not the race or religious orientation of the person that matters, it's the personality and the mentality that allows me to form a connection with them. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a society that more often than not, tends to stereotype people according to their race and religion, which is an incredibly myopic view to take. One of the most fundamental things I learnt during my first experience living in the West is that it doesn't matter where we come from, or what culture we were brought up in, we are all the same underneath. It's how we think and perceive things and how open we allow ourselves to be, that determines who we are. Individuality counts. Sadly it is not encouraged here, which I feel is the major obstacle towards achieving the nation's Vision 2020.

I don't think all the blame can be loaded on the management's back. Yes they are the one who recruit and promote, but they are also the ones who will be blamed if the employee do not perform well or disrupt its team's performance. In all logic, managements should recruit based on performance and quality. If they don't, then a potentially productive employee will go work for a competitor and the company will end up worse off. But if his ethnicity were to disrupt the quality of work from his co-workers or subordinates, then he may not be the logical choice anymore. So employees, because they don't want to work for someone from another culture, are as much to blame as management IMHO.

The typical Malaysian companies is very old fashioned. It promotes thriftiness, does not invest in R&D as a result, and is usually managed by a family. More than a "I help my race first" I believe these companies just prefer to embrace the status quo so as not to create troubles and keep doing business as usual.

I agree with you and it was not my intention to blame the whole thing on management's back.

I agree with you here as well... but

I'm not quite sure what you meant by the above bold part though. I don't mean this as anything bad but how would a person's ethnicity disrupt the quality of work? IMHO, this can only happen if the requirement for a job is a person's ethnicity. Then, of course it is not the way to hire and recruit employees.

We can't do much about those who are choosy about the race/religion of their employers. As much as I've heard this coming, I don't think there will be much choice for those people if the potential employer stick to picking on the best person for the job based on whether the person can do the job and not based on the other reasons.

True. In other words, they tend to go for the hard human resource management style.

Very true.

Again, hiring family members would, of course, portray a company that leans more towards a certain race. Not much we can do about this. However, as much as we want to deny it, the fact remain that helping one's race first has always been around for quite a while now. I hear it being mentioned every now and then as well, seen it happening and experience it in a couple of companies I've worked at. So, I still hold to the notion that it is still very much like that no matter how subtle it is.

However, as you have earlier pointed out, some current generation are becoming more aware and are trying to break away from stereotypes although it is really hard work for some of them because, quite a lot of Malaysian's attitude towards each other are still by the norm based on race and religion.

I simply am trying to say that if certain employee don't want to work under or with someone from a different ethnic group, then they won't perform as well as they could. Hence, recruiting or promoting someone purely based on their own merit may disrupt the general productivity if he is not recognised. Bottom line is that this phenomenon showcase discrimination from the employees' own doing, which is then passed on to the management as they are the ones who recruit and promote managers.

To say it more clearly, I heard many Chinese say that they don't like to work for Malays.
Same goes for women actually. Many men don't like to have a women boss. Whether they work in the west or in Malaysia.

Quite true. The same can be said the other way round as well particularly if the superior is gripped with the mentality that he/she only treat his/her own race better.

I believe, until Malaysians change their mentality, there is no way we can see anything better in terms of racial integration. Everyone thinks they are better off among their own race. This is true as per the topic of this thread... some things just don't change.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is the very reason why the HR Ministry came out to say that companies are to hire a certain percentage of other races.

Yes. I've experienced this twice in my career life.

I love this topic and the healthy debate!
Totaly agree with what Lindy said, I myself ind it very uncomfortable too! Owning first class or highest tower in the world and nation with third class mentality and attitude is nothing to be proud of.