Racism within Our Soul

A few days ago, a friend of mine complained to me about some bad treatment of Malaysian ‘landlords’ against their Indonesian workers, mostly maids (TKW – tenaga kerja wanita), and sadly most of such bad treatment are perpetrated by the indegenous ethnic Melayu (Malay); not by the Chinese-Malaysian. Racism of some sort is also felt on the streets, he added.

It’s not my purpose to condemn or deplore such kind of bad treatment here which’s mostly very unfortunate if it were true. I just wanna talk about the existence of racism itself deep within our own soul.

I define racism as an expression form of ‘insult’ of a more superior or more ‘perfect’ person against a weaker one; a more superior nation or state against another.

From this premise, we can see such kind of attitude in our daily life; in our surroundings; even in our own-self.

The richer against the poor. The taller against the shorter. The smarter against the dummy. The whiter against the black, the color one, etc.

For me, the racism instinct within the human soul is regrettable, yet forgiven as far as it’s not expressed in such a vulgar & verbal way. It need to be hidden and kept deep in our heart so as to make our social relation in sustainable harmony. The capability to hide our bad feeling (like that of racism instinct) and the incapability of doing it is what differentiate between the civilized person, ethnic, nation and the barbarous ones.[]