Racism may broadly be defined as the preferential treatment or unfair favoritism shown towards one particular race or ethnic group in employment, grant of citizenship or scholarship and other social benefits over another race or races based on race alone. Racism rears its ugly head everywhere; it exists in America, UK, Europe and Asia is no exception: in fact, racism is well and alive in many parts of Asia.

When an Asian American or Asian Australian is abused, even verbally by a white neighbour, it is racism if the sole reason for the abuse is because the victim is an Asian by ethnicity. Similarly, if a Chinese Malaysian is not awarded a Government Scholarship even though he or she has achieved the highest academic accolades, whereas a Malay Malaysian who has not performed as well as the aforementioned Chinese Malaysian did gets the scholarship, that is racism, period. The Malaysian authorities usually defend their brand of racism by glossing it over as ‘affirmative action’, a state policy adopted purportedly to help the ‘disadvantaged’ ethnic Malays. However, anyone who has lived in Malaysia long enough, including foreigners, will be able to tell us that there are many under-privileged Malaysians of all ethnicities: Malays, Chinese, Indians, Dayaks, Bidayuhs, Melanaus etc. Malaysia has somehow gained a degree of notoriety in that it has more or less institutionalized racism. One particular ethnicity or race i.e. the Malays has priority in almost all the fields of commerce, opportunities for higher education, grant of licence etc over the other non-Malay Malaysians. The privileges enjoyed by Malay Malaysians are written into the laws and enshrined in the Malaysian Constitution.

Extreme and violent forms of racism have occurred in recent times in two predominantly Muslim countries in South-east Asia, viz Malaysia and Indonesia. In Malaysia in the late 1960s Malay racists attacked Chinese Malaysians and plundered their properties and also murdered hundreds of these hapless citizens of the nation, victims of racial riots in their own land due largely to government inaction to clamp down the extremists. Similarly in Indonesia in the 1980s, under the repressive and racist regime of Suharto, Chinese Indonesians had been systematically persecuted, as happened in the military-supported riots that left thousands of Chinese Indonesians slain and their properties pillaged.

To be fair, I think perhaps almost everyone is ‘racist’ to some extent in the sense that oftentimes our actions and behaviour are influenced by racial considerations, consciously or unconsciously. For instance, it may be the case that many landlords in a typical Western country e.g. UK or the USA, don’t really wish to let out their premises to coloured tenants, and that include of course, Asian tenants like Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese and Japanese. But the landlord in a typical Western democracy runs the risk of being hauled up by the authorities on charges of racism as he or she has run foul of say, The Race Relations Act and other anti-discriminatory provisions of the law. So at least in a Western democracy, racial discrimination - a form of racism - is made illegal and a non-racist stance is viewed always as politically correct.

Now if we turn our attention to one particular Asian nation - China - we will find that the Chinese could qualify to be among the most racist of all Asian peoples and they practise racism in many forms and sometimes their actions, while plainly smacking of covert or overt racism, could be quite bizarre, outlandish and positively laughable. Take the remark made by a young Chinese girl for starters: “In China we don’t practise discrimination, even though we can’t get used to the ways of the Blacks - but thank God - there is no Black ethnic tribe in China!” Accusing the westerners of being racists, the Chinese would claim that he or she is not one, but will always frown upon any Chinese, man or woman, who dates a Black ( there are now many Black students studying in China, mostly from African countries ) and one often hears of angry comments made by the Chinese in such abusive language as “we just can’t understand why some Chinese girl could stoop so low as to go sleep with a nigger in the hope of being able to go abroad..” One incident which illustrates a clear case of racism happened in Hong Kong many years ago. An Indian lady, a lawyer by profession, collapsed in her home from a cardiac problem but when she was admitted to the hospital apparently she was not given immediate or adequate emergency medical treatment, partly or mainly because she was dark-skinned. She died without recovery from her coma and her husband, a White residing in Hong Kong, told of complaints made by his late wife of instances of discriminatory treatment in the hands of the inhabitants of Hong Kong, which was ( and still is ) almost 100% Chinese.

Race situation is in dire straits and racism is still rampant, to say the least, across Asia. Even though this article has not explored the situation in nations like Japan, Korea, India and Pakistan, it will be a safe bet to assert that a country like Japan, with its homogeneous population, cannot be too non-racist compared to say, China. In fact, if anything, the Japanese harbour great distrust of foreigners who do not speak their language and are notorious for their non-acceptance of anyone not Japanese into their society.

Racism is well and rife in Asia and we have witnessed many manifestation of racial discrimination in some Asian nations. While recognizing that racism, by its very nature, is flagrantly discriminatory and runs counter to everything a civilized human being holds dear - the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity - we as Asians must do something about it. We must seek all possible avenues to garner support from conscientious individuals and progressive organizations who share our view that racism must be stamped out and eradicated from the social landscape of Asia. We need to pool the resources, strength and wisdom of right-minded citizens of our vast continent and think of ways to prevent the venom of racism from spreading unchecked. We have to tell our lawmakers to take cognizance of the unalienable rights of all people, including the right not to be made a victim of racial discrimination in all its manifestations. Anti-discriminatory laws must be enacted to punish those guilty of covert racism in all fields. In this way, we hope to be able to at least ameliorate the grave situation and to gradually rebuild a new Asia that is free from the social injustice and plague known as racism.