Racism, a rife plague

as i dig deeper in this whole racial discrimination in Malaysia, its becoming more clear that its pretty much impossible to really dissolve racism off the face of Malaysia. because yea occasionally you get the 'budak budak mentah' posting racial comments on fb, or video ejek2 on youtubes, but these guys are fine. okay theyre not fine but at least they are somewhat 'treatable'

the big problem here is racism that implicates from the system. the system that grants different races to be treated differently. the system that is called Ketuanan Melayu ( or Malay Supremacy - or something like that >.< ). it is defined as 'institutional racism', "any kind of racism occurring specifically within institutions such as public government" ( wikipedia )

Malay Supremacy goes wayyyy back to the old days. even before Malaysia gained independence. when Singapore was part of Malaysia for the short 2 years period, they made a movement on how the people need to stand up and fight against this policy. which then triggered the incident of 13th May. a bloody mess i must say. then the government in-effort to somehow 'counter' this tragedy, established new special rights to the Malays in the Constitution of Malaysia ( specifically Article 153 ) and also the Rukun Negara. i guess im in no position to say if it was the right or wrong since I'm a Malay myself and I am 'living' the special rights.

so, racism in Malaysia is in general, bigger than other countries' because it comes from hate or dissatisfaction towards the governing system. i read an article written by a Chinese. he expressed how he love his country so much, that there is no other place he even consider going or calling home other than Malaysia. but his dad had to went abroad just to pursue his studies ( back then there werent that many universities accepting non-Malays i suppose ) because his intentions were rejected in his own country. the author described that he was born in Chinese. there's really nothing he can do about it and like it or not, they have to abide to the system.

in conclusion, i really dont know how im gonna pull this off. i mean sending a powerful statement that can really change someone. how he feels. but i know for sure there is no way i can really clear everyone of the racism plague. they are pointing fingers at the government, the system. what am i to do about it? ive learned that to live in a multiculturalism country means you have to acknowledge, accept, value and respect other culture be it ethics, religions, whatever. a good read is a paper written by Maher Abu-Munshar entitled Islamicjerusalem : A Model for Multiculturalism. i have to admit i havent read the whole thing but i did read bits of it. Islamicjerusalem is basically a term founded in early 1996, and scholars are using it to discuss on how Muslims and Christians were able to live in peace back in Jerusalem, unlike how things are today.

“ Their ( Muslims ) understanding of non-Muslims’ rights and recognition of the two communities’ needs engendered a flourishing multicultural society that provided an atmosphere for peaceful co-existence. Multiculturalism, a vital and crucial element of a society, can become a convenient and indispensable mechanism for fostering diversity among different cultures and religions. This approach tends to perpetuate, rather than challenge, views about the differences of other religions. The Muslims’ inclusive vision for Islamicjerusalem, which involved recognizing others, fostering diversity and pluralism, implementing Islamic tolerance and mutual respect, led to peaceful co-existence ”

- Maher Abu-Munshar

Crit 02 : Change in Platform

I've been thinking about the approach on reaching out to the audience. No great ideas worth mentioning so far. I kinda agree with Mr Khong when he said my initial approach was a little old school or outdated.

Lately I've been playing around with the Ipad. It's pretty cool I have to say. But other then a larger display, its pretty much the same thing as an Iphone 3G. Still fun though. Especially with the kids. My nieces and nephews enjoy drawing and popping bubbles all the time on that thing. It seemed like a viable platform for my project. So I did research on Ipad apps.

I'm still not quite sure how the final product is gonna be. But for now, I will be experimenting with Ipod apps. Since I started studying in MMU, every applications I programmed was on Flash. Nothing else. So I thought I just might challenge myself and try to create an Ipod application.

Of course, to test code an app and actually test it out, I need the real thing to play with. So I sold my psp ( T~T ) to buy an Ipod Touch. Just got it yesterday so still pretty new to it. Got a few apps and a lot of apps really shows amazing stuffs you can do with the Ipod when connected to a PC. You pretty much have total control over it. Okay that's a lie. But it is still pretty cool. For me at least. Tested a few sharing applications, like AirSharing PRO. Worked well. Might look on how it works and coded which surely will be useful.

The applications are mostly coded in C. Obviously everyone knows Ipod doesn't support Flash. Which sucks cause I can't play Facebook games on it xD still seeing how a massive amount of awesome applications are available for the Ipod, I bet you can do all kind of things with C. The most common program used to code an Ipod app is X-Code.

Here's a short tutorial for noobs like me :

Design Research Proposal

Went for my SRI consultation today. Mr Khong read my fyp proposal and told me I should change the tablet input part to speech recognition. Personally, I think it's a hard task to make an application that can capture speech and convert it to text accurately. And i think Mr Ky agrees on this. But I will look into it for a bit

My proposed research title was 'Capability of new media to function as a medium to deliver a message to audience'. I thought if I study about the tools and technology it could really help in making an effective installation.

Mr Khong decided it was best if I do a research on the effects of racism in Malaysia and its implications. His reasoning was that if I am planning to unite races among Malaysian, I need to know the races in Malaysia first and what causes racism. Not just the majority ( Malay, Indian, Chinese ) I must include races that are minor in numbers in my research because they are still part of the races in this country. They are what makes Malaysia a multinational country. He suggested I should proceed with defining racism afterwards, then continue with interviews concerning racism effects and what are certain people/groups efforts in voicing out their stand against racism.

Final note, he suggested to do a research entitled "Studying the effects of racism and its implications in a multinational country such as Malaysia" and proposal submission is next week.