What is race but an accident of history frozen at a particular time.
That accident is the result of a community trying to find a sustainable livelihood, given a particular environment.
A community is a group of people who find kinship on the basis of a common factor or a set of common factors which they all share and which they can all identify with - either language, or way of life, or attire, or family members, or customs, or beliefs.
It is therefore likely that in a community with has within it many varied characteristics or features or factors, there will be as many factors.
Some factors are at individual levels - family. Some are at social levels - language, customs, beliefs, attire.
Some factors operate at national levels - language, way of life.
Some factors transcend national levels - language, beliefs.
There are therefore many permutations or groups that can be established within a community, and especially within a highly rich and diversified community.
Different groups are formed for different purposes or special interests.
Different interest groups can collude with each other in other to gain power over other groups or groupings.
When an objective is achieved, the different interest groups will split up and, if they cannot dominate the situation, will then try to work with other groups as a matter of expediency in order to gain an immediate strategic advantage, before preparing for the next move.
Different basis will be used to justify their existence and to garner support from the public at large - a certain sense of justice, history, morality, environment, economics, scientific objectivity, spiritual calling - although no one factor can be considered superior to the next.
The ultimate purpose of all groups is power - political power with a view to economic power or economic power with a view to political power.
The immediate purpose of every special interest group is to prevent the other group to gain dominant power.
There is advantage in gaining dominant power - you can abuse the others for your own advantage and gain, which is sometimes also called corruption - of justice, history, morality, environment, economics, scientific objectivity, spiritual calling, depending on where you do not stand.
The fight for a race is usually championed by a foreigner who is keen to be accepted by that race as one of its members - see Kublai Khan, Kangxi, Paul, Napoleon, Hitler.
Genuine members of a race typically are comfortable with who they are - and, like all decent people, wish to consider themselves as being kind and considerate and behave kind and considerate.
But in the sphere of physical construction, there is a specific level of excellence in technical knowledge without which the construction will not be stable. This technical knowledge is the basis for the modern world that we live in today and which there can be no compromise without subsequent cost. Technical superior is lost when the best in the relevant field is not properly employed.
2 comments:
"The fight for a race is usually championed by a foreigner who is keen to be accepted by that race..."
This also applies to other categories like religion, gang, etc. However, one first needs to be sufficiently insecure.
The pyramid of culture has technology correlates. The base is hardware or human nature. The middle-layer is software or cultural conditioning. The apex is peopleware or individual traits.
Applied to SIGs and groupings in this country at the present time, we can evolve some analytical conclusions.
We are a plural country. So politicians will have to recognize interests which may appear contending at the beginning but which can be persuaded by reason and transparency to come to a forward-moving consensus. Thus politicians worth their salt will have rational human nature. However, that hardware can be softened by their own cultural conditioning. If they are in federal positions and think they are culturally leaders for all SIGs and groupings, then they will of course be more qualified to help shape the consensus. But if they think they should be culturally communal to their own race first, then they cannot be perceived by others to be federal in which case they should disqualify themselves from their own posts.
Depending on how they balance themselves at the software level, the results of their leadership will therefore be accordingly projected at the apex or peopleware level. Which is the standard bearer for nation-building. Applications which sell, the technologists will say.
Let's take an example. A school headmistress says something racialist. Her portfolio is under some minister. Everyone expects the minister to mete disciplinary measures on her to avoid sedition charges filed against her which have been filed on all else and sundry by the SIGs to which the minister appears to be allied. But he doesn't do that. He tries to escape on a technicality.
That is worse than being silent because even the moderates in his own community will say that's double-standards besides sheer cowardice. They will add that if he is concerned for the right thing to be done, why doesn't he work on what can be done if he cannot be the one to do so on technical grounds? Surely there will be a rule or regulation somewhere in the ziggurats of public administration which would have been in place to discipline civil servants, even if they are in special grades? Or, are these civil servants even more powerful by fiat than the ministers who are answerable for their performance? So, why didn't he say the solution?
A solution is an application which is at the apex of the pyramid and that is peopleware. In a plural country, politicians are supposed to help build positive consensus in a highly diversified peopleware environment.
If they can't even do such a simple thing, how can they set standards, lubricate transparency, enforce accountability or deliver clean, efficient and trustworthy government?
Apparently attributes much needed in the next decade of trillion ringgit economic dreams where the meritorious are expected to pull the engine of growth to provide opportunities for the rest.
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