Ethnicity and the Retaining of Cultural Traditions

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Written by johnleemk on 9:22:37 am May 6, 2005.

As you have seen from past writings of mine archived on this site, I am very strongly against the concept of race or ethnic pride. However, as I have researched this topic, I have found that the way I phrase myself may lead to serious misunderstandings. Thus, this article will clear up what I mean when I advocate retaining the family while obliterating the ethnicity.

Families, by nature, derive tradition from their race. However, no two families are alike in their adaptation of their race's culture or traditions. My family hardly keeps any Chinese traditions alive, besides filial piety, nor do we desire to. Every family has different traditions; a mixing and matching of cultures, if you will.

The idea is, as intermarriages grow, eventually it will be difficult to identify yourself as belonging to any one, two, three or four ethnic groups, because none of them will make up a majority of your blood. Nevertheless, you and your family will maintain certain cultural traditions passed down through the generations, mixing and matching them with those of other cultures. Eventually, there will be a rich cultural heritage for each family to belong to.

The reason why I am so opposed to the idea of keeping races uniquely separate, yet living side-by-side, is because of the Malaysian "salad bowl", as opposed to the American melting pot. In America, it's all melded together; a Greek can marry a Swede, and their children will inherit mixed Greek and Swedish traditions. In Malaysia, there is also limited interracial marriage, but cultures are for the most part, kept separated. For example, Malays don't have a choice of converting to Hinduism, Buddhism or Christianity; instead, their spouse has to convert to Islam. This is in effect a Malay-isation of the non-Muslim spouse.

I am not necessarily demanding that this practice be discontinued. The problem is that once the spouse converts, he/she becomes a Malay, and is assimilated into the Malay race and culture. He/she can no longer continue his/her rich Chinese/Indian traditions. To me, the idea that you can only belong to one race and one culture is abhorrent.

If we're going to have ethnic pride, I'd rather have the kind you see in the US. Over there, you can find Italians and Spanish joining an Irish folk band. In Malaysia, if you're a Chinese joining a dikir barat group, prepare for serious humiliation from your non-Malay friends. In the US, join an Irish folk band and nobody bats an eyelid.

The mixing and melding of cultures should be encouraged and continued, not discouraged in favour of preserving racial or ethnic identities. In the end, we're all human beings. We just each have different habits and mannerisms. Let's learn to accomodate one another. We only have one planet Earth. That definitely isn't enough to allow for a splitting of mankind into us and them.

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Related comments from forum thread "On immigration":
johnleemk Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 948 IP Logged	Posted at 1:33:30 pm Sep 28, 2005 Since we were talking about ketuanan Melayu in the other forum, I thought it would be unwise to continue my ravings about immigration, so I figured it would be a better idea to do so here. (Warning: This is liable to be a ramble, as per the name of this site, since I thought much of this post up while cycling, and my mind tends to wander while I cycle.) My first thought is that only a people who fear they are inferior would cower at the thought of encouraging immigration. People who migrate to your country want to work here and contribute - and you prevent them from entering? That seems misguided, if you ask me. People who seek to prevent immigration fear they are not up the standards of the migrants who may replace them, and thus end up losing their jobs. The remedy for this is to improve. This is how immigration improves a society - it culls the weak and lets the strong rise to the top and improve the society's lot. The US and UK are great examples of this accomplishment. For example, many American entertainers have mixed blood or immigrant heritage (Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Natalie Portman). In the recent Miss England pageant, more than 20% of the contestants were Muslim. I have on my desk right now a book written by a British physicist. His name? Jim Al-Khalili. The important thing to remember is that nobody except someone unwilling to improve himself loses from immigration. The only problem that may arise is a serious swamping of the nation that leads to serious repercussions. In such a case government intervention is required - to train the now unemployed citizens and prepare them for a new vocation or just brush up their skills. Immigration is the lifeblood of a nation. The strongest nation on earth (the US, duh) relies so strongly on it that statisticians actually adjust standard demographic predictor models for it just to account for the incredible number of migrants that flow into the country. If we don't fear becoming irrelevant to our country, then perhaps we fear the loss of our culture - that instead of the migrants' being assimilated by us, they either maintain their separate culture (as some are trying to do in Malaysia with vernacular schools) or end up assimilating us. However, as history has proven, this is not quite true. For example, the Normans invaded England. Did England become Norman? Nope, the opposite occurred. Likewise, the Manchus invaded China. Did China become Manchu? Again, it was the Manchus who became indistinguishable from the Chinese. One thing about Chinese culture I remember reading in a book I borrowed from the MPPJ Library about, well, Chinese culture, is that Chinese view any culture capable of producing a good citizen as a good culture. I think this is an excellent opinion to take. As I have expressed elsewhere on this site before, cultures mix. It's an inexorable and irrevocable fact of life. Instead of fighting this mixing, we must take the best of each culture and learn from it. The Malays have good points of their culture, as do the Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, etc. While we look to our roots, let us also look to our branches. Much like how Chinese share one unique culture that then branches into Hokkien culture, Cantonese culture, etc. and then further branches into the culture of each family/clan, we must recognise that it is possible to belong to more than one culture, and that there is nothing wrong with this. What doesn't kill a culture only makes it stronger. For example, elements of Hindu/Indian and animist culture remain in Malay culture, but while the former two cultures have not vanished, surely their combination has resulted in a far sturdier mix. Until we rid ourselves of our fear and inferiority complex, we can never hope to advance. Change is to be expected and accepted, not opposed or just plain ignored every step of the way. Some Asians have an irrational fear that Western culture will swamp our existing culture or corrupt our morals. It is only if we oppose/ignore this change that it will become an unstoppable tidal wave. If we accept that change is a normal thing to be understood and accepted, we will be capable of steering the mixing of our cultures to incorporate the reasonable and excellent elements of Western culture while rejecting the portions that encourage undesirable activities. Unfortunately, it seems that some in their fervour to combat this change have already lost their own culture. Perhaps the Malays of the Malayan Union days were right after all. Malay culture on its own cannot stand up to other cultures. Maybe it really was only a matter of time before it began to succumb to Arabic/Middle Eastern culture.
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Related comments from forum thread "On immigration":

johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind
Head Administrator
Posts: 948
IP Logged

Posted at 1:33:30 pm Sep 28, 2005

Since we were talking about ketuanan Melayu in the other forum, I thought it would be unwise to continue my ravings about immigration, so I figured it would be a better idea to do so here. (Warning: This is liable to be a ramble, as per the name of this site, since I thought much of this post up while cycling, and my mind tends to wander while I cycle.)

My first thought is that only a people who fear they are inferior would cower at the thought of encouraging immigration. People who migrate to your country want to work here and contribute - and you prevent them from entering? That seems misguided, if you ask me. People who seek to prevent immigration fear they are not up the standards of the migrants who may replace them, and thus end up losing their jobs.

The remedy for this is to improve. This is how immigration improves a society - it culls the weak and lets the strong rise to the top and improve the society's lot. The US and UK are great examples of this accomplishment. For example, many American entertainers have mixed blood or immigrant heritage (Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, Natalie Portman). In the recent Miss England pageant, more than 20% of the contestants were Muslim. I have on my desk right now a book written by a British physicist. His name? Jim Al-Khalili.

The important thing to remember is that nobody except someone unwilling to improve himself loses from immigration. The only problem that may arise is a serious swamping of the nation that leads to serious repercussions. In such a case government intervention is required - to train the now unemployed citizens and prepare them for a new vocation or just brush up their skills. Immigration is the lifeblood of a nation. The strongest nation on earth (the US, duh) relies so strongly on it that statisticians actually adjust standard demographic predictor models for it just to account for the incredible number of migrants that flow into the country.

If we don't fear becoming irrelevant to our country, then perhaps we fear the loss of our culture - that instead of the migrants' being assimilated by us, they either maintain their separate culture (as some are trying to do in Malaysia with vernacular schools) or end up assimilating us. However, as history has proven, this is not quite true. For example, the Normans invaded England. Did England become Norman? Nope, the opposite occurred. Likewise, the Manchus invaded China. Did China become Manchu? Again, it was the Manchus who became indistinguishable from the Chinese.

One thing about Chinese culture I remember reading in a book I borrowed from the MPPJ Library about, well, Chinese culture, is that Chinese view any culture capable of producing a good citizen as a good culture. I think this is an excellent opinion to take. As I have expressed elsewhere on this site before, cultures mix. It's an inexorable and irrevocable fact of life. Instead of fighting this mixing, we must take the best of each culture and learn from it. The Malays have good points of their culture, as do the Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, etc.

While we look to our roots, let us also look to our branches. Much like how Chinese share one unique culture that then branches into Hokkien culture, Cantonese culture, etc. and then further branches into the culture of each family/clan, we must recognise that it is possible to belong to more than one culture, and that there is nothing wrong with this. What doesn't kill a culture only makes it stronger. For example, elements of Hindu/Indian and animist culture remain in Malay culture, but while the former two cultures have not vanished, surely their combination has resulted in a far sturdier mix.

Until we rid ourselves of our fear and inferiority complex, we can never hope to advance. Change is to be expected and accepted, not opposed or just plain ignored every step of the way. Some Asians have an irrational fear that Western culture will swamp our existing culture or corrupt our morals. It is only if we oppose/ignore this change that it will become an unstoppable tidal wave. If we accept that change is a normal thing to be understood and accepted, we will be capable of steering the mixing of our cultures to incorporate the reasonable and excellent elements of Western culture while rejecting the portions that encourage undesirable activities.

Unfortunately, it seems that some in their fervour to combat this change have already lost their own culture. Perhaps the Malays of the Malayan Union days were right after all. Malay culture on its own cannot stand up to other cultures. Maybe it really was only a matter of time before it began to succumb to Arabic/Middle Eastern culture.

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Ethnicity and the Retaining of Cultural Traditions

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