Soon, nazism, segregation, discrimination and other right wing nonsense will be straight up normalised like it’s no big deal.

  • Neptium
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    1 year ago

    To add to the other comments, I’d like to say comrade, as one SEA comrade to another, the things you mention are not so far from what already happens or have happened here.

    Not straight-up “Nazism”, in it’s particular manifestations in 1940 Europe, per se, but what about the mass anti-communist killings in 1965-66 Indonesia? The smaller but still notable state-sanctioned killings/arrests in Thailand, Singapore, Burma, Cambodia, Brunei, Philippines and Malaysia?

    Literally all countries except Laos and Viet Nam (and Cambodia), which interestingly enough faced their own fascist rule through South Viet Nam, their war for independence, and attempted genocide by the US military.

    Not to mention the infamous genocides and other racial mass killings, happening before, but also currently happening, like in Burma. What about the racist attitudes and disregard exhibited by Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai societies against migrant labourers? The tribal and aboriginal peoples throughout Southeast Asia, from the Thai Hilltribes and Khmer Loeu in the mainland, to the Orang Asli and Papuans in the maritime, facing relentless (euro-inspired) chauvinism for being underdeveloped, backwards, and lazy? What about the Chinese and Indian peoples (From Burma and Viet Nam, to the Philippines and Indonesia we all know of all the expulsions, whether ultimately justified or not, whether perpetrated by the colonizers or the nationalists)?1

    And how many are actually taught in each countries’ national curriculum? In which countries are the Communists slandered for being terrorists? It’s by far a majority.

    As for segregation, in for example, Malaysia, it has been this case since colonisation. We are all too familiar with the separate linguistic / ethnic group schools based on the three government recognised races: Chinese, Indian and Malay2. We may have gain independence but race poisons our everyday discourse - and yet almost no attention is given of how this actually came to be. It is mystified through racial essentialism, which I contend perhaps is even more dangerous and stable.

    SEA through the dialectic of uneven and combined development will face increased contradictions brought about their own capitalist development. Unlike some of the socialist states within SEA, region-wide, I can’t foresee a situation in which these contradictions are managed non-antagonistically.

    Instead of evoking a demonized European Past which only gains notoriety through their implementation of colony policies on White people, we should instead look at the very real processes happening in our own backyard.

    1 This requires elaboration because anti-Chinese sentiment has long been a mainstay in Southeast Asia for the past couple of centuries. However comparing them to European Jews, are useful - and common - but inadequate.

    2 I like to note that in Singapore/Malaysia, race and ethnicity is interchangeable. It’s treated as one and the same, and it’s not just a mere misunderstanding of the terms either. It is an explicit, concerted effort by the ruling classes to cater to their communal bases but especially for the Malay (ruling class), where it allows them to act like they have the majority through the vaguely defined meanings of Malay, including technically “foreign” ethnic groups like Minangkabau, Javanese, Bugis, among others. And the educational linguistic divide is a necessarily complicated issue aswell but it will be too much to elaborate here.