'Crazy'
I am not sure if I will ever tell my friends here the address of my blog. They are wonderful people and I love and respect them. But I went into my crazy mode in front of them yesterday. MX said I might have gone a little OTT.
Of course, this crazy mode is NOT crazy in the graduate classroom (sometimes). But it is definitely crazy for most people and here is when I feel the gap between the academia and the actual lives of people whose attitudes we hope at least educate if not change. Suddenly, I truly appreciate why Prof. Simpson said that she is really jealous of the crazy people. Because they are truly free.
And yesterday, I felt the bonds of rationality tighten around me. Of course, I reacted.
'No! Why do you say Malays are lazy? Why can't they take their time returning to their work on Friday? Why are we complaining about them when we are the comfortable majority. Isn't this like the Whites complaining about the lazy Blacks? Why can't we have different perception of time and attitudes towards work?'
'Because it is unfair. Looks at the aboriginals in Australia. They are simply receiving aid and not doing anything with the money they received. This is a problem.'
'Why must the aboriginal people behave according to the way you think they should? Why must they follow your lifestyle? Aren't we still imposing our own ideas of civilization and progress upon the very people whose land and culture were stolen due to these ideas?'
My friends are well-travelled and have studied overseas before. But we Singaporean Chinese are comfortable with the enlightment project, with progress, capitalism, nation-state and etc. Our livestyles are the normative standard that everybody in Singapore has to live up to. If they managed to live up to it, we will say, 'She/He is actually hardworking. Not the usual Malay. Good!'
We only see direct discrimination. We cannot perceive that the privileges that we take for granted is a part of discrimination too. So I went into my crazy mode and said all these to them. These are the words of the crazy for they do not follow western rational thought.
But do I actually have the right to take their comfortable reality away from them? I do not know. Discrimination is bad, but everybody has a right to see their world the way they like it.
Then I realized that the subaltern cannot speak. For one might be trying to resist the unfair standards by coming back late on a Friday after prayers. But we can only perceive it as an act of laziness. Can the subaltern really not speak???
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