Keling,Belacan,Babi

The words Keling, Belacan, Babi are the words which a Malaysian wouldn’t miss to hear throughout their lifetime. I myself grew up with this word spoken and heard commonly. To be surprised these words are not used to describe the objects but describe the race!!!. Am joking?? Am I seditious?? Am I racist???

These words are representing the major races of Malaysian, It starts as early in home where older people seeded these words to their younger generation. The younger generation made it fun and abuse the word without knowing the word could hurt and sensitive for certain community. Is it seditious or offence using these words or should be these words ban from using in Malaysia? I didn’t mean that these words should be ban, im not that stupid where I didn’t know the real meaning of those words. In Malaysia these words most of time used to represent the race in the way for provoking and humiliating.

There was a true incident where a guy from US came back to Malaysia and continues his studies in my school. Sadly this guy really doesn’t know how to speak nor understand malay language. One day the guy walks out from classroom to washroom and walks in back to classroom without the class teacher knowledge, this poor guy action made a teacher from opposite classroom came and shouted to that guy” @#$% BABI tak ada otak, kurang ajar, suka-suka masuk, suka-suka keluar” .The best part of this incident, the teacher shouting and screaming like hell but this poor guy wondering what is happening and to whom the teacher shouting to. Another incident happened during my primary school days. There was a bunch of guys were making noise and running around inside the class. A teacher came and shouts to the guys” Hoi KELING perangai macam pariah ingat sekolah bapa mu suka-suka enjoy”. There once an incident where I was in journey with my friend and his dad, during the journey suddenly a motorist turn left without an early signal.My friend’s father hurling word such as “ Woi BELACAN,bodoh makan lembu otak lembu”. All the above situations, mistake was done and im not justify their wrongdoing but the way the use the words as racial slur to scold those offenders. The most hurtful and heartache was the teachers who use these words to scold the offenders.

These scenarios not only had been through by me but every single people living in Malaysia. The most shocking, the politicians use these words to do racial slur and remarks. A person who should lead and show the noble value to the people also misused these words. Sum people even cheers and support the racial remark done by the politician. There is all kind of races in my circle of friends, none of them had used those words toward me and so I am. We had shared good rapport and good values. I felt so devastated when there are misuses of these words done not by the kids but the senior people.

For me the day I born till now I had been living my life with the help of all these so called BELACAN,KELING & BABI. I’m writing this article not to do a racist remark. It just to highlight how a normal word could be offensive and how commonly misused to make offensive remarks which lead to racism. Say no to Racism, Celebrate the human not inhuman.