OCT 11 — Now that the dust is settling and the online anger has abated somewhat on the matter of Amy Cheong’s Facebook rant, it is necessary to take a step back and ask: what went wrong?
For this was not an isolated incident — as has been observed, in recent years there have been other instances of online comments made of a racist nature. Indeed, in September 2005, the situation was deemed serious enough that the Sedition Act was used for the first time in recent history to prosecute two men over online postings deemed insulting to the Malays and their religion.
These incidences might lead one to think that there is something wrong with our nation-building process. We could point a finger at the emergence of social media and sound a warning, but this does not address the root of the matter. Social media is not the problem to be managed — signs point to a racialised thought process that is in need of urgent attention. Full story
