Would you pass the mirror test?

When news of Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky's scandal first broke out, I think I was having lunch at a coffee shop. I can't remember the exact date and place but I do remember sitting there with my eyes glued to the news on tv. Oh no, he did not, I said to myself in disbelief as they ran footage of him answering the press. I guess old Bill agreed with me because he too said he did not. Well, we all know the rest of the story.

I also remember the aftermath of that saga. Everyone I knew shook their heads in disbelief, even those who led more scandalous lives than Bill. If Bill did a Monica, these fellows must have done ten and yet there they were, happily condemning him kau kau.

Currently racism is a hot topic in our country. Everyone's shaking their heads in disbelief, horrified at some of the proclamations that are coming out. No doubt, nobody wants to be called a racist, not even chauvinist organizations but how many of us non-racists can actually answer these 8 questions without feeling a tinge of guilt? When was the last time we protested against such behaviours in our own children when it happened in front of our eyes?

How about taking the mirror test. Here we are holding others to standards that we ourselves cannot meet. Now look hard in the mirror. Would we dare vote for ourselves?

The most common response I got to this is, of course la, we are not leaders. We are just normal people so its okay for us to be unclean, corrupt, unfaithful and racist but those people at the top, they are different. They are leaders. They should set a shining example. They should know better.

Excuse me?

Let me get this straight. You want to appoint Mr. Perfect to fix a bad public habit like subtle racism but you say its okay for you to be a subtle racist because you're not a leader? In other words, you're making all this noise because you want someone to fix something in your backyard when as an ordinary person, you feel its okay to leave it broken? Am I missing something here?

Some say okay la, you got a point there but its not our fault. We've been misled for so long therefore our behaviour is understandable and excusable. I have two problems with that. One, if its a small excusable thing (since its okay for us ordinary people to do it), then why all this bising-bising about fixing it? Two, small habits get culturalized over time. Sikit sikit jadi bukit. The toilet got dirty, we couldn't be fussed about cleaning it and before we know it, dirty toilets become part and parcel of our culture. Is that why we grudgingly say "Normal lah" when the mat salleh in seat 4C gets orange juice while we get served plain ice water at 5D?

As you might guess, I come from an angle that sees racism as an iceberg. 80-90% of it is below the water. What you see at the top, all these offensive proclamations, as annoying as they are, is nothing compared to what's below the surface. I don't think many of us appreciate how deep this really goes.

If you think this is only happening in our country, its not. Hundreds of years after their era of slavery, the Americans are still struggling with white supremacists. The extreme right wingers in Australia, Germany, the UK, even Russia are also still very much alive. Even racism is alive and well in China, like the Hong Kong incident that got highlighted again in the press yesterday.

I fear that if we expect our leaders - incumbent or opposition - to solve the problem top-down, we will be disappointed. Sure, some bad seeds have been thrown into our garden many years ago but may I ask, what have we done to weed out the scourge from our own homes? Because from what I see, we still stereotype. We still get alarmed when our child flirts someone who's not "one of us". We still buy skin whitening creams. We still pay more attention to the mat salleh customer than the local. Best of all, we do all this while we tell everyone to stop being racist.

If walking the talk is the new way to go, I wonder when will we ever heed our own advice.

(Johan believes no racial policy on earth can beat what we choose to keep in our hearts.)