AUGUST 10 ― Not everyone in the world moves at the same pace. Indeed sometimes the nations of the world do not even move in the same direction.

In the West, what is shocking and unacceptable today was very casual or even normal only a few decades ago. My favourite British sitcoms from yesteryear include Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language; the latter was quite famous in Malaysia and other Commonwealth countries and had jokes which are incredibly politically incorrect by today’s standards.

Indeed, Mind Your Language was actually cancelled at the height of its popularity (circa late 70s) because of complaints from the British public.

In Malaysia, however, racism remains quite normal. We are not talking about the relatively harmless ribbing among friends.

During my schooldays, yours truly was often asked to "go teach the mamak how to make a proper roti canai” but I did not take it to heart. However, when politicians ("you tak suka, you boleh keluar Malaysia”) and high ranking government officials ("si mata sepet” and "si botol”) start using racist rhetoric as part of their political speech, it becomes very inflammatory and insidious.

The singer Yuna has done Malaysia very proud by breaking into the American market. She has just released a single with the world famous Usher ― Crush ― and the YouTube video has been viewed 10 million times. A phenomenal success indeed.

With such levels of success comes media attention and sometimes not positive ones at that. Yuna’s video was parodied by two local comedians.

The parody itself was not the problem. The problem was the comedian who played Usher did it by putting on "blackface.” This make-up technique exaggerates a darker skin complexion and is intended to portray persons of African origin.

On the face of it, Malaysians may not see the problem with this. Indeed some comments over Yuna’s social media outcry were of disbelief, the commentators could not understand what the big deal was.

However, the "blackface” has a very bad history. It was used to portray African-Americans in movies as played by white actors and never in a positive way.

Indeed, Malaysians may remember Darkie toothpaste which had a "blackface” for a logo. Thank heavens it was appropriately renamed Darlie later on.

To be fair, I do not blame the comedians who parodied Yuna. Perhaps they were not aware of the full import of the "blackface” parody. This is a matter of cultural knowledge and exposure and I would not be surprised if millennial Americans themselves do not understand. That said, it is time we take cognisance of this.

As if the Yuna incident was not enough, the Malaysian Film Festival then became a topic of conversation. It is strange that we did not notice this before but the division between Malay and Non-Malay films has now become an issue. And why not?

Two films which considerably moved the nation have been placed in the Non-Malay films category – Jagat and Ola Bola.

Jagat is an important film to showcase the Malaysian Indian experience while Ola Bola is loosely based on the Malaysian football team qualifying for the Olympics in 1980. Yet these two films can only compete in the "Non-Malay language” categories.

It is very easy to scream "racists” at Finas and I was tempted to do so as well. However, we should be precise in our criticism. This was not about race but rather language.

Any film can be nominated for the Malay category regardless of the ethnic origin of the director or producer. The issue here is the language content, not race, even though the majority of participants in the Malay language categories are naturally Malays. Still, we must take issue with this categorisation.

Is it appropriate for films to be categorised according to its language content? For those who uphold Bahasa Melayu as the national language, the answer would be yes.

However, we should ask ― is there not enough segregation already? Malays are already given special rights and privileges and being Muslims, they are prohibited by the Islamofascist priesthood from fully participating in Malaysian social life.

We have enough segregation already. Films are a means for us to forge a common cultural identity and as such, we should not be concerned about the language of the films. If anything, they can help us understand our fellow Malaysians on a deeper level. So yes, we need to bring down the wall of segregation and allow these films to compete in a single category.

Malaysia has its own unique socio-cultural milieu and we cannot expect to be like any other nation. However, there has been tremendous progress in the area of counter-racism and we should take note.

If we are to co-exist with our fellow human beings, we must take what is good. We must remove our normalised racism and allow for a more unified nation.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.