The Stranger | Ideologies of intolerance

Sheyla Zandonai

A professor at the University of Macau (UM) has recently uttered some controversial comments about a certain inclination of “white people” – whom, he clarified, also happen to be “foreigners” in this land – to perform corrupt acts.
The comments were made during a conference organized by the UM Center for Macau Studies, of which the academic is a member, and referred to a comparison between Macau and Hong Kong’s judicial systems.
Many people raised eyebrows and condemned the unfortunate statement, including the president of the local Lawyers’ Association, Jorge Neto Valente, lawmaker José Pereira Coutinho, and scholars who are also members of the Center.
Singling out and accusing people of wrongdoing based on race or ethnicity without supporting evidence, in a place and context of debate which should be free of such discriminatory remarks – reminiscent of the imperial “barbarian” discourse? In 2019? – looks bad from every angle you can possibly imagine.
First of all, we should not expect of a person who occupies an academic position, especially one who has been trained abroad, to be an epitome of such narrow-mindedness. Speaking his mind in this context, the professor was far from practicing freedom of expression. If anything, it was an exercise in reverse chauvinism: it seems he had some hard time while living in North America as a Chinese person, as his comments about racism being “everywhere” there lead us to infer.
The laws of research and empiricism must apply, nevertheless, to corroborate such types of statement. While suggesting that “white people” are more corrupt than others and that they have weakened Hong Kong’s judicial system, the professor was seemingly implying that the others who are not corrupt are the Chinese.
If the “whites” are crooked, then, what are we to make of “non-white” people in Macau who have been incapable of completing public projects planned over ten years ago? Or who have granted land concessions, as a matter of fact, without due respect to the rule of law?
The unfortunate statement by the professor is somewhat of a glimpse of a much broader, and problematic take on recent academic affairs in Macau’s main university: that which lets dogma speak for knowledge. A stance which does not seem to be going away any time soon though.
Claiming, on the other hand, as the academic did, that the topic is “sensitive” and that his opinion, delivered during a public conference, is “personal” and that, for such reasons, he didn’t want it to be made public, strikes as either naivety or weak use of rhetoric. Defending that the comment was not “racist,” he attempted to further excuse his behavior by throwing the problem elsewhere, in America.
The man has got a point. There is racism in America, North and South, expressed in forms more or less manifest or concealed. But it is also patent in Europe, Africa, and, definitely, Asia – although outside the Americas the debate is more often formulated in ethnic or national terms.
People’s poor acceptance of cultural and ethnic difference is a well-known condition of human existence, which tends to be exacerbated in times of unrest and distress – it is always easier to blame the stranger or the unfit for a society’s ills.
Yet, discrimination is not a product of geographical location. It is a social practice imbued with ideologies that foster intolerance, if not ignorance, based on such principles as pure blood and common origin, which are mere foundational myths embraced and replicated in different formulas by the State. As racism, reactionary politics never goes out of fashion.