By Nurul Izzati Zakariah
GOMBAK, 25 March 2021: If we were to look back to history, we can understand that the anti-Asian, or specifically anti-Chinese sentiment, is looking for someone to blame, according to Dr. Syaza Farhana Mohamad Shukri, a lecturer from the Department of Political Science.
Dr. Syaza was speaking during a virtual talk “Political Insights” which was conducted by IIUMtv. Narrowing down the idea of anti-Asian sentiment, Dr. Syaza stated that prejudices and biased sentiments towards Asians have occurred for almost 200 years.
Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hate crimes towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in major U.S cities grew by nearly 150 per cent.
Many people criticised China as this pandemic is navigated from that country. Throughout the fifty-minute session, Dr. Syaza gave her insights on the issue.
Right Wings and anti-immigrant sentiment
“Asians make up six per cent of the 300 million plus of the Americans,” said Dr. Syaza. Asian Americans were minority groups in America. The way they look at the Asians as if they are morally corrupt.
The rise of right-wing supremacy is also due to how the American people view uncontrolled globalisation and migration. Most importantly, during the times when Japanese car makers were flourishing while Americans saw this as a threat.
According to Dr. Syaza, the legal discrimination towards immigrants in America first happened in the 1875s after The Page Act was signed to prohibit and banned Chinese women purposely to limit the migration of Chinese families.
Dr. Syaza added that ten years before that, Chinese labourers were highly involved in the Transcontinental Railroad. The Chinese then found that they were paid with a low-income job and started competing for jobs with the Americans.
After the following years, until in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was then being implemented to totally ban all Chinese labourers. “They said, there were no more Chinese,” Dr. Syaza expressed.
Definitely, those were the moments where Chinese Americans were oppressed.
COVID-19 and Republican leaders
“COVID-19 plus the negative rhetoric by Trump and Republican leaders,” said Dr. Syaza.
Refusing to per say “COVID-19” as the trigger towards these anti-groups, she then affirmed that COVID-19 does not affect Americans solely but it does affect the whole world.
She believed that the influence of the U.S former President, Donald Trump was also one of the factors that triggered the American people to act aggressively.
Years ago in the early days of the pandemic, a statement by Trump of the “Chinese virus” caused an increase of anti-Asian hashtags on Twitter.
“People become emboldened and braver to voice these racist ideas that they always had,” she said.
Plus, they also believed that the action made by Trump is acceptable to be followed.
From hate feeling towards verbal harassment
Answering the question regarding the types of violence made towards the minority groups, she stated that there is no data collected for a long period of time. However, she affirmed that the majority of the violence was verbal harassment.
“Majority of up to 70 per cent are verbal harassment which also includes online harassment,” she said.
According to Dr. Syaza, a Thai immigrant was found dead due to this physical attack last month.
As reported by the New York Times (February 2021), the man was violently slammed to the ground by a man who charged into him at full speed.
Dr. Syaza added her point where she believed that this hate action towards immigrants is more likely a spark of discriminating against minority groups in the sense that they do not want to come close, work together and provide services to Asian Americans.
“It is not a crime or criminal acts but still it is part of the larger narratives of this anti sentiment,” she affirmed.
Dr. Syaza Shukri was invited as guest speaker in the first episode of Political Insights season four. This programme was conducted live on IIUMTV’s YouTube on Wednesday, moderated by Haiqal Rosli as the host from Political Insights crew. **