Projek Mendaftar Anak Malaysia

I have, in the past, criticised the political parties who fall over themselves to woo the majority, while ignoring marginalised minorities.

I am pleased to note that this is changing.

Turns out that Gobind Singh of DAP (MP Puchong) and Dr Mariah Mahmud of Parti Amanah (ADUN Sri Serdang) are jointly organising a registration drive for Malaysians who have issues with citizenship legalities.

It's held today and tomorrow (17 & 18 August) so if you know of anyone who needs help, please direct them to this.

This has been an ongoing issue for years and has exacerbated within the past 10 years.

My previous blog posts can be found here:

1. Stateless
2. Trying To Obtain A Birth Certificate
3. No Identification Is A Violation Of Rights

"Indians Are Their Own Worst Enemies"

Helen Ang has kick-started a very interesting (at least to me) topic about the plight of Malaysian Indians.

It all started out because an FMT reporter had a go at Waytha Moorthy, the chairman of HINDRAF or Human Rights Party.

To be fair, I am not impressed by how Narinder Singh manages to come off sounding patronising and condescending, by calling Waytha a waterboy and the "sole Indian fool" in the PM's Office.

A waterboy is someone who plays a small and perhaps somewhat insignificant role in fetching water for the "real" athletes -- the big boys who make a difference; who clinch the game. Urban Dictionary even defines a waterboy as an utter failure.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think Waytha is a resounding success either. But I know what his game plan is. He has been trying to convince Pakatan Rakyat to do more for the marginalised Indian community.

However, much to his disgust (and mine), Pakatan Rakyat is more interested in fishing for votes than coming up with solid policies for the downtrodden and marginalised of Malaysian society.

So Waytha made good on his threat of moving over to BN, should they offer something better than what Pakatan Rakyat could come up with, which to begin with, was insignificant. Unfortunately, as I predicted, BN was offering up empty promises.

I suspect Waytha has had enough and consequently thrown in the towel; resigning from his post as minister in the PM's Office.

Helen has just one "simple" (in her words) question: So who is going to help, and how will assistance and poverty alleviation programmes be delivered to the poorest Indians now?

When I saw this question, I just had to jump to the comments section, because I knew there would be at least one brilliant armchair critic who would prescribe that the rich Indians should help the poor Indians.

This is ironic, especially when it comes from a Malay, because if one were to say, "Why don't we stop having ANY bumiputra privileges. Let the rich Malays help the poor Malays," they would be all up in arms and bleating, "Don't play with fire!!"

I didn't have to scroll very far to find the first comment:

Jika semua usaha kerajaan membantu melayu, Cina, India, Iban, kadazan, Sikh dll menjadi biawak kepada UMNO, apa sebenarnya dibuat oleh Samy Vellu, Tony Fernades, Ambiga, Ananda K dalam membangunkan masyarakat India?

Translated: If the responsibility of helping the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Iban, Kadazan, Sikh etc falls on the government, what exactly are "Samy Vellu, Tony Fernades, Ambiga, Ananda K" doing to help the Indians?

Now bringing Samy Vellu into the picture may be relevant as he was meant to represent the Indians. But why on earth would two businessmen and a lawyer be involved when they are largely private citizens and in no way holding public office? They are not responsible for anyone but their own businesses and families, and anyone who says otherwise merely brings scorn on themselves.

This ignorant comment came from someone who claims to be a teacher and I shudder to think what our youth are being imbued with, under the guise of education.

The funny thing is when the crime rate goes skyrocketing and just about every other person has a story about how they got mugged or knew someone who did, then Malaysians have no one but themselves to blame.

If you systematically marginalise an entire community, you breed resentment. You break their self esteem and motivation. And when they have no motivation, they put in no effort whatsoever to better themselves.

They turn to crime as a way out of their predicament.

It is not the job of a wealthy Indian to employ or feed a poor, marginalised Indian. It is the responsibility of the government.

Stateless

According to Al-Jazeera, about 40,000 ethnic Indians born and bred in Malaysia do not have any form of identification.

I have written about this topic a number of times.

Frankly, I've railed about how having no form of identification is a violation of rights, because these children do not get any education. I have also lamented on what a social impediment these stateless people grow up with.

Heck, I've even complained that no political party takes this group seriously enough to correct this situation.

The truth is, ethnic Indians comprise nearly eight per cent of the Malaysian population, yet an inability to obtain the proper documents has rendered generations stateless.

They have never been to India as they don't own birth certificates or identity cards, much less passports. Neither have they been to any other country.

And yet, they are not considered citizens of Malaysia.

Watch the video: Recognizing Malaysia's stateless Indians

Imran Khan on the Malaysian Govt at The Guardian

On being detained at Kuala Lumpur airport

Malaysia didn't want me to enter the country to gather evidence about how ethnic Indians were treated by colonial Britain

In the Hollywood film The Terminal Tom Hanks plays (with obligatory mangled foreign accent) a character who is trapped in New York's JFK airport. Last week, I had a similar experience at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Malaysia. Whereas Tom Hanks's character spends years trapped, I was only there for a few hours. The episode was both humiliating and enlightening. I had been engaged by a Malaysian lawyer, Waytha Moorthy, to look into taking action against the British government for its role in the exploitation of Indian Hindus during Malaysia's period as a colony, and its failure to protect their rights when independence was declared in 1957.

Read the rest on the web.

Trying To Obtain A Birth Certificate

Some of you may remember a previous post about Malaysian-born children without birth certificates.

I still find it shocking that in this day and age, there are children in this country who are stateless and belong nowhere. They do not exist in the eyes of our government.

These are three of the eight children I wrote about earlier. The little boy peeking out from behind his sister has no birth certificate.

He hasn't attained school-going age yet, but if he doesn't somehow obtain a birth certificate, he doesn't obtain an education.

Which is why my friend was so keen on ensuring these kids make their foray into government records. He dragged the young 25 year old mother and her unregistered children to the Registry department.

But trying to get a birth certificate is not easy. Firstly there is a fine for not registering within the stipulated period.

Secondly, you need a witness to swear under oath that he/she was present when the child was born.

And last but not least, the civil servants in the district were uncooperative. They told the mother to go all the way to Seremban to register their birth.

It takes over an hour to get from Kuala Pilah to Seremban. There is limited public transportation, if any.

Perhaps the civil servants were acting within their rightful jurisdiction. But the manner in which they regarded this uneducated, poverty-stricken woman was out of line.

It is not merely the politicians in the state level that exceed their boundaries. So do those in the local council.

We need to have more say and control over the government and administration of the local council for things to improve.

Evening Is The Whole Day - Preeta Samarasan

About a year and a half ago, this article caught my attention.

It was of interest because there aren't all that many Malaysian novelists around, much less those who attract foreign attention.

A feeling of belonging in Malaysia

First novelists often get missed in the cacophony of new books from established or popular writers. And so it was with Preeta Samarasan, a Malaysian native and a recent graduate of the University of Michigan whose sweeping novel about a Tamil family in a changing Malaysia moved quietly along book circles this year, overshadowed by new works from such brilliantly popular names as Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, Manil Suri and Amitav Ghosh.

It is getting increasingly awkward and rare for Malaysians to express themselves and explore their niche in this nation. Somehow, this writer manages.

In Evening Is The Whole Day, she describes the relationship to the 'motherland' many Malaysians still hold on to:

"Somewhere in all that hoping and studying and preparing, something else changed: India ceased to be home," Samarasan writes while describing how the Rajasekharans became Malaysians. " . . .  This, this flourishing, mixed-up, polyglot place to which they had found their way almost by accident, this was his country now. Malays Chinese Indians, motley countrymen they might be, but countrymen they were, for better or for worse. What was coming to them all. It would be theirs to share."

It is just heart-breaking that race relations in Malaysia, which once flourished, are now steadily deteriorating.

Read what Preeta Samarasan had to say about May 13 last year.

No Identification Is A Violation Of Rights

It was a tough decision - choosing between going for the SABM roadshow in East Malaysia or going for this trip down to Kuala Pilah to visit a family of rubber tappers.

Perhaps you’ll call me a katak di bawah tempurung - a severe case of living in a bubble and not knowing what happens - not on the other side of the world but - just approximately 130km south of Kuala Lumpur.

The truth is, I didn’t know rubber tappers still existed.


I knew there was a huge demand for rubber early last century, but the textbooks I owned when I was still languishing in secondary school told me that it dropped drastically when synthetic rubber emerged.

Evidently, there is still a demand, and rubber tappers still harvest latex everyday.

The group I was with was organizing a camp for the children of the rubber tappers, and I had been recruited as the games mistress (ahem) cum arts & crafts director. Okay, I flatter myself with fancy titles, but it’s the truth.

I was also recruited to do a number of odd jobs, one of which was registration. Yes, this group I work with certainly knows how to squeeze every bit of manual labour out of innocent souls and in return, I seem to be a glutton for punishment.

But I digress.

Registration was an interesting affair. It involved getting down the details of participants as they showed up and writing down their names on stickers, which functioned as name tags.

Under normal circumstances, that is generally an easy task.

I was to discover that life wasn’t as simple as it looked.

“What’s your name?” I asked the first cheerful participant in Tamil. “Krebfojgwn,” he mumbled.

“How do you spell it?” I asked. I was met with a blank stare. And then he proceeded to spit out a string of letters that did not remotely resemble the name he had stated.

A drop of sweat rolled down my brow. The camp was held at the house of a rubber tapper and her husband who had kindly volunteered their premises.

However, the zinc roof and blazing heat were certainly not a decent combination for a KL born-and-bred, air-conditioned-office employee like Yours Truly.

I later discovered that the abovementioned cheerful participant was named Kajenthiran. He was 10 years old and had 8 living siblings, the youngest of whom was 2 months old. His mother was barely 25 years old.

Did he attend school? I wanted to know. He assured me he did. However, a couple of his brothers didn’t.

“Why?” I probed.

“No letter,” was the simple reply. What that meant, was that his brothers did not have birth certificates and because they didn’t, they were refused admission into school.

They weren’t the only ones. There were a number of adults in their 20s who had neither birth certificates nor identity cards (MYKAD).

What that essentially meant, was while they were born and had lived all their lives in Malaysia - never having ever gone out of the country - they had never made it into the records of the administration.

The government had no clue they existed. More likely, the BN government didn’t even care.

After all, how were a bunch of illiterate rubber tappers of ethnic Indian origin going to ensure BN’s 50-odd years of reign in Malaysia? (and perhaps another 50 to come)

That is why the government wraps itself in copious amounts of red tape to discourage applicants from trying to register after the two-month registration period given for parents to register their children upon birth.

This is not a new issue. The Human Rights Party (founded by Uthayakumar of HINDRAF fame) rails on and on about this.

Some parents are irresponsible. And some were caught up with issues and failed to make the deadline.

Whatever the reason, it is the constitutional right of every child of Malaysia to own his/her place in the nation. To be provided education like everyone else.

But these rightful citizens have been denied this right and will continue to be denied as long as both the ruling coalition and the opposition turn a blind eye to their plight.

The Social Impediment

I watched as the young, barefoot Malaysian boys battled it out in their game of football.

With the exception of a few tufts of grass, some stray, misaligned tiles, and a manhole, it was largely a level playing field. All the boys were about of the same height and build even.


To some, it may look like a bleak situation - the boys lived in a run-down rumah panjang meant to be temporary housing. It was located just on the outskirts of the city that is host to the majestic Petronas Twin Towers.

Their ignorance is bliss.

For alas, when they grow older, they will discover (if they haven't already) that they possess a little but not insignificant impediment: they are of Indian descent.

It is no longer a level playing field.

In this country, there are countless deaths in custody, the majority of them being Indian men.

More recently, 5 Indian men were shot dead by the police - merely under suspicion of being involved in criminal activities.

Helen Ang, in her bold but exceptionally relevant article Why we haven’t thrown that slipper pierces my conscience for being part of the motley crew of Malaysians that does nothing to stop this violation of human rights.

In Malaysia, some dark-skinned men are deliberately made to be less equal than others. Malaysian authorities who shoot to kill do not believe that ‘suspected criminals’ possess any unalienable right to life, never mind the too hopeful “pursuit of happiness”.

Successive BN governments have not addressed the root problem of the Indian community’s chronic socio-economic ills – why the gangsterism and involvement in criminal activities. It’s not just Indians who are neglected with no opportunity for social mobility; the itinerant pirated DVD seller – almost always Chinese – is also on the wrong side of the law.

It's not just the Indian men who suffer and die, but somehow the entire community is affected as well.

In the case of R Surendran, his sister Seetha, overcome by grief, ingested weedkiller and offered it to her 4 children as well. She has since died.

Again, Helen in Sad road to Seetha's suicide observes that:

For most of us, we lose our loved ones to old age or they succumb to natural causes. For the Tamil underclass like Seetha, death can visit a male sibling in a hail of bullets or occurring in the police lock-up. This comes about due to the chronic socio-economic deprivation of the community.

So, no, those comfortable armchair critics of Seetha can't even begin to comprehend her anguish and the perennial dark cloud hanging when one is mired in poverty. Her father is a security guard; her husband a lorry driver. Both are low status and low pay jobs.

In other words, the Indian community is finding itself unable to cope.

Seriously, what do we need to open our eyes and that of our fellow Malaysians?

Thaipusam Turnout Significantly Lower

Looks like the Hindus actually made good on their word when they vowed to boycott Batu Caves this year for Thaipusam.

Heck, instead of the throngs of Indians, much to the chagrin of my photographer friend, "there were more Malays and White tourists to be seen".

He was rather disappointed as he usually makes a tidy sum selling his photographs of Thaipusam.

Perhaps I should have told him they were heading to Ipoh and Penang, but I didn't know if it would happen for sure.

For once I'm proud of the Hindu Malaysians for standing up for their rights and making their voice heard.

The UK Telegraph has a piece on our Thaipusam yesterday:

Hindus in Malaysia mortified their flesh with hooks and spears as they delivered a protest against the government which has imprisoned their popular leaders without charge.

With elections in the multi-racial country expected within weeks, ethnic grievances pose a mounting threat to the party that has governed for all of the 50 years since independence.

The annual festival of Thaipusam is big event for Malaysia's two million ethnic Indians, who make up 7 per cent of the population.

Devotees hang limes and pots of milk from hooks in the flesh of their backs, and pierce their faces with spears, to thank the god Murugan for good fortune or ask him to grant their wishes.

This year the festival was marked by boycotts and hunger strikes.

Indians, who are the poorest of Malaysia's communities, are angry at government policies that give ethnic Malay Muslims - or "sons of the soil" - preferential access to jobs, loans, education and housing.

Malays make up about 60 per cent of the population and there is also a large Chinese community.

A series of temple demolitions in recent years, and a new policy of refusing visas to temple musicians and sculptors from India, has further angered Hindus.

In November a peaceful rally of about 20 000 Indians was dispersed with tear gas and a water cannon.

The five organisers have been held without charge ever since.

The government says the measures were necessary to avoid ethnic conflict. "I think the government are shaken by it," said Dr Jeyakumar, who will stand against Samy Vellu, the only Indian cabinet minister and a key government supporter, in the election.

In an attempt to assuage the anger, the government this week bowed to decades old demands and made Thaipusam a national holiday.

But devotees stayed away from the country's most important temple, accusing its management committee - which is linked to Samy Vellu's party - of helping to crush November's protest.

Normally hundreds of thousands pack the Batu Caves complex on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur, but this year the crowds were thin.

Television news was forced to resort to footage of last year's event.

"The crowd is the usual crowd. I have come to Thaipusam for 60 years ... I am very, very happy," insisted Mr Vellu.

Don't mind me while I take some time out to laugh my ass off!! :)

I'm really optimistic that his time is finally up.

At the Hindu temple in Ipoh, 120 miles from the capital, opposition leaders launched a hunger strike in solidarity with the five men in jail and made political speeches.

Noisy Tamil music played nearby as devotees in trances, hooks hanging from their backs, staggered towards the shrine.

Such rallies are illegal but a small group of riot police watched from the back and videoed the event without intervening, apparently for fear of inflaming sentiments at a religious occasion.

"This is the year of Indian political awakening," declared Lim Kit Siang, the leader of the tiny parliamentary opposition.

"The Indians will be king makers in the general election."

According to him, Indians —who used to be a reliable vote bank for the government- are over 10pc of the electorate in more than 50 parliamentary seats.

But although Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi says he is braced for losses in the election, his government is almost certain to win.

And Dr Jeyakumar is pessimistic of his own chances of entering parliament.

The opposition, he says, is fractured along ethnic lines and vote buying is rife.

"And we believe the election commission have a mandate to make sure most of the ministers win," he added.

The Telegraph evidently has got our political situation right.

Oh well, even if Barisan Nasional wins, at least we will try to deny them their 2/3 majority.

Indian Expats Blame Samy Vellu

From: Times Of India
Expats blame Samy Vellu for Malaysia row

NEW DELHI: It was a volcano waiting to erupt and the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas meet, which closed here on Wednesday, came as a godsend for many Indian expatriates in Malaysia to vent their feelings on what had gone "terribly wrong" with them in the south-east Asian nation.

As the Malaysian government went into a denial overdrive, insisting it never even imagined freezing recruitment of workers from India, the expatriates squarely blamed works minister Samy Vellu, part of the government for almost three decades now, for the "serious plight" of Indians, who constitute a substantial minority there. The burst came as several delegates from Malaysia, despite "the fear of being hounded" back home if their "identities became known", went on to detail "what was really happening" there.

The minister, also in Delhi for the convention, met PM Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee. Vellu, the only Indian in the cabinet, had on Tuesday denied reports on recruitment freeze, and Malaysia's home minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad echoed his words on Wednesday.

"In the real sense, recruitment freeze is a non-issue. PIOs in Malaysia, down now to 8% of population, are being systematically persecuted and marginalized in several other ways. Vellu, who uses his Indian origin for cosmetic purposes, has actually supervised this discrimination over the years," a senior second-generation delegate told TOI . The government's main idea, he said, was to give priority to ethnic Malays and Bhumiputras, who constitute 60% of the population with special rights under the constitution, and the Indians were the most to suffer under the practice.

"Our economic rights are under serious threat. There is a clear design to establish the social supremacy of the ethnic majority, and the mismatch between the civil (common) and Shariat laws has come as a tool for the persecution of Indians. Islamisation is another way in which we are being marginalised," he said.

Another delegate said the discrimination began way back in 1969 when the country witnessed "race riots", adding that the "big change" in the recent past was that Indians had become more organised.

"That is why anti-government protests rocked Malaysia in November last year. Vellu has been part of the decision-making process in the government, and to maintain his monopoly, he did not let the strength of Indians in the cabinet rise to even two in the 1990s. The number of Chinese cabinet ministers went up to six from three," he said.

Vellu is the head of Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) that supports the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. The delegates said under the present electoral and constitutional system, politicians enjoy absolute powers so much so that even the judiciary was accountable to the executive and free operation of the media was a distant dream.

"Naturally, electoral and political reforms were a big demand during the recent agitation, but activists of Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) were branded anti-nationals and there was a move to press charges of treason against them. We do not feel secure," the delegate explained.

The Indians' share in the national equity basket was steadily declining. "Malaysia has nearly 1.8 million Indians and only 40% of them constitute the middle or upper-middle classes. The rest is blue-collar labour force. If there is one Indian diaspora experiment that has really failed, it is Malaysia. Unfortunately, the world is being told a different story," another delegate said.

India's Role In Malaysia's Ethnic Crisis

There's quite a bit of history lessons in here that I never got from my textbooks when I was in school.

Bummer.

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OVERSEAS AND UNHAPPY - India needs to pay attention to the ethnic crisis in Malaysia

by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India)

Malaysia’s simmering ethnic crisis is something for the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to ponder on. Presumably, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman was bestowed on S. Samy Vellu, president since 1979 of the Malaysian Indian Congress and public works minister in the ruling coalition, because India approves of his work as representative of more than two million ethnic Indians. Since the man and his constituency are inseparable, convulsions in the latter that question his leadership oblige India to reassess its attitude towards the diaspora.

Initially, screaming headlines about Hindus on the march suggested hordes of ash-smeared trident-brandishing sadhus with matted locks rampaging to overwhelm Muslim Malaysia. In reality, thousands of impoverished Tamils carrying crudely drawn pictures of Gandhi sought only to hand over a petition to the British high commission in Kuala Lumpur about their plight since their ancestors were imported as indentured labour 150 years ago. It so happened that the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a new umbrella group of 30 organizations, mobilized Sunday’s protest when Tamils battled the riot police for six hours.

The confrontation was even farther removed in space than in time from Lee Kuan Yew’s claim in 1959, when Singapore was waiting to join Malaya, that India was to Malayan culture “what Greece and Rome are to Western culture”. Peninsular Malay was part first of the Srivijaya empire and then of Rajendra Chola’s overseas dominions. Even modern Islamic Malaysia borrows heavily from India. Terms like Bangsa Melayu (for the Malay nation) and bumiputera (Malay Muslims), the cherished determinant of political and economic privilege, expose Malaysia’s own unacknowledged linguistic bankruptcy.

Describing the Thirties excavations in Kedah, which confirmed that Bujang was a Srivijaya empire port — dating back to the 4th century — within easy sailing distance of India, Time magazine reported in 2000, “But an Indian Malaysian visiting the Bujang Valley might come away feeling demeaned rather than proud — and that would be no accident.” Anthony Spaeth, the writer, went on to say that “the official literature does its best to downplay, even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region”.

Ironically, the Indian minority’s further marginalization coincided with the long tenure (1981-2003) of the former prime minister, the ethnic Indian medical doctor, Mahathir Mohamad. He also took Malaysia further along the road to Islamization. A kind of competitive Islam was at play under him with the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia demanding Sharia law and Mahathir’s subsequently disgraced lieutenant, Anwar Ibrahim, peddling what he called Islamic values without “Arabisation”.

Lee says Chinese Malaysians (25 per cent) who have maintained an uneasy peace since the vicious Malay-Chinese riots of 1969, are being marginalized. But they at least have someone to speak up for them. They are also able to salt away their savings in Singapore where they often send their children for education and employment. Lacking any of these fall-back advantages, the much poorer Indians suffered in silence until Sunday’s upsurge. They did not protest even when six Indians were murdered and 42 others injured in March 2001 without the authorities bothering to investigate the attacks.

Nearly 85 per cent of Indian Malaysians are Tamil, and about 60 per cent of them are descended from plantation workers. Official statistics say Indians own 1.2 per cent of traded equity (40 per cent is held by the Chinese) though they constitute eight per cent of the population. About 5 per cent of civil servants are said to be Indian while 77 per cent are Malay. An Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter’s 30 per cent share of equity. The licence-permit raj has run amok with government sanction needed even to collect garbage. Lowest in the education and income rankings, Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals. All the telltale signs of an underclass. While the state gives preferential treatment to bumiputeras, the MIC has done little to help Indians rise above their initially low socio-economic base.

Religious devotion often being the last refuge of those with little else to call their own, Indians set great store by their temples, which are now the targets of government demolition squads. Many are technically illegal structures because the authorities will not clear registration applications. The last straw was the eve-of-Diwali destruction of a 36-year-old temple in Shah Alam town which is projected as an “Islamic City”. Insult was piled on injury when, having announced that he would not keep the customary post-Eid open house as a mute mark of protest, Vellu hastily backtracked as soon as the prime minister frowned at him.

Emotions have been simmering since 2005 when the mullahs seized the body of a 36-year-old Tamil Hindu soldier and mountaineer, M. Moorthy, and buried it over the protests of his Hindu wife, claiming Moorthy had converted to Islam. A Sharia court upheld the mullahs, and when the widow appealed, a civil judge ruled that Article 121(1A) of Malaysia’s constitution made the Sharia court’s verdict final. Civil courts had no jurisdiction. Such restrictions and, even more, the manner in which rules are implemented, make a mockery of the constitution’s Article 3(1) that “other religions may be practised in peace and harmony”.

Last Sunday’s petition was signed by 1,00,000 Indians. The fact that it was provoked by a supposed conversion and a temple destruction and was sponsored by Hindraf prompted P. Ramasamy, a local academic, to say, “The character of struggle has changed. It has taken on a Hindu form — Hinduism versus Islam.” But that is a simplification. The protesters who were beaten up, arrested and charged with sedition were Indians. They were labelled Hindu because Tamil or Malayali Muslims (like Mahathir) go to extraordinary lengths to deny their Indian ancestry and wangle their way into the petted and pampered bumiputera preserve. In Singapore, too, Indian Muslims who speak Tamil at home or sport Gujarati names drape the headscarf called tudung on their wives and insist they are Malay. Malaysia’s Sikhs also distance themselves from the Indian definition which has become a metaphor for backwardness.

Branding Sunday’s demonstration Hindu automatically singles out the minority as the adversary in a country whose leaders stress their Islamic identity. The implication of a religious motivation also distracts attention from the more serious economic discrimination that lies at the heart of minority discontent. Acknowledging that “unhappiness with their status in society was a real issue” for the protesters, even The New Straits Times, voice of the Malay establishment, commented editorially, “The marginalisation of the Indian community, the neglect of their concerns and the alienation of their youth must be urgently addressed.”

Some have suggested that the illusory prospect of fat damages from Hindraf’s $4 trillion lawsuit against the British government may have tempted demonstrators. But the lawyers who lead Hindraf must know that their plaint is only a symbolic gesture like my Australian aboriginal friend Paul Coe landing in England and taking possession of it as terra nullius (nobody’s land) because that is what the British did in Australia. The more serious message is, as The New Straits Times wrote, that secular grievances must be addressed. Though plantation workers have demonstrated earlier against employers, never before have they so powerfully proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the government. In doing so, under Hindraf colours, they have also signified a loss of confidence in Vellu and the MIC. The worm has turned. There is a danger now of the government hitting back hard.

All this concerns India, not because of M. Karunanidhi’s fulminations but because interest in overseas Indians must be even-handed. The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi’s only concern be V.S. Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal whose pictures adorn his ministry’s website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention.

My Response To The HINDRAF Campaign

I know I promised to come up with a response to Resolving The Malaysian-Indian Issues much earlier.

But I had to ponder deeply on how a Christian Malaysian of South Asian origin, whose ancestors settled in Malaya over six generations ago should respond to issues pertaining to a faction of Hindu Malaysians who have finally voiced their dissatisfaction.

Frankly, I have never experienced much government-institutionalised discrimination. I am reasonably well-educated, wealthy (though I hasten to add, not of TAK-ish proportions), have been places and seen things.

By proxy, HINDRAF marginalises me. But it's not about the group or its leader Uthayakumar, though his leadership has obviously inspired thousands to brave the FRU and its neighbourhood-friendly water-cannons and tear-gas.

He has a following that Samy Vellu can only dream of. That's scary.

Because no one has ever spoken up for the Malaysians of South Asian origin (I deliberately refuse to say 'Indian'. You'll understand why in just a bit). And they sorely needed their cause championed.

Because, like Nate says, "When you’re small, you become a punching bag." And yes, I can appreciate that that was why he walked on that day.

HINDRAF's brand of racist rhetoric is no worse than that of the violence-propagating Kerismudin or the benignly stupid Jamaluddin Jarjis or even the mufti of Perak, Harussani Zakaria.

While those guys may have been ridiculed by the blogosphere, they did not provoke the outrage of the public like HINDRAF did. Why the double standard? Why the calls by Malaysians to send their fellow Malaysians back to India?

Why are the Hindus considered to have gone overboard for their walk and their memo when the Muslims have threatened to start riots and go on killing rampages simply because their rights were questioned?

Why didn't anyone call for the ISA to be used on Kerismuddin for his subtle call to violence when so many want Uthayakumar put away for a long time?

It's racism, and it didn't even start from HINDRAF.

Perhaps no one better sums it up than Farish Noor, who (being in Berlin) is so far in terms of location from Malaysia, yet understands the situation better than anyone else living here.

In The Other Malaysia, he freely admits that:

While the leaders and supporters of Hindraf may have resorted to the politics of race and religious-based communitarianism to further a specific goal in mind, we should not really be surprised if they had done so. This is Malaysia, remember: the same multi-culti country that has been run and governed by the same tired and worn-out coalition of ideologically bankrupt right-wing communitarian race and religious-based parties for half a century. Those fellow Malaysians who marched on Sunday are the children of a nation-building project that has failed utterly and miserably, and they merely reflect the racialised mindset of so many Malaysian politicians today who are no better.

So while we may disagree with the tone and tenor of Hindraf’s communitarian political-speak, let us not miss the wood for the trees. Hindraf did not invent racialised communitarian politics in Malaysia, it was the component of the Barisan Nasional parties that did, and continue to do so.

Hindraf did not begin a new trend of race and religious-based political association and collectivism in Malaysia: it was the older race and religious-based parties and movements like UMNO, PAS and ABIM that did, and continue to do so.

Hindraf did not invent the language of racial and religious identification in Malaysia, for these terms were already hoisted on them and the minority communities of Malaysia by the state, the mainstream media and the conservative reactionary forces in this country long ago. It was the politicians, political analysts, media commentators and communitarian activists who referred, for instance, to the Hindu temples of Malaysia as ‘Indian temples’; and who continue to refer to Malaysians of South Asian origin as ‘Indians’ or the ‘Indian community’.

For the information of all and sundry, those temples that were bulldozed were not ‘Indian temples’ but Malaysian temples, built on Malaysian soil, frequented by Malaysians, paid for by Malaysians and they were part of the Malaysian landscape. There are no ‘Indian Temples’ in Malaysia- Indian temples exist in India and if you don’t believe me then fly to India and check them out yourself. Likewise the only ‘Indians’ in Malaysia are the tourists, expats and workers who come from India and happen to be Indian nationals bearing Indian passports. Those Hindus who marched in the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Sunday happen to be Malaysians like you.

And because I too am Malaysian, I will champion the cause of the downtrodden and those who have been kicked around for too long.

Not because the blog-lords or their commenters approve, but because it is only the right thing to do.

Resolving The Malaysian-Indian Issues

I will post my response to this tomorrow.

--------------------

The Hindraf Campaign: A Critique – Dr. Kumar of Parti Sosialis Malaysia

Thousands of Malaysian Indians from all over the country are responding to Hindraf’s campaign. SMS messages are being amplified and sent out by the hundreds, petition forms are being signed, funds have been collected, and there is a massive mobilization to present a memorandum to the British High Commission on Sunday 25th November 2007.


All this highlights the extent to which Malaysian Indians have been neglected and marginalized by the policies of the Barisan Nasional government. It shows the level of frustration and resentment within the community.

Many friends and contacts have been asking what is the Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s stand on the Hindraf Campaign? Why is the PSM not organizing buses to support the program on the 25/11/07? The main points of the PSM stand are outlined below –

1. It is undeniable that Indians in Malaysia face racial discrimination.

- difficulty in getting government jobs;

- lack of special programs for Indian students from poor backgrounds;

- the poor state of many Tamil Primary Schools;

- absence of laws to protect the estate community when they are evicted in the name of development; Ditto for the peneroka bandar;

- insensitive handling of Hindu Temples which are demolished to make way for “development”;

- extremely insensitive handling of cases of Indian individuals caught in “inter-faith” situations for example Moorthy, Subashini, and others;

- the negative profiling of Indian youth by the police and other authorities as “gangsters” and the harsh treatment of these youth when caught by police;

These are just some aspects of the reality of Indians in Malaysia. Indians are made to feel that they are second-class citizens, and after 50 years of Merdeka they are beginning to resent it more and more!


2. Ethnic based mobilization is relatively easy to do. Malaysian society has been tutored in racial politics by the BN parties (as well as by some opposition parties also) for the past 5 decades. The vast majority of Malaysians think in ethnic terms. However ethnic based mobilization of Indians will not be able to overcome the racial discrimination that Indians face. At this point Hindraf is asking for

- Cessation of the Bumiputra policy

- Institution of affirmative policies for Malaysian Indians

- Monetary compensation from the British Government for “leaving us in this mess”!

These are emotive issues, and it is obvious that many Malaysian Indians have responded to them. But is even remotely possible that they can be attained by ethnic based mobilization of the Indians who make up only 7% of the population?

3. We should not forget that apart from racial discrimination, the majority of Indians face economic discrimination because they are workers in a system that favours the businessmen and the capitalists. About 70% of Malaysian Indians are workers. The problem they face as workers include

- low wages. In many factories the basic pay in RM 18 per day, which works out to RM 468 per month.

- There is no job security. Outsourcing, the widespread use of contract workers, and the easy availability of migrant workers all weaken the bargaining position of Malaysian labour.

- Labour laws are being tightened and being made more pro management;

- Low cost adequate housing is difficult to find.

- Prices of goods is rising faster than wages! Petrol, toll and now flour.

- Basic services – health care, education, roads, water - which used to be heavily subsidized are now becoming increasingly expensive;

The problems listed above are also experienced by workers of all races in Malaysia – even the Malays, who are the beneficiaries of the Bumiputra policies. Only about 20% of Malay workers have jobs in government. The remainder have to work in the private sector where they too experience economic discrimination as workers in a capitalist economy. Malays workers are not exempted from the problems of low wages, job insecurity, rising costs of basic services, etc.

4. It appears that that some sections of working class Malays are beginning to question the Bumiputra policy which has benefited the UMNO-putra and their cronies far far more than the average Malay worker. Consider the following -

- the Mat Rempit phenomena. Isn’t this, in part, an expression of the frustration and resentment of ordinary Malay youth who are having difficulties finding and holding jobs because of the low-wage and migrant labour policies of the BN government;

- more than 50% of the 40,000 Bersih demonstration on 10/11/07 was made of Malay youth who were not from PAS or KeAdilan. They turned up because they are fed-up with the government which is only helping a small sector of Malay elite.

- Anwar Ibrahim has been openly calling for the ending of the Bumiputra Policy which he claims only helps the rich UMNO politicians. He wants a new policy – the Agenda Baru - that is based on economic need and not on race. All poor Malaysians should get government help.

- PAS spearheaded the Protes Coalition which opposed the hikes in Petrol and Diesel prices. They are also active in the Coalitions against Health and Water privatization.

Anwar is an astute politican, and PAS does have close contact with the Malay community. Their articulation of such issues must mean that in their assessment, ordinary Malays are resentful of government policies that favour the rich.


5. The political choice facing Malaysian Indians is simple. Do we

1. mobilize ourselves as Indians to fight the Bumiputra policy and ask for affirmative action for Indians?

OR

2. Work towards a working class coalition that fights for a better deal for all ordinary Malaysians irrespective of race?

In other words, do we use ethnic based mobilization or class based mobilisation to fight the present state of ethnic discrimination of Indians?


6. Obviously 1000’s of Indians have jumped into the Hindraf bandwagon of ethnic mobilization. But the support of large numbers does not necessarily mean that that campaign is in the long term interest of the Indians in Malaysia. Nor does it mean that it is likely to succeed!

The PSM salutes all those who have thrown off their apathy to stand up for their rights despite the threats being made by the BN government in the media. However, action for action’s sake is never enough. Action must be guided by the correct analysis, and this is where we differ with Hindraf. Though Hindraf leaders have made sacrifices, and have shown courage, we believe that they are inadvertently playing into the hands of the “enemy”. Why?


7. Who are the major beneficiaries of the Bumiputra policy? Surely people like Najib, Hishamuddin, Khairi and other top UMNO leaders must be very uncomfortable with growing perception among the ordinary Malays that the Bumiputra Policy has been abused to make a small group of Malays filthy rich – all in the name of uplifting all Malays. These UMNO leaders are also worried about the coming elections for the people are frustrated with price hikes and corruption. Ethnic mobilization on the part of Hindraf would provide them with the perfect opportunity to

- resurrect the “Ketuanan Melayu” issue. They could use Hindraf’s demands to abolish the NEP as an example of how “lebih” the Indians have become, and of the importance to band together under UMNO for race and country!!

- Use some of the gangster groups associated with UMNO to provoke a racial incident that will come very useful for BN in the election campaign period. The old BN argument that we have to vote BN to avoid another May 13!


8. This does not mean that the PSM is advocating not fighting back when Indians are evicted or when houses and temples are torn down. Not at all. The PSM track record on this is clear – we have gone to stand with the people facing eviction and bullying by developers or the government in many estates and Peneroka Bandar kampungs. But we never have generalized this into an ethnic issue for all the reasons listed above.

This local fight-backs must continue whenever any community is faced with bullying by developers or government. But national level mobilization should be of all ordinary Malaysians (from all races) and not of Indians only!

We hope these brief explanations make sense to you. Do not retire from the struggle! Just reorient it to make it multi-racial and fight for the justice of all the ordinary people of Malaysia!

Police Tear-Gas And Spray Chemicals On Protestors

There's much more action down at the frontlines. Al-Jazeera has the news: Ethnic Indians protest in Malaysia

Evidently, this time, the crowd has been generously returning the tear-gas cannisters to the FRU who have launched or fired it at them. :)

"It's really quite phenomenal scenes, given that this is a country that claims to be an open democracy."

- Hamish MacDonald, Al-Jazeera.

I reckon you haven't seen much of those in your career, mate. I've lived here 28 years and this is the first time I'm seeing them.

Oh... and what democracy??



There is nothing complicated about this situation. All the protestors want to do is march peacefully to the British High Commission to deliver their memorandum, after which they will definitely disperse.

I have it on good knowledge that every single road leading into the city is jammed for miles because of roadblocks and FRU units cordoning off the area!

And the only reason why this persists is because the police (as ordered by the ineffectual government) are preventing the protestors from doing what they want and need to do.

In other words, the completely unnecessary traffic jam, destruction and mounting violence stems SOLELY from the government itself and its obvious inability to govern a nation.

I'm fairly certain this protest is going to turn bloody.

GIANT Size Helping Of Racism

Now this is a force to be reckoned with.

Indians are naturally emotional especially when it revolves around religion and their culture, which they deem sacred.

It appears that a bunch of racist security idiots from Giant hypermarket roughed up a 23 year old and relieved him of his religious items, all the while hurling abuse.

Pushed to the very extreme corner, Indians now have nothing to lose.

For now they look peaceful.

But if these abusive racists continue this type of bullying, it could start a very bloody massacre indeed.

MIC Offers Advice

Nothing could possibly be more amusing than the notion of MIC trying to resolve issues pertaining to Indians in Malaysia.

As lap dogs of UMNO, they are only there to appease the public demand for racial representation.

MIC: Ignore calls to attend rally

KUALA LUMPUR: The Indian community has been advised to ignore calls by certain groups urging them to attend a rally at the British High Commission this Sunday to protest against the demolition of an Indian temple in Klang.

MIC secretary-general Datuk S. Veerasingam said the party had informed its members not to attend the gathering. He claimed the event was being held for the benefit of the Opposition.

”There are SMSes calling participants to go against the authorities. Such matters will create a tense situation and innocent people will get caught while the perpetrators will walk free,” he added.

Veerasingam said the MIC would discuss what action to take against its members who attend the gathering. He added that several social activists had acted irresponsibly by inciting the Indian community to hate the Government.

“These people are not assisting the Government in solving problems affecting the Indian community. We have no problem with social activists. But this past week, the community has been confused by the actions of this group, including four lawyers, which we believe will only help the Opposition,” said Veerasingam at the Parliament lobby yesterday.

He added that problems could be settled through proper channels in the coalition government.

HINDRAF's Letter To The Queen

Near-slavery conditions. :)


Click on image to enlarge.

The Neglected Indian Minority

by Michael Backman

Religious insensitivity deepens an ethnic divide in long-neglected Indian minority.

ETHNIC rivalry in Malaysia is usually portrayed as rivalry between the majority Malay population and the large Chinese minority. But sandwiched between the two are Malaysia's 2 million Indians. They make up about 8 per cent of the population, but according to some estimates account for only about 2 per cent of the nation's corporate wealth. The disparity is leading to rising tensions from a group that the authorities take for granted.

The Indian community is split into Muslims and Hindus. The Muslims, known as the "Mamak", blend in more easily with the dominant Malays — both groups being Muslim means intermarriage is not uncommon. The Hindus are far more marginalised. Politically weak, they are largely ignored by the Government.

Many are poor. But despite this, as non-Malays and non-Muslims, they do not qualify for Bumiputera status, which gives Malays preferred access to university places, government share distributions and other privileges. Some of the poorest work as rubber tappers. In the northern state of Kedah, the poverty and physical condition of the rubber tappers is unbelievable, particularly as Malaysia is not a poor country.

Malaysia's Indians are among those that suffer the greatest displacement from the million or more legal and illegal Indonesian migrants in Malaysia. Sporadic ethnic unrest now breaks out between the Indians and Indonesians.

Growing resentment also derives from the demolition of Hindu temples by state governments. Dozens have been destroyed in the past few years. The authorities who enforce the demolition orders are invariably Malay and Muslim, giving the demolitions unfortunate overtones of religious rivalry. Sometimes the idols are smashed before worshippers can remove them, action which is insensitive at best and a deliberate provocation at worst.

In another perceived slight, the most important Indian festival, Deepavali, falls tomorrow during the week-long annual general assembly of the ruling United Malay National Organisation, which is not pausing for Deepavali even though the festival is a public holiday.

Many better educated Indians are migrating. Those who stay are becoming more strident politically.

On August 12, about 2000 Malaysian Indians protested outside the prime minister's office to demand better treatment. The protest might have been bigger but organisers claim police blocked up to 15 buses carrying Indians on the basis that the bus drivers did not have valid driving licences.

On August 30, activists filed a class action in London against the British Government for bringing indentured labourers from India during the colonial era and failing to "protect" them thereafter including during the 50 years since Malaysia's independence. The suit will go nowhere but it is an attempt to embarrass the Malaysian Government internationally and force it to better look after the Indian minority. A petition with what activists claim will have 100,000 signatures will be presented to the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur on November 25 in support of the legal action.

But what of the Indians' political leaders?

Critics claim Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) leader and Public Works Minister Samy Vellu runs the congress almost along feudal lines.

He was the subject of a major scandal in the 1990s when the government allocated 10 million shares in Malaysia's national phone company to Maika, an Indian co-operative company the MIC set up. Maika accepted one million shares. The rest were given to three companies which Vellu described as MIC-linked, but which his critics said were linked to his relatives. The three companies made millions of dollars in capital gains on the shares. Meanwhile, Maika became almost insolvent.

When asked why he didn't sack Vellu from his cabinet given this and other scandals, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said he had no control over the MIC and that he was obliged to have the MIC leader in the cabinet. To be fair, Mahathir once said Vellu had an appalling job, given the politics in the Indian community. But essentially, Vellu is part of the wider malaise of political leadership in Malaysia.

HINDRAF Seeks Protection From The British!

I got this in my email a while back, addressed to all Malaysian Indians:

Dear Malaysian Indians,

A class action on behalf of Malaysian Indians has been filed at The Royal Court of Justice in London on 30th August 2007 to sue the UK Government for bringing in Indians as indentured labourers into Malaya and exploiting them for 150 years, thereafter failing to protect the minority Indian rights in The Federal constitution when independence was granted.

Hence, making Malaysian Indians a permanently colonialized society until today.

A petition with 100,000 signatures to be presented to Her Royal Highness the Queen of England to appoint Her Majesty's Queen Counsels to represent the poor, underclass, oppressed and suppressed Malaysian Indians would be presented at the British High Commission as follows:




Date : 25th November 2007 (Sunday)
Time: 9am
Venue: British High Commission
185, Jalan Ampang, 50450, Kuala Lumpur.

Democratic minded citizens of all races are urged to attend and show the British Government that we are united and serious in our demand for justice and protection as subjects of The Commonwealth.

Further information please contact
HINDU RIGHTS ACTION FORCE (HINDRAF) 03-22825241

Kindly please attend and to show we stand together for our rights as Malaysian Indians.

I had to hold my sides laughing! HINDRAF is a class act!!

Firstly, they seem to be rather confused. They cannot make up their mind if they want to sue the British government or seek protection from them.

Secondly, they single-handedly have managed to imply that the Malaysian government is grossly incapable of providing for its citizens to the point of requiring British intervention!

Not only that, HINDRAF obviously considers the Malaysian government as completely insignificant.

Oh dear. :)

Apple Of BN's Eye

Now does anyone know this fool? He's our poster boy from Barisan Nasional.

Presumably their pride and joy. Look how well he's fit in with the party agenda, how well-adjusted he is.

Anyone with a functioning set of eyes can tell he's from BN. :)