Indian poor, poverty, Kingdergarden, primary & secondary schools, Licence and Permitsraja petra Raja Petra has been widely acknowledged as being in the know on almost all critical issues in Malaysia, and we deeply appreciate his contribution towards a fair political order in Malaysia.
But we can only deduce that when it concerns the basic necessity critical Indian problems, Raja Petra, PKR, DAP, PAS, Malaysiakini, and the english educated Indian elite choose to turn a blind eye, ignore, or downplay the criticality of it, as the victims are “merely” the politically and economically powerless ‘soft target’ Indians. And these parties would not want to know about the truth of the extent of the criticality perpetrated bour very own Malay and Chinese fellow citizens and colleages via the Umno led government, and so they refuse to acknowledge the truth as is reported on a day to day basis in www.humanrightspartymalaysia.com.
Raja Petra in his writings this week had stated that we should not have also written the words ‘in particular the Indian workers’ when writing on the minimum monthly salary of RM1,300. To start off with, we had also specifically stated ‘in all sectors and for all ……..’, covering all segments of the Malaysian population. And Raja Petra perhaps did not catch paragraph seven which read “But the Labour Minister indicated (being selective) proposing setting a minimum wage for ‘targeted sectors’ under the New Economic Model (NEM) i.e., electronics, textiles, gloves and furniture industries" (NST 2/5/2010 at page 8).
Raja Petra is unable to see UMNO’s racist discrimination in the words ‘targeted sectors’ and the ‘electronics, textiles, gloves and furniture industries’ which are mostly dominated by the Malay Muslims and does not catch the poor Indians. Why not also the plantation workers, cleaners, lorry transport workers, etc., which have a substantial number of Indians. Why is Raja Petra, bloggers and journalists not picking on this and scores of other UMNO racism meted out and implemented on a day to day basis? To the point of reducing the Indian poor to remain as toilet cleaners, office boys, security guards, general cleaners, etc.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of UMNOs’ shrewd racist and supremacist policies where the Indians are left and/or are sidelined. That is why we always add on the premise ‘including the Indians’ and ‘in particular the Indians’ in most of our writings. Because all of Umno governments policies are drawn so as to catch the Malays and ignore the Indians. For instance the Permata kindergarten scheme which are only located in Malay areas.
In any event how come the alternative media conveniently choose not to respond to the racism in the Labour exco in the PKR, DAP and PAS ruled states? Why does it always have to be Indians in the labour excos? Why not give them the senior exco positions like land, finance and local government?
Khir Toyo, a dentist, can be the Menteri Besar of Selangor. But Dr. Xavier who is also a dentist is only found fit to assume the lowest level of Selangor exco position, ie., the Labour exco, like the Indian mandore DCM 2, and excos in Kedah and (earlier) Perak and his MIC predecessors who are only given the ‘low grade Labour exco portfolios’. Why not Raja Petra also do some writing on this and put some sense into PKR, DAP and PAS’ head not to be racist!
Raja Petra’s brand of multi-racialism is just one step better than Umno. We challenge the alternative media to rebut point by point, and article by article, of our daily postings on the discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion of the Indians from the national mainstream development of Malaysia.
It is this very same Raja Petra who had refused to put up our policewatchmalaysia.com website as a link in his website because we covered a fair bit on the Indian poor social justice issues. Even up to date Raja Petra has refused to link our present website www.humanrightspartymalaysia.com" to his website again presumably because we cover the Indian poor cause substantially. But the point is, covering human rights abuses is not racism.
Raja Petra wrote that ‘I too have been saying the same thing for more than ten years, long before Hindraf or HRP were born’. For the record we had started our human rights work way back in 1990. The precursor of Hindraf and HRP was PoliceWatchMalaysia that was born in 1999, long before Malaysia Today or the Free Anwar Campaign.
Policewatchmalaysia.com was banned and blocked out of Malaysian cyberspace by UMNO because we were championing the Indian poor, but Malaysia Today was largely spared. Then Hindraf was banned. Today we operate under the Human Rights Party. Malaysia Today is still up and running today because they cover the Malay, Chinese and native based issues with cursory attention to Indian issues. This is a site that the koranic muslims, Chinese and the Christian community would like, for their own agenda of course. For who doesn’t like a Malay who is critical of his own people and Umno?
When we point out racism, we in turn get accused of being racist. For god’s sake, how can a cry against racism, in itself be racism? Well this can only happen in UMNO, PKR, DAP, PAS, Malaysiakini and unfortunately and surprisingly, MT’s brand of ‘multi-racial’ Malay-sia.
The alternative media, bloggers and commentators will be quick to say that there are also Malay office boys, Iban and orang asli poor. But our point is for the poor Malays, Orang Asli, Kadazan and Iban to start off with they are the privileged bumiputera community. sure, not all these bumiputeras may get the billion and million ringgit contracts. But in the area of pursuing education, vocation, career advancements, agriculture and business, the sky is the limit. There cannot be any complaints from these communities on these issues. Not on these issues!
This cannot be said for the poor Indians. On a day to day basis UMNO denies hardworking Indians licences, even besi buruk licenses, rubbish collection and car wash licences, taxi and lorry permits, import licences, stall licences, Proton car and Petronas outlets, KFC, McDonald, A&W, Ayamas outlets, and in almost every other sector Indians are excluded from even becoming a national primary school headmaster or even a postmaster. Other day to day discrimination are reported in our website. Why is this so? Nobody is asking for handouts. How are Indians to participate in business and the economy when licenses and permits are denied?
When we cry out aloud of this targeted racism against the soft target Indians, we in turn are accused of being racist. This ludicrous definition of racism happens in no other part of the world except in Malaysia.
In today’s internet world, we cannot run away from the truth. We have done our homework again and again, but we have read little postings in the alternative media concerning the critical and serious discrimination done with impunity against the soft target Indians.
To us we maintain our stand that while UMNO is guilty of this extreme levels of racism and discrimination, the opposition parties and alternative media want to remain oblivious of it or offer only token voice. We call it pseudo multi-racialism.
P. Uthayakumar
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