Pakatan Rakyat will early next month sign its acceptance of a five-year Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf ) blueprint for the resolution of problems faced by the Indian Malaysian community,…
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Russia jails four over plot to bomb high-speed train
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court jailed four alleged Islamist militants on Monday for plotting to bomb a high-speed train between Moscow and St Petersburg last year.
Moscow City Court…
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court jailed four alleged Islamist militants on Monday for plotting to bomb a high-speed train between Moscow and St Petersburg last year.
Moscow City Court handed prison terms of 15 to 18 years to Islam Khamzhuyev, Fail Nevlyutov, Mansur Umayev and Mansur Edilbiyev, natives of Russia's troubled North Caucasus region.
Prosecutors said they had tried to attack the Sapsan train in summer 2011, state news agency Itar-tass reported. A lawyer for the accused said the defense would appeal.
The Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency in its mostly Muslim North Caucasus that continues in the wake of two wars between Moscow's security forces and Chechen separatists in the region.
Insurgents seeking to establish an Islamic state claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 27 people on a Moscow-St Petersburg train in 2009, a suicide bombing that killed 37 at Moscow's busiest airport in 2011 and bombings on the Moscow metro that killed 40 in 2010.
Earlier this year, Russia jailed 10 people - four of them for life - for the 2009 bombing on the Moscow-St Petersburg line.
(Reporting by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; editing by Andrew Roche)
Labels:
Islam Discrimination
London Rejects Plan for Mega-Mosque
by Soeren Kern
"You watch how we get angry." — Abjol Miah, activist, Islamic Forum for Europe
Authorities in London have rejected a controversial proposal by a radical Islamic group…
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"You watch how we get angry." — Abjol Miah, activist, Islamic Forum for Europe
Authorities in London have rejected a controversial proposal by a radical Islamic group…
by Soeren Kern
"You watch how we get angry." — Abjol Miah, activist, Islamic Forum for Europe
Authorities in London have rejected a controversial proposal by a radical Islamic group to build one of the largest mosques in the world near the city's Olympic Stadium.
Prominent Muslims have responded to the news by vowing to punish the Labour Party in future elections unless the decision is reversed and the application to build the mosque is approved immediately.
The Strategic Development Committee of the Labour-led Newham Council, the local authority for the London Borough of Newham, unanimously decided on December 5 to reject an application by the Muslim group Tablighi Jamaat to build a "super-mosque" in West Ham, East London, amid fierce opposition and concern from local citizens.
Had the application been approved, the super-mosque, known as the Abbey Mills Riverine Center, would have held up to 10,000 worshippers, making it the largest religious building in Britain and the largest mosque in Europe.
By comparison, Britain's largest cathedral, the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, can hold no more than 3,000 worshippers, and St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the iconic features of the London skyline, has a capacity of 2,500.
The 6.6 hectare (16.5 acre) site, about one mile from the 2012 Olympic Village in West Ham, would have included two 40-foot minarets, an Islamic library, a dining hall, tennis courts, sports facilities, eight apartments for visiting Muslim clerics and hundreds of parking spaces (photos here).
Much of the funding for the super-mosque, which was estimated to cost around £100 million ($160 million), was expected to come from Saudi Arabia.
The project to build a "contemporary Islamic sacred space" was so massive in scale that critics said the mega-mosque was actually a smokescreen for an ambitious plan to establish the first Islamic Sharia-controlled enclave in East London, where more than 25% of the population is Muslim (compared with about 9% in London as a whole).
The construction plans were submitted by Tablighi Jamaat, a controversial Sunni Muslim missionary movement with roots in India. Tablighi Jamaat, which in English means "Society for the Spreading of the Faith" or "Proselytizing Group," is the largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith in the world.
Tablighi Jamaat is active in Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, and has contributed to the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion around the world.
Although Tablighi Jamaat promotes itself as open and socially integrated, and strives to project a non-threatening image, the group has been accused not only of radicalizing young Muslims, but after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, members of the group were also accused of having ties to Muslim terrorist organizations.
In addition, two of those responsible for the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, as well as failed shoe bomber Richard Reid, have been linked to a Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
Muktar Said Ibrahim, the leader of a group that attempted to bomb London's public transport system on July 21, 2005, attended a Tablighi mosque in East London, and the "fifth bomber" in the July 21 plot, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, attended a Tablighi gathering in Dewsbury for three days.
The group also operated from mosques in Walthamstow, east London, and High Wycombe, Bucks, where several of the 2006 transatlantic airline plotters worshipped. Assad Sarwar, the bomb maker, and Waheed Zaman, a biochemistry student, both joined weekend camps run by Tablighi Jamaat.
American security officials have called Tablighi Jamaat a "recruiting ground for Al Qaeda," and French intelligence officials have described the group as an "antechamber of fundamentalism." The French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau says the group's ultimate objective is nothing short of a "planned conquest of the world" in the spirit of jihad.
An estimated 3,000 of the mega-mosque's supporters, some of whom travelled to London from as far away as Bradford and Birmingham, gathered outside Newham Council's town hall ahead of the decision on December 5. Some of them held signs reading: "15 years of waiting. Not a day more. Vote yes to the Riverine Center."
Later that evening, the Newham Town Council announced that all eight councillors on the Strategic Development Committee had voted to reject the Tablighi mosque application on the grounds that the building was "too big" and would not serve the needs of the local community.
After the meeting, Councillor Conor McAuley, Newham Council's Executive Member for Regeneration and Strategic Planning, issued a formal statement: "Councillors have considered this application at length and with great care before deciding to reject it. The council undertook a rigorous and extensive consultation about the proposals in the run-up to this decision."
McAuley added: "Our planning policies promote the development of the Abbey Mills site for a mix of residential, employment and community uses, to help create a new local center near West Ham station and regenerate the area. The creation of new homes and jobs are a priority for Newham Council. It is not considered that this application is consistent with these policies. There are also concerns about the size of the proposed buildings and impact on parking and traffic in the local area."
He also said: "Apart from the proposals being contrary to the planning policy for the site, they are also unacceptable for a number of other reasons. These are: the proposed mosque building is too big and would have an impact on important historic buildings nearby; it will generate too much traffic resulting in people parking on local residents' streets; the site is heavily contaminated raising safety issues which are not properly addressed by the application; the application proposes keeping existing buildings on the site, which are poorly designed."
The decision followed an extensive public consultation which resulted in 29,888 responses: 26,139 in support and 3,749 against.
Tablighi Jamaat had been requesting permission to build the mosque since 1999 (the original plans called for a mosque with a capacity for 70,000 worshippers) and said the building was needed to accommodate the followers it has across London.
In 2005, a former Newham town councillor, Alan Craig, launched a campaign called "Mega Mosque No Thanks" to stop the project, which he said would have resulted in the establishment of an "Islamic ghetto" in East London.
After Newham Council announced its decision to reject the mosque application, Craig said: "I'm opposed to both the nature of the group and the size of the mosque they want to build. We have freedom of religion and if Tablighi Jamaat wanted to build a neighborhood mosque, that's fine. But they want to build a massive headquarters in an area that cannot support such a building."
Some local Muslims had also expressed concerns that it would give one Islamic group too much dominance over the community.
The decision by Newham Council was immediately denounced by supporters of the project who vowed to fight on and seek a judicial review to overturn the decision.
The leader of the Tablighi community in East London, Alauddin Ahmed, was quoted by the BBC as saying: "There are 90,000 Muslims around the borough. The Muslim community is growing and there is need for bigger worship [facilities]. We are extremely let down. We think it is unjust because of the demand of the local people and the Muslim community."
Alan Craig, the anti-mosque activist, said: "Tablighi Jamaat has shown they have deep pockets and are determined to fulfill their ambition for a massive international center on this site irrespective of local concerns. We can expect them to appeal over the heads of Newham Council to the Planning Inspectorate at Bristol, as they have done successfully before, and that this issue will drag on much longer yet."
Muslims have also warned the Labour Party that it will pay a price for turning down the application. Abjol Miah, a leading activist for both the far left Respect Party and the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe said: "I think a lot of people tonight that weren't political have become political. It is a shame we have Labour councillors and committee members here. You know we have the London council elections in 2014 and I think the residents are going to be thinking differently. They are going to get more active. It is a time for change for Labour. You watch how we get angry."
Newham Council is also engaged in a separate legal fight against Tablighi Jamaat, which currently uses part of the Abbey Mills site to house the London Markaz (also known as Masjid-e-Ilyas) as a temporary mosque complex that can accommodate up to 2,500 people.
Newham Council says Tablighi no longer has permission to use the site and has taken legal action to compel the group to stop using the Abbey Mills site as a mosque and to demolish temporary buildings.
▲
"You watch how we get angry." — Abjol Miah, activist, Islamic Forum for Europe
Authorities in London have rejected a controversial proposal by a radical Islamic group to build one of the largest mosques in the world near the city's Olympic Stadium.
Prominent Muslims have responded to the news by vowing to punish the Labour Party in future elections unless the decision is reversed and the application to build the mosque is approved immediately.
The Strategic Development Committee of the Labour-led Newham Council, the local authority for the London Borough of Newham, unanimously decided on December 5 to reject an application by the Muslim group Tablighi Jamaat to build a "super-mosque" in West Ham, East London, amid fierce opposition and concern from local citizens.
Had the application been approved, the super-mosque, known as the Abbey Mills Riverine Center, would have held up to 10,000 worshippers, making it the largest religious building in Britain and the largest mosque in Europe.
By comparison, Britain's largest cathedral, the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, can hold no more than 3,000 worshippers, and St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the iconic features of the London skyline, has a capacity of 2,500.
The 6.6 hectare (16.5 acre) site, about one mile from the 2012 Olympic Village in West Ham, would have included two 40-foot minarets, an Islamic library, a dining hall, tennis courts, sports facilities, eight apartments for visiting Muslim clerics and hundreds of parking spaces (photos here).
Much of the funding for the super-mosque, which was estimated to cost around £100 million ($160 million), was expected to come from Saudi Arabia.
The project to build a "contemporary Islamic sacred space" was so massive in scale that critics said the mega-mosque was actually a smokescreen for an ambitious plan to establish the first Islamic Sharia-controlled enclave in East London, where more than 25% of the population is Muslim (compared with about 9% in London as a whole).
The construction plans were submitted by Tablighi Jamaat, a controversial Sunni Muslim missionary movement with roots in India. Tablighi Jamaat, which in English means "Society for the Spreading of the Faith" or "Proselytizing Group," is the largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith in the world.
Tablighi Jamaat is active in Southwest and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, and has contributed to the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion around the world.
Although Tablighi Jamaat promotes itself as open and socially integrated, and strives to project a non-threatening image, the group has been accused not only of radicalizing young Muslims, but after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, members of the group were also accused of having ties to Muslim terrorist organizations.
In addition, two of those responsible for the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, as well as failed shoe bomber Richard Reid, have been linked to a Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
Muktar Said Ibrahim, the leader of a group that attempted to bomb London's public transport system on July 21, 2005, attended a Tablighi mosque in East London, and the "fifth bomber" in the July 21 plot, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, attended a Tablighi gathering in Dewsbury for three days.
The group also operated from mosques in Walthamstow, east London, and High Wycombe, Bucks, where several of the 2006 transatlantic airline plotters worshipped. Assad Sarwar, the bomb maker, and Waheed Zaman, a biochemistry student, both joined weekend camps run by Tablighi Jamaat.
American security officials have called Tablighi Jamaat a "recruiting ground for Al Qaeda," and French intelligence officials have described the group as an "antechamber of fundamentalism." The French Tablighi expert Marc Gaborieau says the group's ultimate objective is nothing short of a "planned conquest of the world" in the spirit of jihad.
An estimated 3,000 of the mega-mosque's supporters, some of whom travelled to London from as far away as Bradford and Birmingham, gathered outside Newham Council's town hall ahead of the decision on December 5. Some of them held signs reading: "15 years of waiting. Not a day more. Vote yes to the Riverine Center."
Later that evening, the Newham Town Council announced that all eight councillors on the Strategic Development Committee had voted to reject the Tablighi mosque application on the grounds that the building was "too big" and would not serve the needs of the local community.
After the meeting, Councillor Conor McAuley, Newham Council's Executive Member for Regeneration and Strategic Planning, issued a formal statement: "Councillors have considered this application at length and with great care before deciding to reject it. The council undertook a rigorous and extensive consultation about the proposals in the run-up to this decision."
McAuley added: "Our planning policies promote the development of the Abbey Mills site for a mix of residential, employment and community uses, to help create a new local center near West Ham station and regenerate the area. The creation of new homes and jobs are a priority for Newham Council. It is not considered that this application is consistent with these policies. There are also concerns about the size of the proposed buildings and impact on parking and traffic in the local area."
He also said: "Apart from the proposals being contrary to the planning policy for the site, they are also unacceptable for a number of other reasons. These are: the proposed mosque building is too big and would have an impact on important historic buildings nearby; it will generate too much traffic resulting in people parking on local residents' streets; the site is heavily contaminated raising safety issues which are not properly addressed by the application; the application proposes keeping existing buildings on the site, which are poorly designed."
The decision followed an extensive public consultation which resulted in 29,888 responses: 26,139 in support and 3,749 against.
Tablighi Jamaat had been requesting permission to build the mosque since 1999 (the original plans called for a mosque with a capacity for 70,000 worshippers) and said the building was needed to accommodate the followers it has across London.
In 2005, a former Newham town councillor, Alan Craig, launched a campaign called "Mega Mosque No Thanks" to stop the project, which he said would have resulted in the establishment of an "Islamic ghetto" in East London.
After Newham Council announced its decision to reject the mosque application, Craig said: "I'm opposed to both the nature of the group and the size of the mosque they want to build. We have freedom of religion and if Tablighi Jamaat wanted to build a neighborhood mosque, that's fine. But they want to build a massive headquarters in an area that cannot support such a building."
Some local Muslims had also expressed concerns that it would give one Islamic group too much dominance over the community.
The decision by Newham Council was immediately denounced by supporters of the project who vowed to fight on and seek a judicial review to overturn the decision.
The leader of the Tablighi community in East London, Alauddin Ahmed, was quoted by the BBC as saying: "There are 90,000 Muslims around the borough. The Muslim community is growing and there is need for bigger worship [facilities]. We are extremely let down. We think it is unjust because of the demand of the local people and the Muslim community."
Alan Craig, the anti-mosque activist, said: "Tablighi Jamaat has shown they have deep pockets and are determined to fulfill their ambition for a massive international center on this site irrespective of local concerns. We can expect them to appeal over the heads of Newham Council to the Planning Inspectorate at Bristol, as they have done successfully before, and that this issue will drag on much longer yet."
Muslims have also warned the Labour Party that it will pay a price for turning down the application. Abjol Miah, a leading activist for both the far left Respect Party and the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe said: "I think a lot of people tonight that weren't political have become political. It is a shame we have Labour councillors and committee members here. You know we have the London council elections in 2014 and I think the residents are going to be thinking differently. They are going to get more active. It is a time for change for Labour. You watch how we get angry."
Newham Council is also engaged in a separate legal fight against Tablighi Jamaat, which currently uses part of the Abbey Mills site to house the London Markaz (also known as Masjid-e-Ilyas) as a temporary mosque complex that can accommodate up to 2,500 people.
Newham Council says Tablighi no longer has permission to use the site and has taken legal action to compel the group to stop using the Abbey Mills site as a mosque and to demolish temporary buildings.
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Labels:
Islam Discrimination,
UK
Dr M: Rosmah’s biography good move
The biography, to be launched next month, will give Rosmah the right avenue to rebut wild allegations made against her, says Mahathir.
KUALA LUMPUR: The soon-to-be-released biography of the prime…
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KUALA LUMPUR: The soon-to-be-released biography of the prime…
The biography, to be launched next month, will give Rosmah the right avenue to rebut wild allegations made against her, says Mahathir.
KUALA LUMPUR: The soon-to-be-released biography of the prime minister’s wife, Rosmah Mansor is the most appropriate avenue for the latter to rebut wild accusations thrown against her, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.
He said Rosmah had the right to make corrections to all negative issues concerning her by certain irresponsible quarters.
“She (Rosmah) is not going high profile. Only those people made her a high profile figure by all sorts of accusations and she has the right to reply.
“Although she is the prime minister’s wife, it does not mean that she has to keep quiet to all sorts of accusations,” Mahathir told reporters after witnessing the RM63 million Assets and Technologies Acquisition Agreement signing ceremony between Proton Holdings Bhd and Petronas Bhd, here today.
On Monday, the pre-launch of the biography was officiated by the Sultan of Pahang, Sultan Ahmad Shah who was accompanied by the Sultanah of Pahang, Sultanah Kalsom and Prime Minister Najib.
The 164-page book which is priced at RM150, was written by Siti Rohayah Attan and Noraini Abdul Razak, and slated to be launched and distributed next month.
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KUALA LUMPUR: The soon-to-be-released biography of the prime minister’s wife, Rosmah Mansor is the most appropriate avenue for the latter to rebut wild accusations thrown against her, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.He said Rosmah had the right to make corrections to all negative issues concerning her by certain irresponsible quarters.
“She (Rosmah) is not going high profile. Only those people made her a high profile figure by all sorts of accusations and she has the right to reply.
“Although she is the prime minister’s wife, it does not mean that she has to keep quiet to all sorts of accusations,” Mahathir told reporters after witnessing the RM63 million Assets and Technologies Acquisition Agreement signing ceremony between Proton Holdings Bhd and Petronas Bhd, here today.
On Monday, the pre-launch of the biography was officiated by the Sultan of Pahang, Sultan Ahmad Shah who was accompanied by the Sultanah of Pahang, Sultanah Kalsom and Prime Minister Najib.
The 164-page book which is priced at RM150, was written by Siti Rohayah Attan and Noraini Abdul Razak, and slated to be launched and distributed next month.
Labels:
Rosmah
Planned rally not an opposition ploy, says Nurul
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar believes the home minister is not trying to resolve the problems faced by stateless people.
PETALING JAYA: The planned rally tomorrow in Putrajaya to protest…
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PETALING JAYA: The planned rally tomorrow in Putrajaya to protest…
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar believes the home minister is not trying to resolve the problems faced by stateless people.
PETALING JAYA: The planned rally tomorrow in Putrajaya to protest the plight of stateless Malaysian Indians is not a political tool of the opposition to instil hatred and incite racial conflicts, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said.
“It is disappointing that instead of resolving the issue, the Barisan Nasional once again falls back on the racial bogey,” she said in a press statement today.
Nuzul, who is Lembah Pantai MP, was rebutting Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s allegation that the planned rally was a mere political ploy of the opposition.
Hishammuddin also dismissed the opposition’s claim that there are 300,000 Malaysian Indians in the country who are stateless.
Said Nurul: “Hishammuddin is directly responsible for the National Registration Department, which has failed to resolve the longstanding issue of stateless Malaysians.”
She also claimed that statelessness is not only a problem plaguing the Indian community, but also other Malaysians as well.
Stateless people are deprived of the opportunity to work, to attend school and to receive basic healthcare besides being unable to vote although they were born and raised here all their lives.
Nurul also said the government has unlawfully refused to issue MyKad to these people.
She also took a swipe at BN parties which only speak for their own respective races.
“The BN has been and remains the greatest danger to the unity of all peoples and races in Malaysia,” she said.
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PETALING JAYA: The planned rally tomorrow in Putrajaya to protest the plight of stateless Malaysian Indians is not a political tool of the opposition to instil hatred and incite racial conflicts, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said.“It is disappointing that instead of resolving the issue, the Barisan Nasional once again falls back on the racial bogey,” she said in a press statement today.
Nuzul, who is Lembah Pantai MP, was rebutting Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s allegation that the planned rally was a mere political ploy of the opposition.
Hishammuddin also dismissed the opposition’s claim that there are 300,000 Malaysian Indians in the country who are stateless.
Said Nurul: “Hishammuddin is directly responsible for the National Registration Department, which has failed to resolve the longstanding issue of stateless Malaysians.”
She also claimed that statelessness is not only a problem plaguing the Indian community, but also other Malaysians as well.
Stateless people are deprived of the opportunity to work, to attend school and to receive basic healthcare besides being unable to vote although they were born and raised here all their lives.
Nurul also said the government has unlawfully refused to issue MyKad to these people.
She also took a swipe at BN parties which only speak for their own respective races.
“The BN has been and remains the greatest danger to the unity of all peoples and races in Malaysia,” she said.
Stop using the term ‘fixed deposit’
Najib Tun Razak's detractors should take Pakatan Rakyat to task for first mouthing the term 'fixed deposit', says MIC.
PETALING JAYA: MIC has come forward in defence of Prime Minister…
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PETALING JAYA: MIC has come forward in defence of Prime Minister…
Najib Tun Razak's detractors should take Pakatan Rakyat to task for first mouthing the term 'fixed deposit', says MIC.
PETALING JAYA: MIC has come forward in defence of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s use of the term “fixed deposit” in relation to the Indian community.
It’s communications chief, S Vell Paari said that the opposition, Pakatan Rakyat, had in fact used it even before Najib did.
“It is the opposition who first started using the term fixed deposit in reference to a particular segment of the voting community,” he said.
Yesterday Najib received flak from Indian community leaders over a speech that he made at the 66th MIC AGM on Sunday.
In his speech Najib said: “In the 11th general election (2004), the BN had its fixed deposit in the Indian voters. In the 12th general election, the Indian fixed deposit moved from the BN bank to the opposition bank.
“Maybe our interest rates were not good in 2008 for the Indian fixed deposit votes but over the last three years I have raised the interest rates and they are making a comeback to the BN bank. The confidence on the BN government is back.”
This speech resulted in three Indian community leaders – S Ambiga of Bersih, K Arumugam of Tamil Foundation and A Jayanath of Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia – to dispute the notion of Indians being a fixed-deposit for BN.
Elaborating further, Vell Paari said that DAP leaders had used the term “fixed deposit” after the DAP won 12 state seats in Sarawak last year.
“If you feel that it is insulting, you should take the opposition to task as well,” he said.
He added that Najib was merely quoting Palanivel who had used the term “fixed deposit” during the latter’s address on Sunday and questioned why the people are not talking about Najib’s readiness to recognise the contributions of the Indian community.
Personally, Vell Paari felt that the term “fixed deposit” should not be used by either side of the political divide.
“Let’s get rid of this term from our political vocabulary,” he said.
Stateless Indians
On the issue of stateless Indians, the MIC leader extended an olive branch to PKR vice -president, N Surendran.
“I’m not here to argue about the numbers. MIC is registering stateless Indians through the MyDaftar program and PKR has found stateless Indians. Let’s work together and resolve the issue once and for all,” he said.
Surendran claimed that there are 300,000 stateless Indians. The number is disputed by Najib and MIC.
In connection to this Surendran, who is a lawyer, would be leading a sit-in protest in front of National Registration Department tomorrow at 10am in Putrajaya.
Vell Paari also welcomed the protest tomorrow, saying that protests were essential for good governance.
“We also need people like Surendran so that we (BN) are not complacent,” he said.
He added that the number of stateless Indians can be reduced if the National Registration Department provides citizenship documents to children who have one Malaysian parent.
▲
PETALING JAYA: MIC has come forward in defence of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s use of the term “fixed deposit” in relation to the Indian community.It’s communications chief, S Vell Paari said that the opposition, Pakatan Rakyat, had in fact used it even before Najib did.
“It is the opposition who first started using the term fixed deposit in reference to a particular segment of the voting community,” he said.
Yesterday Najib received flak from Indian community leaders over a speech that he made at the 66th MIC AGM on Sunday.
In his speech Najib said: “In the 11th general election (2004), the BN had its fixed deposit in the Indian voters. In the 12th general election, the Indian fixed deposit moved from the BN bank to the opposition bank.
“Maybe our interest rates were not good in 2008 for the Indian fixed deposit votes but over the last three years I have raised the interest rates and they are making a comeback to the BN bank. The confidence on the BN government is back.”
This speech resulted in three Indian community leaders – S Ambiga of Bersih, K Arumugam of Tamil Foundation and A Jayanath of Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia – to dispute the notion of Indians being a fixed-deposit for BN.
Elaborating further, Vell Paari said that DAP leaders had used the term “fixed deposit” after the DAP won 12 state seats in Sarawak last year.
“If you feel that it is insulting, you should take the opposition to task as well,” he said.
He added that Najib was merely quoting Palanivel who had used the term “fixed deposit” during the latter’s address on Sunday and questioned why the people are not talking about Najib’s readiness to recognise the contributions of the Indian community.
Personally, Vell Paari felt that the term “fixed deposit” should not be used by either side of the political divide.
“Let’s get rid of this term from our political vocabulary,” he said.
Stateless Indians
On the issue of stateless Indians, the MIC leader extended an olive branch to PKR vice -president, N Surendran.
“I’m not here to argue about the numbers. MIC is registering stateless Indians through the MyDaftar program and PKR has found stateless Indians. Let’s work together and resolve the issue once and for all,” he said.
Surendran claimed that there are 300,000 stateless Indians. The number is disputed by Najib and MIC.
In connection to this Surendran, who is a lawyer, would be leading a sit-in protest in front of National Registration Department tomorrow at 10am in Putrajaya.
Vell Paari also welcomed the protest tomorrow, saying that protests were essential for good governance.
“We also need people like Surendran so that we (BN) are not complacent,” he said.
He added that the number of stateless Indians can be reduced if the National Registration Department provides citizenship documents to children who have one Malaysian parent.
Labels:
Malaysian Indians,
MIC
MIC NS tampil diri mahu selesai isu Gatco
Parti komponen BN ini mahu menyelesaikan krisis hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Kampung Serampang Indah yang berlanjutan sejak 30 tahun lalu.
SEREMBAN: MIC Negeri Sembilan hari ini mengumumkan bahawa MIC…
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SEREMBAN: MIC Negeri Sembilan hari ini mengumumkan bahawa MIC…
Parti komponen BN ini mahu menyelesaikan krisis hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Kampung Serampang Indah yang berlanjutan sejak 30 tahun lalu.
SEREMBAN: MIC Negeri Sembilan hari ini mengumumkan bahawa MIC Negeri Sembilan bersedia menampil diri untuk menyelesaikan krisis hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Kampung Serampang Indah (Gatco) yang berlanjutan sejak 30 tahun lalu.
Dalam kenyataan media eksklusif kepada FMT sebentar tadi, Pengerusi MIC Negeri Sembilan, Dato’ T Rajagopalu berkata seramai 283 peneroka asal Gatco telah ditawarkan empat ekar tanah perladangan. Sementara 115 peneroka peringkat kedua yang membeli tanah perladangan daripada peneroka asal telah ditawarkan dua ekar tanah perladangan.
“Kos penanaman getah semula akan ditanggung sepenuhnya oleh kerajaan sama ada melalui Risda atau Felcra.
“Kerajaan juga akan menanggung kos mengukur semula tanah perladangan tersebut untuk diagih-agihkan kepada peneroka mengikut kategori peneroka Gatco.
“Selain daripada itu Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan juga telah melanjutkan tempoh pajakan (leasehold) tanah perladangan Gatco yang sepatutnya berakhir pada tahun 2042 ; untuk tempoh 99 tahun lagi.
“Dalam mesyuarat MIC negeri yang diadakan malam tadi yang turut dihadiri oleh wakil peneroka Gatco; kami juga telah memutuskan agar surat tawaran hak milik tanah perladangan Gatco harus diberikan kepada peneroka dengan kadar segera.
“Justeru itu esok, saya dan delegasi MIC Negeri Sembilan akan mengadakan pertemuan dengan Menteri Besar Negeri Sembilan, Mohamad Hasan selepas beliau selesai mempengerusikan mesyuarat Exco Kerajaan Negeri di Wisma Negeri.
“Saya akan memohon kepada Menteri Besar untuk menyegerakan pemberian surat tawaran hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Gatco”, kata Rajagopalu.
Boleh miliki 8 ekar tanah
Berhubung isu ada peneroka Gatco yang tetap mahukan lapan ekar tanah perladangan, Rajagopalu berkata MIC Negeri Sembilan akan melantik sebuah syarikat Jurunilai untuk menilai pasaran semasa setiap ekar tanah perladangan tersebut.
“MIC Negeri Sembilan akan menanggung kos perunding Jurunilai untuk mengetahui nilai sebenar setiap ekar seperti yang dituntut oleh sebahagian peneroka tertentu.
“Selepas itu saya akan berunding dengan Syarikat Thamarai Holdings untuk urusan jual beli tanah perladangan tersebut.
“Maka mana-mana peneroka yang ingin memiliki lebih daripada empat ekar tanah perladangan, maka mereka perlu membayar nilai atau harga pasaran semasa tanah di situ untuk empat ekar tanah selebihnya.
“Peneroka yang mampu, boleh membeli enam, tujuh atau lapan ekar tanah perladangan setiap seorang mengikut kemampuan masing-masing,” jelas Rajagopalu.
Penantian 30 tahun berakhir
Sementara itu penantian 19 keluarga di Kampung Keretapi dan 30 keluarga di Kampung Melur; masing-masing di Jempol selama 30 tahun berakhir pagi tadi apabila Rajagopalu dan Exco Kerajaan Negeri, Dato’ VS Mogan (MIC) menyerahkan Surat Hak Milik (Borang 5A) kepada penduduk tersebut di Dewan Besar Pejabat Daerah Jempol.
“Selepas saya berunding dengan Menteri Besar, seramai 13 keluarga India dan enam keluarga Melayu dari Kampung Keretapi menerima se ekar tanah kediaman setiap seorang.
“Seramai 26 keluarga India dan empat keluarga Melayu dari Kampung Melur juga menerima se ekar tanah kediaman setiap seorang.
“Kerajaan Negeri juga memberikan se ekar tanah lagi untuk pembinaan kuil untuk kemudahan penduduk beragama Hindu dari kedua-dua kampung tersebut.
“Penduduk cuma perlu membayar premium tanah sebanyak RM566.00 setiap tahun dan tempoh pajakan (leasehold) tanah kediaman tersebut adalah 99 tahun”, ujar Rajagopalu lagi.
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SEREMBAN: MIC Negeri Sembilan hari ini mengumumkan bahawa MIC Negeri Sembilan bersedia menampil diri untuk menyelesaikan krisis hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Kampung Serampang Indah (Gatco) yang berlanjutan sejak 30 tahun lalu.Dalam kenyataan media eksklusif kepada FMT sebentar tadi, Pengerusi MIC Negeri Sembilan, Dato’ T Rajagopalu berkata seramai 283 peneroka asal Gatco telah ditawarkan empat ekar tanah perladangan. Sementara 115 peneroka peringkat kedua yang membeli tanah perladangan daripada peneroka asal telah ditawarkan dua ekar tanah perladangan.
“Kos penanaman getah semula akan ditanggung sepenuhnya oleh kerajaan sama ada melalui Risda atau Felcra.
“Kerajaan juga akan menanggung kos mengukur semula tanah perladangan tersebut untuk diagih-agihkan kepada peneroka mengikut kategori peneroka Gatco.
“Selain daripada itu Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan juga telah melanjutkan tempoh pajakan (leasehold) tanah perladangan Gatco yang sepatutnya berakhir pada tahun 2042 ; untuk tempoh 99 tahun lagi.
“Dalam mesyuarat MIC negeri yang diadakan malam tadi yang turut dihadiri oleh wakil peneroka Gatco; kami juga telah memutuskan agar surat tawaran hak milik tanah perladangan Gatco harus diberikan kepada peneroka dengan kadar segera.
“Justeru itu esok, saya dan delegasi MIC Negeri Sembilan akan mengadakan pertemuan dengan Menteri Besar Negeri Sembilan, Mohamad Hasan selepas beliau selesai mempengerusikan mesyuarat Exco Kerajaan Negeri di Wisma Negeri.
“Saya akan memohon kepada Menteri Besar untuk menyegerakan pemberian surat tawaran hak milik tanah perladangan peneroka Gatco”, kata Rajagopalu.
Boleh miliki 8 ekar tanah
Berhubung isu ada peneroka Gatco yang tetap mahukan lapan ekar tanah perladangan, Rajagopalu berkata MIC Negeri Sembilan akan melantik sebuah syarikat Jurunilai untuk menilai pasaran semasa setiap ekar tanah perladangan tersebut.
“MIC Negeri Sembilan akan menanggung kos perunding Jurunilai untuk mengetahui nilai sebenar setiap ekar seperti yang dituntut oleh sebahagian peneroka tertentu.
“Selepas itu saya akan berunding dengan Syarikat Thamarai Holdings untuk urusan jual beli tanah perladangan tersebut.
“Maka mana-mana peneroka yang ingin memiliki lebih daripada empat ekar tanah perladangan, maka mereka perlu membayar nilai atau harga pasaran semasa tanah di situ untuk empat ekar tanah selebihnya.
“Peneroka yang mampu, boleh membeli enam, tujuh atau lapan ekar tanah perladangan setiap seorang mengikut kemampuan masing-masing,” jelas Rajagopalu.
Penantian 30 tahun berakhir
Sementara itu penantian 19 keluarga di Kampung Keretapi dan 30 keluarga di Kampung Melur; masing-masing di Jempol selama 30 tahun berakhir pagi tadi apabila Rajagopalu dan Exco Kerajaan Negeri, Dato’ VS Mogan (MIC) menyerahkan Surat Hak Milik (Borang 5A) kepada penduduk tersebut di Dewan Besar Pejabat Daerah Jempol.
“Selepas saya berunding dengan Menteri Besar, seramai 13 keluarga India dan enam keluarga Melayu dari Kampung Keretapi menerima se ekar tanah kediaman setiap seorang.
“Seramai 26 keluarga India dan empat keluarga Melayu dari Kampung Melur juga menerima se ekar tanah kediaman setiap seorang.
“Kerajaan Negeri juga memberikan se ekar tanah lagi untuk pembinaan kuil untuk kemudahan penduduk beragama Hindu dari kedua-dua kampung tersebut.
“Penduduk cuma perlu membayar premium tanah sebanyak RM566.00 setiap tahun dan tempoh pajakan (leasehold) tanah kediaman tersebut adalah 99 tahun”, ujar Rajagopalu lagi.
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Felda
Getting to the core of stateless issue
The government should set up a Committee for Citizenship Registration to address the issues of stateless citizens, says Kua Kia Soong.
COMMENT
By Kua Kia Soong
As we well know,…
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COMMENT
By Kua Kia SoongAs we well know,…
The government should set up a Committee for Citizenship Registration to address the issues of stateless citizens, says Kua Kia Soong.
COMMENT
By Kua Kia Soong
As we well know, the politics of statelessness is tied to the politics of race in this country. It is unacceptable that the bugbear that was thrown into the Independence struggle to put the anti-colonial forces on the defensive – viz. who are the ‘pribumi’ (indigenous people) and who are the ‘pendatang’ (immigrants) and therefore not qualified for citizenship – continues to determine the political agenda in 2012.
We never fail to be bemused by the antics of the Barisan Nasional government which gives out a few citizenship certificates to several erstwhile stateless Malaysians just before every election.
The media coverage of grateful beneficiaries hugging the benevolent Home Minister only adds to the parody.
We do not accept such tokenistic attempts to appease the stateless and we demand to know once and for all exactly how many stateless persons there are in this country?
The stateless cannot accept a fate in which they are doomed to wait in line for an election to arrive and hoping for a few lucky draws to bear fruit.
Race has played a key role in Umno’s policy to reduce the number of non-Muslim voters and at the same time increase Muslim voters in order to maintain “Malay dominance”.
East Malaysian leaders have alleged that ‘Project M’ was implemented to ensure Filipino Muslims and Pakistanis were granted citizenship’s in large numbers to dilute the non-Malay majority of Sabah.
In west Malaysia, Indonesians have for years been obtaining citizenship with relative ease compared with many non-Malays who were born in Malaysia.
Committee needed
PKR and Hindraf have claimed that there are as many as 300,000 stateless Indians in this country while the MIC says that they have only registered 9,000 or so. According to the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (DHRRA), Malaysia, ‘Southeast Asia – Human Rights Watch’ 2011:
“It is estimated that there are around 40,000 Indian children in the state of Selangor alone who do not have their birth certificates. Similarly, based on the number of cases we received at our 10 community centres from 2003 – 2006, we estimated that at least 20,000 Indian women do not have identity documents. These figures could be much higher if their children are taken into account. Therefore, they become ‘stateless’ in their own country and as a result they been denied of protection and care as a citizen of the nation state, and thus vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.”
What about the stateless Chinese and the stateless indigenous peoples in Sarawak and Sabah? We know that there are considerable numbers of them as well.
We therefore call on the government to set up a credible Committee for Citizenship Registration with enough resources to solve the plight of the stateless once and for all.
This committee must be seen to be independent and professional. It is too important a task to be entrusted to any political party.
The Department of Statistics and the Registration Department should be involved in this exercise in order to give us the correct numbers of the stateless in the country.
The right to a nationality
Every person has the right to a nationality. Yet statelessness continues to be a fundamental cause of discrimination, exploitation, and even forced displacement.
The stateless have no legal protection or the right to participate in political process; poor employment prospects and poverty; little opportunity to own property; travel restrictions, and inadequate access to healthcare and education.
To date, only 57 states have become party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and even fewer states, just 29, are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
It is time for Malaysia to take the plight of the stateless seriously instead of treating them like a political football to score a few at a time during elections.
Kua Kia Soong is human rights watchdog Suaram’s adviser.
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COMMENT
By Kua Kia SoongAs we well know, the politics of statelessness is tied to the politics of race in this country. It is unacceptable that the bugbear that was thrown into the Independence struggle to put the anti-colonial forces on the defensive – viz. who are the ‘pribumi’ (indigenous people) and who are the ‘pendatang’ (immigrants) and therefore not qualified for citizenship – continues to determine the political agenda in 2012.
We never fail to be bemused by the antics of the Barisan Nasional government which gives out a few citizenship certificates to several erstwhile stateless Malaysians just before every election.
The media coverage of grateful beneficiaries hugging the benevolent Home Minister only adds to the parody.
We do not accept such tokenistic attempts to appease the stateless and we demand to know once and for all exactly how many stateless persons there are in this country?
The stateless cannot accept a fate in which they are doomed to wait in line for an election to arrive and hoping for a few lucky draws to bear fruit.
Race has played a key role in Umno’s policy to reduce the number of non-Muslim voters and at the same time increase Muslim voters in order to maintain “Malay dominance”.
East Malaysian leaders have alleged that ‘Project M’ was implemented to ensure Filipino Muslims and Pakistanis were granted citizenship’s in large numbers to dilute the non-Malay majority of Sabah.
In west Malaysia, Indonesians have for years been obtaining citizenship with relative ease compared with many non-Malays who were born in Malaysia.
Committee needed
PKR and Hindraf have claimed that there are as many as 300,000 stateless Indians in this country while the MIC says that they have only registered 9,000 or so. According to the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (DHRRA), Malaysia, ‘Southeast Asia – Human Rights Watch’ 2011:
“It is estimated that there are around 40,000 Indian children in the state of Selangor alone who do not have their birth certificates. Similarly, based on the number of cases we received at our 10 community centres from 2003 – 2006, we estimated that at least 20,000 Indian women do not have identity documents. These figures could be much higher if their children are taken into account. Therefore, they become ‘stateless’ in their own country and as a result they been denied of protection and care as a citizen of the nation state, and thus vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.”
What about the stateless Chinese and the stateless indigenous peoples in Sarawak and Sabah? We know that there are considerable numbers of them as well.
We therefore call on the government to set up a credible Committee for Citizenship Registration with enough resources to solve the plight of the stateless once and for all.
This committee must be seen to be independent and professional. It is too important a task to be entrusted to any political party.
The Department of Statistics and the Registration Department should be involved in this exercise in order to give us the correct numbers of the stateless in the country.
The right to a nationality
Every person has the right to a nationality. Yet statelessness continues to be a fundamental cause of discrimination, exploitation, and even forced displacement.
The stateless have no legal protection or the right to participate in political process; poor employment prospects and poverty; little opportunity to own property; travel restrictions, and inadequate access to healthcare and education.
To date, only 57 states have become party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and even fewer states, just 29, are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
It is time for Malaysia to take the plight of the stateless seriously instead of treating them like a political football to score a few at a time during elections.
Kua Kia Soong is human rights watchdog Suaram’s adviser.
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NRIC
Karpal minta Hadi buat kenyataan pendirian PAS mengenai pengasingan gender
(Bernama) - Pengerusi DAP Karpal Singh meminta Presiden PAS Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang menyatakan secara terbuka pendirian PAS mengenai isu pengasingan gender, dan bukannya menyerahkan perkara itu kepada exco…(Bernama) - Pengerusi DAP Karpal Singh meminta Presiden PAS Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang menyatakan secara terbuka pendirian PAS mengenai isu pengasingan gender, dan bukannya menyerahkan perkara itu kepada exco Kelantan.Karpal, yang merupakan anggota Parlimen Bukit Gelugor berkata sikap berdiam diri exco Kelantan dalam mengkaji semula peraturan mengenai pengasingan gender yang melarang wanita bukan Islam memotong rambut lelaki bukan Islam, dan sebaliknya di salon di Kota Baharu tidak menunjukkan kerajaan yang bertanggungjawab.
"Pemimpin-pemimpin PAS perlu sedar bahawa sikap membisu bukan jalan penyelesaian dan ia hanya memburukkan keadaan. Peraturan itu perlu dihapuskan dengan segera," katanya dalam kenyataan di sini hari ini.
Karpal berkata kenyataan mengenai penguatkuasaan pengasingan gender oleh Majlis Perbandaran Kota Baharu dibuat oleh Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Kerajaan Tempatan, Pelancongan dan Kebudayaan negeri Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan.
"Bagi beliau (Takiyuddin) peraturan itu bukan satu isu dan beliau berkata undang-undang itu dikuatkuasa sejak 1991 selaras dengan slogan kerajaan PAS Kelantan 'Membangun Bersama Islam' yang merangkumi orang Islam dan bukan Islam, dan pada 1999 syarat yang lebih ketat dikenakan oleh Majlis," katanya.
Karpal berkata kenyataan itu pastinya menimbulkan kebimbangan di kalangan bukan Islam bahawa cubaan sedang dibuat untuk melaksanakan undang-undang Islam terhadap bukan Islam yang akhirnya bermakna pengenalan hudud kepada bukan Islam.
"Rasional dalam melaksanakan undang-undang itu kepada bukan Islam ialah, seperti diakui Takiyuddin, sejajar dengan slogan membangun bersama Islam yang bermakna melibatkan pengenalan nilai-nilai Islam terhadap bukan Islam," katanya. Beliau berkata PAS perlu mengambil tindakan segera mengenai isu itu memandangkan pilihan raya umum semakin hampir.
Non-Muslims not targeted by Kelantan government, says PAS
Last weekend, The Star had reported that Kelantan enforcement officers had fined four non-Muslims for khalwat (close proximity), a crime under syariah law applicable only to Muslims; but PAS had quickly pointed out the summonses were for indecent behaviour, an offence under local council laws that is enforceable on all.
Mustafa (picture) was asked if non-Muslims would feel targeted by the Kelantan state government even when it is enforcing local council laws and not Islamic laws.
He disagreed, pointing out that such local council laws are enforceable on both non-Muslims and Muslims, while Muslims could also be liable under Islamic laws.
“This is all MCA’s political agenda,” he said at a press conference at the PAS headquarters here.
He said that the indecent behaviour fines, which were issued in October, were being used by the MCA to gain political mileage and attack the Chinese-based party’s political foe DAP ahead of the 13th general election.
“So this thing, MCA just wants to make a political score against DAP.
“For us, this matter that was mentioned incorrectly by The Star, by MCA has created a perception that’s not correct, created confusion; MCA made a statement that’s not accurate,” he said.
He said that allegations of the Kelantan enforcement officers soliciting bribes of RM500 from two of the non-Muslims to “settle” the indecent behaviour fines were not true, saying that reports to the relevant authorities should be made if the claims are true.
“(That’s) not correct, we checked. If true, take legal action. If true, make complaints to police, report to police...We also don’t want if this officer is not right.”
Mustafa also said the local council laws that prohibit indecent behaviour were applicable in the whole of Malaysia under the Local Government Act 1976.
He referred to a controversial incident in Kuala Lumpur in 2003 where a couple were charged under section 8(1) of the Parks (Federal Territory) Bylaws 1981 for hugging and kissing.
He said Kelantan had adopted the 1976 law applicable nationwide in 1986 before PAS started its rule in the state.
He said the Kelantan enforcement officers usually let couples off after giving them advice and only issue summonses for indecent behaviour cases that were serious.
Mustafa repeatedly said at the press conference that the recent indecent behaviour fine cases are not related to syariah law or the syariah court.
Recently, non-Muslim hairdressers in Kelantan were reported to have also been slapped with fines for having customers of the opposite gender, breaching a local council by-law that bars women hairstylists from working on men and vice-versa — sparking a storm over the position of Islamic laws.
In the run-up to the 13th general election, the BN coalition has increasingly tried to discourage non-Muslim voters from voting for Pakatan Rakyat by saying that PAS would implement the Islamic penal code, hudud, and create an Islamic state.
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PAS
Afghan Refugees Face a Humanitarian Crisis
Going back whether they want to or not
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By the end of December, an estimated 1.7 million Afghan refugees, many of whom have never even seen…
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Going back whether they want to or not
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By the end of December, an estimated 1.7 million Afghan refugees, many of whom have never even seen their homeland, are due to lose their refugee status in Pakistan and are being ordered to return to their war-torn, poverty-stricken and blasted country. Afghan refugees in Pakistan make up the second largest refugee community in the world.
While both the Pakistani government and the United Nations High Commission on refugees say there is no intention to stage forced repatriations, the refugees are clearly being pushed to pack up and move out, raising concerns that a humanitarian crisis is in the making.
UN officials and others have in vain asked the Pakistani government to reconsider the decision to send off the refugees, to be told that Pakistan has been putting up with Afghan refugees for more than 30 years, one of the longest-running refugee problems in the world.
?The international community desires us to review this policy, but we are clear on this point. The refugees have become a threat to law and order, security, demography, economy and local culture,? Habibullah Khan, the secretary of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, told reporters. ?Enough is enough.?
Under an arrangement worked out with the Pakistani government, the United Nations Refugee Agency is providing families with US$150 each as well as a supply of jerry cans, buckets soap, mosquito nets, sleeping mats, cooking utensils, plastic tarpaulins, quilts and winter clothing. Few of the refugees want anything to with going back to Afghanistan ?-or going there in the first place, having been born in Pakistan during their parents? flight to escape war, poverty and crime. Although the economy has recovered somewhat since the Americans drove out the Taliban in 2001, the country has largely been kept alive by massive infusions of international aid. Living standards are among the lowest in the world despite intensive NATO efforts at development, much of it continuously undone by rebels. Corruption is endemic. Of the estimated 30.5 million population, 43.2 percent are under the age of 14.
Despite those who have returned so far, at least as many as 3.5 million registered and unregistered Afghans still remain in Pakistan and Iran, where another 900,000 are encamped, according to the US Congressional Research Service. Some estimates go as high as 8 million Afghans overseas ? more than 25 percent of the population.
The porous borders between Afghanistan and its surrounding countries amount to no borders at all in many places, making flight relatively easy. In addition to the approximately 1.7 million refugees in the country, some 420,500 people displaced due to conflict remain in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Asia Calling, an Indonesian radio service that has a content-sharing agreement with Asia Sentinel, caught up with a refugee named Hayatullah, for instance, who was 25 years old when he left Afghanistan because of the war and was loading his belongings onto a pickup truck for the journey back to the country of his birth. All of Hayatullah?s nine children were born in Pakistan?s refugee camps.
?I haven?t seen the country that we?re going to. I?m sad to leave this country where I was born and grew up,? said his 16-year-old son Abidullah, ?I will miss all my friends in Peshawar.?
Assadullah Khan, 26, owned a fruit stall in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, supplying fruit to several districts for the last eight years and now has had to leave his business behind.
?I?m extremely upset, but I had no choice but to return and join the rest of my family,? he said. ?I?m leaving behind a very profitable business.?
Others, like a small business owner named Saifur Khan, worry about their future in Afghanistan.
?The situation in Afghanistan is still not good. The US-led coalition forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014 and the situation could get worse,? he said. ?Where will we go then??
The repatriation, which has been underway for more than a year, is putting pressure on relief agencies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and affecting governments well beyond to Australia and the west. Many refugees choose to go anyplace but back to Afghanistan, where war has been raging almost continuously since 1979, first with the invasion of the country by Russian troops, followed by fighting over the spoils by Afghan warlords, followed by the arrival of the radical Islamic Taliban, followed by the Americans and NATO in revenge for Al Qaeda?s destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Australia agreed in July to play a key role in resolving the Afghan refugee process, increasing the country?s annual intake of refugees and prioritizing the resettlement of Afghans from Pakistan. Inward migration is already an emotional issue in Australia, facing a steady stream of asylum-seekers, many from Sri Lanka. It has been diverting them to the island of Nauru and Christmas Island while seeking a solution. Canada, the United States and the Scandnavian countries are being pressured to accept more refugees to relieve the pressure on Pakistan and Iran.
The United Nations High Commission on Refugees, in its 2012-2013 planning report, said that since March 2002,the agency has helped the return of about 3.7 million registered Afghans from Pakistan.
?Individually recognized refugees and asylum-seekers have difficulty in accessing basic facilities and essential services including education, health care and work in Pakistan,? the UNHCR report said. ?Many of them have limited income opportunities so they must survive through informal work arrangements. Through bilateral memoranda with UN agencies, UNHCR will support identified branches of the national service structure to help build capacity to support the Afghan population living in Pakistan communities.?
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Middle East
The pathologies of Malay nationalism
The nation
The problem begins with the nation-state ideal; for its coherence depends on there being a people deemed as the rightful owners of a land. It is rooted to…
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The problem begins with the nation-state ideal; for its coherence depends on there being a people deemed as the rightful owners of a land. It is rooted to…
The nation
The problem begins with the nation-state ideal; for its coherence depends on there being a people deemed as the rightful owners of a land. It is rooted to the belief that territory is property – a thing to own – and that loyalty to the people means, among other things, the readiness to uphold the integrity of territory to ensure it belongs to the nation.
This requires clearly defined, finite, national borders, which – at least at the face of it – appears as a simple enough idea. Matters become complicated when we ask who those borders are meant for. There cannot be a nation-state, if there is no nation to begin with.
But identities unlike land cannot be enclosed and demarcated. Cultures do not flourish in vacuums. They develop out of interactions and fusions with one another. New words, outlooks and practices are adopted while others fade, in a slow, arbitrary and often ambiguous organic process of contact and migration through time.
The nationalist agenda is at odds with this reality. The belief in the congruence of identity and territory – or indeed identity as territory – at the face of inevitable cultural change that can neither be controlled nor predicted, means that each nation will always find itself in the position of having to redefine the conditions of membership, to determine what or who should or should not be excluded. Culture too is given boundaries as a result.
The nationalist imagination must, in other words, assume however implicitly that there is some supposed essence underlying the flux of culture and identity, out of which the ‘Otherising’ so common to nationalist politics is legitimised. The marker could be anything from a common language, religion, ethnicity, race or history. It could even be a set of values or general traits. None of this is exclusive, of course. At any given time, depending on the issue and occasion, different factors can be evoked to proclaim dissimilarity.
Islam
Islam as we’ve seen time and time again has featured prominently in attempts to imagine a core to Malay identity. It is in fact presented as a condition: the protection of Malays, we’re told repeatedly, depends on the preservation of Islam.
History has had much to do with this. The growth of Islam in 15th century Nusantara converged with the Malay apex of imperial grandeur, where for centuries Malay kingdoms dominated commerce, producing diplomatic relations and maritime armies that placed the Malaccan Straits on the map of world trade.
This began as a very much elite affair, for the earliest Muslim converts in the Peninsula were among the feudal and merchant classes. It was not only until Islam eventually reached the commoner that its defining presence in Malay notions of identity began. Gradually, Islam became appreciated as a force of enlightenment, as it inspired Malays to leave their supposedly superstitious animistic ways of life towards a higher stage of civilization. The necessity of learning the Quran for basic rituals meant that Islam was also the context with which Malays experienced their earliest exposure to systemic, although largely informal, learning. In fact, Islam as education remained the case for common Malays for centuries.
But while education and memories of empire shaped Malay attachments to Islam, its legalistic thrust ensures that it would remain a useful tool. One would be right, for example, to dismiss the recurring Hudud polemics as mere political ostentations between two parties seeking to out-Islamise one another, but in doing so we must not forget how much Islam, with its endless list of dos and don’ts, makes for a convenient resource of conformity and control.
Islamisation
That would not be so troubling, if not for how the pressures for more and more Islam are actually coming from the ground up. Today, Islamic validations are increasingly sought for things as mundane as medicine, fashion and entertainment, as can be seen in the rising trend of halal living. Academic discussions on Islamic science have produced volumes of theoretical literature, albeit with little effects on actual scientific practice or meaningful discoveries. Unsatisfied with the already rigid curriculum of Islamic studies in national schools, more and more private Islamic schools, including kindergartens, continue to be established throughout the country. The list can go on and on.
The state has had little need to take issue with the above demands, for the simple reason that any Islamisation, given present circumstances, would only secure a more Malay definition of Malaysia anyway. Thus it was not at all surprising to see the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), always already seeking to solidify Malay rule, having no qualms about competing on this turf. They seemed to have even relished the challenge, excelling – in realpolitik terms – in ensuring the drastic insertion of Islamic policies into the Malaysian state.
Historians highlight the early 1980s as the point of no return. The revivalism of Islam was the demand of a strong Malay grassroots then. The regime, eventually armed with the credibility of Anwar Ibrahim’s Islamist background, launched its deep and thorough project of Islamisation in response: Islamic banking was introduced. The International Islamic University, Malaysia (IIUM/UIA), now heavily sustained by Saudi funding, was established. So was the Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM), which has since then served as the intellectual mouthpiece against pluralism and apostasy. A more Muslim oriented foreign policy was initiated. New laws were imposed, banning imports of non-halal beef and Muslim entry into casinos. Marriages and sermons were made subject to Islamic certification and approval.
Today, JAKIM (Malaysian Department of Islamic Development) is the third most funded department under the Prime Minister’s Office, receiving RM 402 million in 2010 alone. It stands among several other Syariah institutions that were recently erected in rapid succession such as Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah, Malaysia (Department of Syariah Justice) in March 1998 and the Syariah section of the Attorney General’s office in 2003. The latter is to ensure that all laws – including international laws Malaysia are to ratify – are Syariah compliant. In 2009, planning for a Jabatan Penguatkuasaan dan Pendakwaan Syariah (Syariah Enforcement and Prosecution Department) began.
Power
But what is all that power for?
Curiously, the persistence of conservative presence in Malay politics suggests that the increased Islamisation of government, on top of the huge representation of Malays in the military, police, civil service, the cabinet, petit bourgeoisie and banking, in addition to our nine monarchs, are still somehow not enough to assuage insecurities.
It can also be argued that the significant powers that Malays have amassed through the government and bureaucracy over the years are mere catalysts for greater conservative demands, for in apprehensive hands no amount of power will suffice if it cannot translate to total control.
Thus it may be more accurate to look past the power held to see what the power is meant to protect in the first place. And for this we will have to inquire into a prior anxiety, one that is more essential in driving the politicisation of Malay identity as a whole, and that is the fear of losing control over Malaysia’s multicultural complexities.
To clarify, the conservative claim is not that the Malays were here before everyone else. Rather, the Malays, at one point the subjects of a glorious medieval empire, were the ones who shaped the customs and civilization, and by consequence the historical significance, of the Peninsula.
It was therefore the bitterest injustice for the Malay nationalist imagination that independence from centuries of colonialism began with the masses of Malays in wretched poverty. They were 70% of Malaysia’s poor at the time, confined mostly to low level-menial work. University education was far from reach and with little, in fact inconsequential, ownership of capital (Malays owned only 4% of all businesses) Malay control of the country was nothing more than ceremonial despite the triumphant proclamations ofMerdeka (Independence).
Malays in fact became poorer in the ensuing decade, a reality that soon compelled the demand which we are all too familiar with by now: that only the material enrichment of Malays can mend inter-communal relations since they would no longer have to bear the shame of being poor sons of the soil.
Shame and self-loathing
This shame left a deeply bitter mark, for the little real political power that Malays could claim also translated to a crisis in self-esteem. The worst of this fermented into the long tradition of self-loathing that one can find in bourgeois Malay thought, whereby Malay poverty is often explained away as an obvious outcome of laziness.
The Malay Dilemma by Mahathir Mohamed (Malaysia’s longest serving Prime Minister at 22 years) has for some reason survived as the most frequently reissued attempt to defend that thesis. Not only did it draw a direct causal link between Malay laziness and poverty, they were also somehow taken as certain proof of Malay racial inferiority.
But if we are at all to recall that book for its originality, it would have to be for the rather taxing attempt it made to explain that link with pretensions of evolutionary science. Otherwise, the Malay Dilemmawas merely reiterating an impression that was already prevalent among early Malay bureaucrats. After all, it was published only a year after Revolusi Mental (Mental Revolution), a longer book comprising of essays that also insisted on the Malay poverty-laziness-inferiority idea, this time by the most prominent Malay educators in government then.
It is painful, though not unfair, to acknowledge that there was some hint of inevitability to all that, especially when viewed from a broader historical perspective. Munshi Abdullah, the pioneer of Malay reformist thought, was already lamenting Malay inferiority – also in the manner of simplified sweeping claims about Malay laziness – as early as the British takeover of the Straits. Indeed, it was against his profound awe of British science and technology that the lazy, inferior, bumbling, dumb and superstitious Malay which he took constant note of was often “portrayed” in his works (although always, somehow, in the pretext of some deep care and concern he had for Malay progress).
This spirit of supposed tough love resonated again in the early 20th century, this time in Pendeta Za’ba’s works which was also not short of bile. The modern man of Malay letters said that the Malays were poor in “all aspects of life” – in demeanour, attitude and worldview, “in all the conditions and necessities that can lead to the success and greatness of the nation”. Malay youths spend too much time on wasteful activities, he said, and “are perverse in indulging in their carnal and animalistic needs” while having no foresight or prudence in spending. Their elders, on the other hand, are too caught up in stupid superstitions. The works of Malay literature are also “poor and not of the kind that can uplift spirits and improve thought”.
One can argue that such frankness is common to all nationalist rhetoric. It can be likened by analogy to the kind of direct criticism we have all encountered in one way or another in heated family arguments, only the end message in this case is of course broader and more political, to provoke Malays to wake up and strive.
But what makes the above preoccupations with racial inferiority particularly pernicious is the conclusion drawn at the end of it all: the Bourgeois Malay’s ultimate prescription for independence was not revolt or rebellion against exploitation and underdevelopment. Rather, the way forward was conceived in terms of the capitalist ethos, through hard work, self-reliance and private enterprise.
Obstacles
The central role of British colonialism in perpetuating myths of the lazy native is a subject that is best dealt in another discussion, although it would suffice at this point to state the curious fact that the notable Malays who were most willing to uphold and defend that myth were significantly influenced by the colonial lebensvelt.
Munshi Abdullah, for example, taught and translated Malay for Stamford Raffles on top of many other notable Orientalists. Both Za’ba and Mahathir – whose treatises on the subject were originally written in English – were educated via the British system. It was indeed through this orbit of circumstances that the capitalist ethos brought by the British found their advocates among Malay nationalists, however indirectly.
For a better sense of what’s at stake here, we should consider the contrasting attitudes of Malay nationalists who were not as fortunate. For example, Rashid Maidin the labourer, or Ahmad Boestamam the son of a peasant, saw little to no virtue behind the laziness myth or British capitalism, having witnessed and lived through first-hand the violent exploitation of labour that was needed to service British industries. The Malayan left, with whom they mobilised, advocated instead a more confrontational and militant route towards self-determination. Naturally, the British, in the post-war ruin of their empire amidst fears of a Communist takeover of Southeast Asia did all they could to suppress all manifestations of leftist unrest, often with little hesitation to resort to violence or outright political intervention.
The fact that the Malay left and the British ended up more and more preoccupied with one another after independence also meant that Malay capitalism was met with less resistance. This, however, did not mean that it was without its obstacles. There was, for one, the absence of a critical Malay mass: the majority of Malays at the turn of Merdeka were rural, illiterate, uneducated and, more significantly, unfamiliar with the belief in “grace-through-hard-work” that the early Malay elites and bureaucrats embraced.
There was also a problem in the form of an apathetic Malay elite, the old guard of UMNOists close to Tunku Abdul Rahman (Malaysia’s first Prime Minister) who were not seen as committed enough to the cause of Malay development. The Tunku recalled the Malays as “a simple and contented people, used to their own way of life, their distinctive traditions, their deep Islamic belief in God and the hereafter, and respect for their Sultans. Sons of the soil and the sea, they lived close to nature in a bountiful land. Why bother to work so hard?”
But nothing stood in the way as agonisingly as the peninsula’s demographic realities. In 1955, the Malays constituted 84.2% of the total electorate. After independence it was reduced to just 56.8% due to the formal mass incorporation of Chinese and Indians as Malaysian citizens. This was not an easy fact to accept especially for those who just regarded them as temporary migrant workers whose presence in the Peninsula was due to colonial, rather than Malay, demands. It didn’t help that the Chinese were soon perceived as threats: When they were not smeared as mere greedy businessmen, they were feared as treacherous communists.
The protector state
So something had to be done, and for ordinary Malays this meant access to a great deal of welfare, or to be more exact state protection over the ensuing decades after Independence: exclusive commercial guidance and protection, rural development, educational support and a great deal of employment guarantees. The New Economic Policy eventually oversaw that process to noteworthy breakthroughs as the rather rapid growth of a Malay middle, professional and corporate class over the past thirty years is apparent.
The assertion has been made time and time again that the absence of racial violence over this period should not be taken for granted. After all, another May 13th was avoided. But while this claim may be reasonable, it overlooks how that period of purported lull also overlapped with increased centralisation, the erosion of civil liberties and the violent suppression of dissent, engineered by politicians who justified those policies on the basis of Malay supremacy. Violence merely moved away from the streets into the cover of legitimised state power.
Plus, while there may not have been outright street violence, it cannot be denied that Malay welfare was designed and implemented in a circumstance of antagonism. Various policies to transfer wealth into Malay hands were in fact put in place earlier, considerably before May 13th.
The Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA) and Bank Bumiputera, though now defunct, were set up as alternatives to Malay dependence on Chinese middlemen and credit sources. Along with the Indigenous (Bumiputera) People’s Trust Council (MARA) and the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), they were established when Chinese support for the Alliance was at a dramatic low following the July 1958 crisis within the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA). The crisis emerged out of heated disputes on the extent to which the Chinese should accept being unequal partners in the Federation of Malaya. The possibility of MCA withdrawing from the alliance at that time, in fact, became very real as a result.
By 1967 Malay was confirmed as the only language suitable for state transactions, this after it was decided that subsidies were to be denied to Chinese schools that would not adhere to the national curriculum. The rest is history.
The rationale behind it in other words was not purely economic. A halt in Chinese progress was conceived as a necessary condition for Malay progress. A friend, who it must be said is hardly an UMNO hardliner, summarised it all in stark terms: racism helped Malays.
Blind-spots
But not all Malays: We are often told of how the bottoms 40% of Malaysian households earn RM 1500 or less on average. But we don’t hear as much about the fact that this is equivalent to 2.6 million households, or to be more exact, 12.4 million Malaysians. We even hear less of how 56% of that total, nearly 1.3 million households, are Malay households.
A recent study conducted at the Malaysian National University’s (UKM) Institute for Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) reveals more: an average Bumiputera can only rely on one month of financial reserves in the sudden event of unemployment. 50.8% of overall Bumiputera wealth is concentrated in the top 20% of Bumiputera earners, while the bottom 40% can only claim a cumulative share of 7.6%. It is not surprising then that 66% of Bumiputera households have no financial assets.
The lack of class awareness in Malay politics suggests, worryingly (although typically, as ever before) that attitudes of ethnic competition are most poised to influence the interpretation of those figures. All this, at any rate, says little of the fact that Malays already constitute a sizeable portion of Malaysia’s low wage workers, whose income will be further suppressed as they are made to compete more and more with the increasing influx of low skilled migrant workers who are preferred by employers for their cheap cost of maintenance and political insignificance.
Who is Malay?
There is obvious nagging about how economic hardship left to ferment with no vision of solidarity will only sow the seeds of identity politics, of how racist sentiments can hurt feelings and how it can upset the liberal wet dreams of complete individual freedom from all social connections. But here I am reminded of another bitter effect.
In September 2012, a new-born baby girl died after being thrown out of the third floor of an apartment building in Petaling Jaya. The confirmation that the mother is Malay was quickly greeted with the deluge of typically bland Muslim moralising. The manner of the baby’s disposal, it turns out, was not as gripping as the fact that baby dumping among Malays appears to have reached gravely disturbing extents (by then at least 31 cases were discovered since the beginning of the year). Soon enough, surely enough, the typical demands for harsher punishments, more religious education and strict parenting ensued as solutions to the problem. Among the causes identified were Western influence and/or bad peers.
It didn’t seem to matter to Malays that the mother is a 21 year old factory worker living in Desa Mentari, a low cost high density flat in the industrial sector of Petaling Jaya which is also home to hundreds of Malaysia’s low wage proletariats, many of whom are migrants. It didn’t occur to them at any point that the stigma and duress of living as a young, poor, pregnant and unwed Malay Muslim woman, with no freedom to just speak and be, in a country that reduces all identities to their most elementary parts and crudest images can drive any living breathing person mad. None of that mattered: the solution, as always, overwhelmingly, was more and more conformity: values, religion and more order.
Conformity we should recall was what Hannah Arendt pointed to as the spine of the totalitarian condition. For it manifested where the uncertainties and pace of the modern world is just too much to bear: the breakdown of hierarchies, traditions and myths, are for many too overwhelming. In that strident storm, group identity (and in the context in which Arendt wrote, Stalinism and anti-Semitism) becomes a compelling recourse or defence, a way to make sense of the uncertainties of it all. Thus, totalitarianism is not a regime against democracy per se, nor is it about hating other races. It is, first and foremost, the submerging of the human being into the masses in exchange for a sense – a false one at that – of place and stability.
Racism and religious sectarianism then are merely crutches, or shields for the journey, for one would not need to negate others if the world was not understood so antagonistically, as of scarcity, to begin with. And this is the kernel of the Malay nationalism that has endured most so far: born in poverty amidst the bewildering dissonance of demands from other ethnicities, languages, religions and ways of life while brewing hopes of European progress, the strong regime – whether it is led by a monarch, a racist party or Ulamas – will always be the ideal saviour for those harbouring false hopes of tranquil in the cacophony of complex life. Viewed from this unflattering light of home, we are perhaps coming closer to answering the question of who is Malay.
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is the Managing Editor of Projek Dialog, www.projekdialog.com , a social development project that aims to promote healthy debate and understanding within and among Malaysians .
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The problem begins with the nation-state ideal; for its coherence depends on there being a people deemed as the rightful owners of a land. It is rooted to the belief that territory is property – a thing to own – and that loyalty to the people means, among other things, the readiness to uphold the integrity of territory to ensure it belongs to the nation.
This requires clearly defined, finite, national borders, which – at least at the face of it – appears as a simple enough idea. Matters become complicated when we ask who those borders are meant for. There cannot be a nation-state, if there is no nation to begin with.
But identities unlike land cannot be enclosed and demarcated. Cultures do not flourish in vacuums. They develop out of interactions and fusions with one another. New words, outlooks and practices are adopted while others fade, in a slow, arbitrary and often ambiguous organic process of contact and migration through time.
The nationalist agenda is at odds with this reality. The belief in the congruence of identity and territory – or indeed identity as territory – at the face of inevitable cultural change that can neither be controlled nor predicted, means that each nation will always find itself in the position of having to redefine the conditions of membership, to determine what or who should or should not be excluded. Culture too is given boundaries as a result.
The nationalist imagination must, in other words, assume however implicitly that there is some supposed essence underlying the flux of culture and identity, out of which the ‘Otherising’ so common to nationalist politics is legitimised. The marker could be anything from a common language, religion, ethnicity, race or history. It could even be a set of values or general traits. None of this is exclusive, of course. At any given time, depending on the issue and occasion, different factors can be evoked to proclaim dissimilarity.
Islam
Islam as we’ve seen time and time again has featured prominently in attempts to imagine a core to Malay identity. It is in fact presented as a condition: the protection of Malays, we’re told repeatedly, depends on the preservation of Islam.
History has had much to do with this. The growth of Islam in 15th century Nusantara converged with the Malay apex of imperial grandeur, where for centuries Malay kingdoms dominated commerce, producing diplomatic relations and maritime armies that placed the Malaccan Straits on the map of world trade.
This began as a very much elite affair, for the earliest Muslim converts in the Peninsula were among the feudal and merchant classes. It was not only until Islam eventually reached the commoner that its defining presence in Malay notions of identity began. Gradually, Islam became appreciated as a force of enlightenment, as it inspired Malays to leave their supposedly superstitious animistic ways of life towards a higher stage of civilization. The necessity of learning the Quran for basic rituals meant that Islam was also the context with which Malays experienced their earliest exposure to systemic, although largely informal, learning. In fact, Islam as education remained the case for common Malays for centuries.
But while education and memories of empire shaped Malay attachments to Islam, its legalistic thrust ensures that it would remain a useful tool. One would be right, for example, to dismiss the recurring Hudud polemics as mere political ostentations between two parties seeking to out-Islamise one another, but in doing so we must not forget how much Islam, with its endless list of dos and don’ts, makes for a convenient resource of conformity and control.
Islamisation
That would not be so troubling, if not for how the pressures for more and more Islam are actually coming from the ground up. Today, Islamic validations are increasingly sought for things as mundane as medicine, fashion and entertainment, as can be seen in the rising trend of halal living. Academic discussions on Islamic science have produced volumes of theoretical literature, albeit with little effects on actual scientific practice or meaningful discoveries. Unsatisfied with the already rigid curriculum of Islamic studies in national schools, more and more private Islamic schools, including kindergartens, continue to be established throughout the country. The list can go on and on.
The state has had little need to take issue with the above demands, for the simple reason that any Islamisation, given present circumstances, would only secure a more Malay definition of Malaysia anyway. Thus it was not at all surprising to see the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), always already seeking to solidify Malay rule, having no qualms about competing on this turf. They seemed to have even relished the challenge, excelling – in realpolitik terms – in ensuring the drastic insertion of Islamic policies into the Malaysian state.
Historians highlight the early 1980s as the point of no return. The revivalism of Islam was the demand of a strong Malay grassroots then. The regime, eventually armed with the credibility of Anwar Ibrahim’s Islamist background, launched its deep and thorough project of Islamisation in response: Islamic banking was introduced. The International Islamic University, Malaysia (IIUM/UIA), now heavily sustained by Saudi funding, was established. So was the Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM), which has since then served as the intellectual mouthpiece against pluralism and apostasy. A more Muslim oriented foreign policy was initiated. New laws were imposed, banning imports of non-halal beef and Muslim entry into casinos. Marriages and sermons were made subject to Islamic certification and approval.
Today, JAKIM (Malaysian Department of Islamic Development) is the third most funded department under the Prime Minister’s Office, receiving RM 402 million in 2010 alone. It stands among several other Syariah institutions that were recently erected in rapid succession such as Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah, Malaysia (Department of Syariah Justice) in March 1998 and the Syariah section of the Attorney General’s office in 2003. The latter is to ensure that all laws – including international laws Malaysia are to ratify – are Syariah compliant. In 2009, planning for a Jabatan Penguatkuasaan dan Pendakwaan Syariah (Syariah Enforcement and Prosecution Department) began.
Power
But what is all that power for?
Curiously, the persistence of conservative presence in Malay politics suggests that the increased Islamisation of government, on top of the huge representation of Malays in the military, police, civil service, the cabinet, petit bourgeoisie and banking, in addition to our nine monarchs, are still somehow not enough to assuage insecurities.
It can also be argued that the significant powers that Malays have amassed through the government and bureaucracy over the years are mere catalysts for greater conservative demands, for in apprehensive hands no amount of power will suffice if it cannot translate to total control.
Thus it may be more accurate to look past the power held to see what the power is meant to protect in the first place. And for this we will have to inquire into a prior anxiety, one that is more essential in driving the politicisation of Malay identity as a whole, and that is the fear of losing control over Malaysia’s multicultural complexities.
To clarify, the conservative claim is not that the Malays were here before everyone else. Rather, the Malays, at one point the subjects of a glorious medieval empire, were the ones who shaped the customs and civilization, and by consequence the historical significance, of the Peninsula.
It was therefore the bitterest injustice for the Malay nationalist imagination that independence from centuries of colonialism began with the masses of Malays in wretched poverty. They were 70% of Malaysia’s poor at the time, confined mostly to low level-menial work. University education was far from reach and with little, in fact inconsequential, ownership of capital (Malays owned only 4% of all businesses) Malay control of the country was nothing more than ceremonial despite the triumphant proclamations ofMerdeka (Independence).
Malays in fact became poorer in the ensuing decade, a reality that soon compelled the demand which we are all too familiar with by now: that only the material enrichment of Malays can mend inter-communal relations since they would no longer have to bear the shame of being poor sons of the soil.
Shame and self-loathing
This shame left a deeply bitter mark, for the little real political power that Malays could claim also translated to a crisis in self-esteem. The worst of this fermented into the long tradition of self-loathing that one can find in bourgeois Malay thought, whereby Malay poverty is often explained away as an obvious outcome of laziness.
The Malay Dilemma by Mahathir Mohamed (Malaysia’s longest serving Prime Minister at 22 years) has for some reason survived as the most frequently reissued attempt to defend that thesis. Not only did it draw a direct causal link between Malay laziness and poverty, they were also somehow taken as certain proof of Malay racial inferiority.
But if we are at all to recall that book for its originality, it would have to be for the rather taxing attempt it made to explain that link with pretensions of evolutionary science. Otherwise, the Malay Dilemmawas merely reiterating an impression that was already prevalent among early Malay bureaucrats. After all, it was published only a year after Revolusi Mental (Mental Revolution), a longer book comprising of essays that also insisted on the Malay poverty-laziness-inferiority idea, this time by the most prominent Malay educators in government then.
It is painful, though not unfair, to acknowledge that there was some hint of inevitability to all that, especially when viewed from a broader historical perspective. Munshi Abdullah, the pioneer of Malay reformist thought, was already lamenting Malay inferiority – also in the manner of simplified sweeping claims about Malay laziness – as early as the British takeover of the Straits. Indeed, it was against his profound awe of British science and technology that the lazy, inferior, bumbling, dumb and superstitious Malay which he took constant note of was often “portrayed” in his works (although always, somehow, in the pretext of some deep care and concern he had for Malay progress).
This spirit of supposed tough love resonated again in the early 20th century, this time in Pendeta Za’ba’s works which was also not short of bile. The modern man of Malay letters said that the Malays were poor in “all aspects of life” – in demeanour, attitude and worldview, “in all the conditions and necessities that can lead to the success and greatness of the nation”. Malay youths spend too much time on wasteful activities, he said, and “are perverse in indulging in their carnal and animalistic needs” while having no foresight or prudence in spending. Their elders, on the other hand, are too caught up in stupid superstitions. The works of Malay literature are also “poor and not of the kind that can uplift spirits and improve thought”.
One can argue that such frankness is common to all nationalist rhetoric. It can be likened by analogy to the kind of direct criticism we have all encountered in one way or another in heated family arguments, only the end message in this case is of course broader and more political, to provoke Malays to wake up and strive.
But what makes the above preoccupations with racial inferiority particularly pernicious is the conclusion drawn at the end of it all: the Bourgeois Malay’s ultimate prescription for independence was not revolt or rebellion against exploitation and underdevelopment. Rather, the way forward was conceived in terms of the capitalist ethos, through hard work, self-reliance and private enterprise.
Obstacles
The central role of British colonialism in perpetuating myths of the lazy native is a subject that is best dealt in another discussion, although it would suffice at this point to state the curious fact that the notable Malays who were most willing to uphold and defend that myth were significantly influenced by the colonial lebensvelt.
Munshi Abdullah, for example, taught and translated Malay for Stamford Raffles on top of many other notable Orientalists. Both Za’ba and Mahathir – whose treatises on the subject were originally written in English – were educated via the British system. It was indeed through this orbit of circumstances that the capitalist ethos brought by the British found their advocates among Malay nationalists, however indirectly.
For a better sense of what’s at stake here, we should consider the contrasting attitudes of Malay nationalists who were not as fortunate. For example, Rashid Maidin the labourer, or Ahmad Boestamam the son of a peasant, saw little to no virtue behind the laziness myth or British capitalism, having witnessed and lived through first-hand the violent exploitation of labour that was needed to service British industries. The Malayan left, with whom they mobilised, advocated instead a more confrontational and militant route towards self-determination. Naturally, the British, in the post-war ruin of their empire amidst fears of a Communist takeover of Southeast Asia did all they could to suppress all manifestations of leftist unrest, often with little hesitation to resort to violence or outright political intervention.
The fact that the Malay left and the British ended up more and more preoccupied with one another after independence also meant that Malay capitalism was met with less resistance. This, however, did not mean that it was without its obstacles. There was, for one, the absence of a critical Malay mass: the majority of Malays at the turn of Merdeka were rural, illiterate, uneducated and, more significantly, unfamiliar with the belief in “grace-through-hard-work” that the early Malay elites and bureaucrats embraced.
There was also a problem in the form of an apathetic Malay elite, the old guard of UMNOists close to Tunku Abdul Rahman (Malaysia’s first Prime Minister) who were not seen as committed enough to the cause of Malay development. The Tunku recalled the Malays as “a simple and contented people, used to their own way of life, their distinctive traditions, their deep Islamic belief in God and the hereafter, and respect for their Sultans. Sons of the soil and the sea, they lived close to nature in a bountiful land. Why bother to work so hard?”
But nothing stood in the way as agonisingly as the peninsula’s demographic realities. In 1955, the Malays constituted 84.2% of the total electorate. After independence it was reduced to just 56.8% due to the formal mass incorporation of Chinese and Indians as Malaysian citizens. This was not an easy fact to accept especially for those who just regarded them as temporary migrant workers whose presence in the Peninsula was due to colonial, rather than Malay, demands. It didn’t help that the Chinese were soon perceived as threats: When they were not smeared as mere greedy businessmen, they were feared as treacherous communists.
The protector state
So something had to be done, and for ordinary Malays this meant access to a great deal of welfare, or to be more exact state protection over the ensuing decades after Independence: exclusive commercial guidance and protection, rural development, educational support and a great deal of employment guarantees. The New Economic Policy eventually oversaw that process to noteworthy breakthroughs as the rather rapid growth of a Malay middle, professional and corporate class over the past thirty years is apparent.
The assertion has been made time and time again that the absence of racial violence over this period should not be taken for granted. After all, another May 13th was avoided. But while this claim may be reasonable, it overlooks how that period of purported lull also overlapped with increased centralisation, the erosion of civil liberties and the violent suppression of dissent, engineered by politicians who justified those policies on the basis of Malay supremacy. Violence merely moved away from the streets into the cover of legitimised state power.
Plus, while there may not have been outright street violence, it cannot be denied that Malay welfare was designed and implemented in a circumstance of antagonism. Various policies to transfer wealth into Malay hands were in fact put in place earlier, considerably before May 13th.
The Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA) and Bank Bumiputera, though now defunct, were set up as alternatives to Malay dependence on Chinese middlemen and credit sources. Along with the Indigenous (Bumiputera) People’s Trust Council (MARA) and the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), they were established when Chinese support for the Alliance was at a dramatic low following the July 1958 crisis within the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA). The crisis emerged out of heated disputes on the extent to which the Chinese should accept being unequal partners in the Federation of Malaya. The possibility of MCA withdrawing from the alliance at that time, in fact, became very real as a result.
By 1967 Malay was confirmed as the only language suitable for state transactions, this after it was decided that subsidies were to be denied to Chinese schools that would not adhere to the national curriculum. The rest is history.
The rationale behind it in other words was not purely economic. A halt in Chinese progress was conceived as a necessary condition for Malay progress. A friend, who it must be said is hardly an UMNO hardliner, summarised it all in stark terms: racism helped Malays.
Blind-spots
But not all Malays: We are often told of how the bottoms 40% of Malaysian households earn RM 1500 or less on average. But we don’t hear as much about the fact that this is equivalent to 2.6 million households, or to be more exact, 12.4 million Malaysians. We even hear less of how 56% of that total, nearly 1.3 million households, are Malay households.
A recent study conducted at the Malaysian National University’s (UKM) Institute for Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) reveals more: an average Bumiputera can only rely on one month of financial reserves in the sudden event of unemployment. 50.8% of overall Bumiputera wealth is concentrated in the top 20% of Bumiputera earners, while the bottom 40% can only claim a cumulative share of 7.6%. It is not surprising then that 66% of Bumiputera households have no financial assets.
The lack of class awareness in Malay politics suggests, worryingly (although typically, as ever before) that attitudes of ethnic competition are most poised to influence the interpretation of those figures. All this, at any rate, says little of the fact that Malays already constitute a sizeable portion of Malaysia’s low wage workers, whose income will be further suppressed as they are made to compete more and more with the increasing influx of low skilled migrant workers who are preferred by employers for their cheap cost of maintenance and political insignificance.
Who is Malay?
There is obvious nagging about how economic hardship left to ferment with no vision of solidarity will only sow the seeds of identity politics, of how racist sentiments can hurt feelings and how it can upset the liberal wet dreams of complete individual freedom from all social connections. But here I am reminded of another bitter effect.
In September 2012, a new-born baby girl died after being thrown out of the third floor of an apartment building in Petaling Jaya. The confirmation that the mother is Malay was quickly greeted with the deluge of typically bland Muslim moralising. The manner of the baby’s disposal, it turns out, was not as gripping as the fact that baby dumping among Malays appears to have reached gravely disturbing extents (by then at least 31 cases were discovered since the beginning of the year). Soon enough, surely enough, the typical demands for harsher punishments, more religious education and strict parenting ensued as solutions to the problem. Among the causes identified were Western influence and/or bad peers.
It didn’t seem to matter to Malays that the mother is a 21 year old factory worker living in Desa Mentari, a low cost high density flat in the industrial sector of Petaling Jaya which is also home to hundreds of Malaysia’s low wage proletariats, many of whom are migrants. It didn’t occur to them at any point that the stigma and duress of living as a young, poor, pregnant and unwed Malay Muslim woman, with no freedom to just speak and be, in a country that reduces all identities to their most elementary parts and crudest images can drive any living breathing person mad. None of that mattered: the solution, as always, overwhelmingly, was more and more conformity: values, religion and more order.
Conformity we should recall was what Hannah Arendt pointed to as the spine of the totalitarian condition. For it manifested where the uncertainties and pace of the modern world is just too much to bear: the breakdown of hierarchies, traditions and myths, are for many too overwhelming. In that strident storm, group identity (and in the context in which Arendt wrote, Stalinism and anti-Semitism) becomes a compelling recourse or defence, a way to make sense of the uncertainties of it all. Thus, totalitarianism is not a regime against democracy per se, nor is it about hating other races. It is, first and foremost, the submerging of the human being into the masses in exchange for a sense – a false one at that – of place and stability.
Racism and religious sectarianism then are merely crutches, or shields for the journey, for one would not need to negate others if the world was not understood so antagonistically, as of scarcity, to begin with. And this is the kernel of the Malay nationalism that has endured most so far: born in poverty amidst the bewildering dissonance of demands from other ethnicities, languages, religions and ways of life while brewing hopes of European progress, the strong regime – whether it is led by a monarch, a racist party or Ulamas – will always be the ideal saviour for those harbouring false hopes of tranquil in the cacophony of complex life. Viewed from this unflattering light of home, we are perhaps coming closer to answering the question of who is Malay.
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is the Managing Editor of Projek Dialog, www.projekdialog.com , a social development project that aims to promote healthy debate and understanding within and among Malaysians .
Labels:
Melayu
Death in custody – L Yoges Rao (Sitiawan police station, 11 Dec 2003)
Nine years ago today, L Yoges Rao died
while being held overnight at a police station in Sitiawan, Perak. The
22-year old had been arrested on 10 Dec 2003 and…
Nine years ago today, L Yoges Rao died
while being held overnight at a police station in Sitiawan, Perak. The
22-year old had been arrested on 10 Dec 2003 and was then taken to his
sister Mahaletchumy’s house by six plainclothes police personnel.
According
to a news report, his sister claimed that the police personnel
assaulted L Yoges Rao, first in her presence and then in a locked room,
resulting in him screaming in pain and pleading for the police to stop
assaulting him.
Although
the burial permit for L Yoges Rao reportedly stated that he had died of
stomach ulcer, photographs of the deceased showed various marks and
injuries on his body. Mahaletchumy subsequently lodged a police report
on her brother’s death at the Air Tawar police station.
Despite
the requirement that all custodial deaths be investigated by inquiries
conducted pursuant to Chapter XXXII of the Criminal Procedure Code, it
does not appear that an inquest has been conducted into L Yoges Rao’s
death.
Every
death in custody must be thoroughly and impartially investigated. L
Yoges Rao’s death must not be relegated to a mere statistic.
Based
on the statistics disclosed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, 156
persons died in police custody between 2000 until February 2011.
We express our heartfelt condolences to L Yoges Rao’s family and friends on the recent anniversary of his death.
Labels:
killing Indians by police
Musa: Disclose all crime statistics
The Sun
by Radzi Razak
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by Radzi Razak
PETALING
JAYA (Dec 10, 2012): Former inspector-general of police (IGP) Tan Sri
Musa Hassan (pix) has called on the police and Home Ministry to…
The Sun
by Radzi Razak
Musa claimed that the police now not only heed the IGP but also have to report to government servants outside the force.
He said the police should remain apolitical and not let any political influences seep into the force.
“I’m not hitting at the government. Nobody called me personally (to discuss) and there’s nothing on the paper (reporting change). I want to see police force improved. I don’t want things to be politicised because the police force needs to be improved for the sake of the people,” he said.
“If you want proof, you have to read it in the (news)papers, there are enough proof (of government interference). Now even the police are confused when the chief secretary of the KDN (Home Ministry) directs the police and the police complain to me.
“Perception comes from a real person’s action. So it (interference) is real,” he added.
▲
by Radzi Razak
PETALING
JAYA (Dec 10, 2012): Former inspector-general of police (IGP) Tan Sri
Musa Hassan (pix) has called on the police and Home Ministry to publicly
disclose all crime statistics so as to not confuse people about the
actual crime situation in the country.
“The police should disclose all statistics as the people would like to know why there are street crimes around when the NKRA (National Key Results Area) showed that the crime is dropping.
“We do not say that they (government) are manipulating the statistics but the people might be confused if they don’t reveal all the reports,” he told a press conference here today.
Expressing his backing for the Malaysian Crime Watch Group (MyWatch), a non-governmental organisation which aims to educate and increase awareness on the preparation and prevention of crime, he said a public awareness campaign is important in helping the government and police combat crime at the grassroots level.
“The police should disclose all statistics as the people would like to know why there are street crimes around when the NKRA (National Key Results Area) showed that the crime is dropping.
“We do not say that they (government) are manipulating the statistics but the people might be confused if they don’t reveal all the reports,” he told a press conference here today.
Expressing his backing for the Malaysian Crime Watch Group (MyWatch), a non-governmental organisation which aims to educate and increase awareness on the preparation and prevention of crime, he said a public awareness campaign is important in helping the government and police combat crime at the grassroots level.
Musa claimed that the police now not only heed the IGP but also have to report to government servants outside the force.
He said the police should remain apolitical and not let any political influences seep into the force.
“I’m not hitting at the government. Nobody called me personally (to discuss) and there’s nothing on the paper (reporting change). I want to see police force improved. I don’t want things to be politicised because the police force needs to be improved for the sake of the people,” he said.
“If you want proof, you have to read it in the (news)papers, there are enough proof (of government interference). Now even the police are confused when the chief secretary of the KDN (Home Ministry) directs the police and the police complain to me.
“Perception comes from a real person’s action. So it (interference) is real,” he added.
Labels:
Musa Hassan
Government To Ensure Lynas Complies With Set Rules And Conditions
PUTRAJAYA, Dec 11 (Bernama) -- Science, Technology and Innovation
Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili today stressed that the
government would ensure that Lynas comply with the set rules and…
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PUTRAJAYA, Dec 11 (Bernama) -- Science, Technology and Innovation
Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili today stressed that the
government would ensure that Lynas comply with the set rules and
conditions before allowing its Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in
Gebeng, Pahang to begin operations.
He said this included removing all the residue generated by the plant from Malaysia including all products made from the residue.
Ongkili said Lynas had proposed to convert the waste into products which had a radioactivity amount of below 1 becquerel per gramme, which would make them ordinary products usable for industrial purposes.
"1 becquerel is what the quarries are producing, and the standard in Malaysia is even higher than the international standard, that is, 5 becquerel per gramme."
He said this after opening the Ninth Malaysia Plan Research, Development and Commercialisation Output Convention at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.
Asked whether the products could then be marketed in Malaysia, Ongkili said it was up to Lynas.
"They have to find the market. But it is not classified as dangerous anymore and instead it falls under the Environment Quality Act (which is no longer under his jurisdiction)," he said.
Ongkili also reiterated that the safety issue had been the government's main concern since the beginning, that was why international standards had been made the guidelines and various processes had been gone through before the plant was granted a temporary operating license.
The waste issue came to light when there was a news reports quoting DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng as saying that Lynas managing director Mashal Ahmad had admitted that the company would not be exporting waste.
Lynas, however, denied that such a statement had been made, and said that the converted product called synthetic aggregate would be exported to other countries in accordance with international and local standards and regulations where it would be used as civil engineering material.
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He said this included removing all the residue generated by the plant from Malaysia including all products made from the residue.
Ongkili said Lynas had proposed to convert the waste into products which had a radioactivity amount of below 1 becquerel per gramme, which would make them ordinary products usable for industrial purposes.
"1 becquerel is what the quarries are producing, and the standard in Malaysia is even higher than the international standard, that is, 5 becquerel per gramme."
He said this after opening the Ninth Malaysia Plan Research, Development and Commercialisation Output Convention at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.
Asked whether the products could then be marketed in Malaysia, Ongkili said it was up to Lynas.
"They have to find the market. But it is not classified as dangerous anymore and instead it falls under the Environment Quality Act (which is no longer under his jurisdiction)," he said.
Ongkili also reiterated that the safety issue had been the government's main concern since the beginning, that was why international standards had been made the guidelines and various processes had been gone through before the plant was granted a temporary operating license.
The waste issue came to light when there was a news reports quoting DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng as saying that Lynas managing director Mashal Ahmad had admitted that the company would not be exporting waste.
Lynas, however, denied that such a statement had been made, and said that the converted product called synthetic aggregate would be exported to other countries in accordance with international and local standards and regulations where it would be used as civil engineering material.
Labels:
Nuclear
Umno-MIC Seat Swapping Under Initial Negotiation - Zambry
IPOH, Dec 11 (Bernama) -- Umno and MIC have agreed in principle on the
exchange of state seats in Perak for the next general election and are
thinking of the…
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IPOH, Dec 11 (Bernama) -- Umno and MIC have agreed in principle on the
exchange of state seats in Perak for the next general election and are
thinking of the seats to be exchanged, said Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr
Zambry Abdul Kadir.
Zambry, who is also the state Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman, said the swapping of seats was among the issues discussed together with the BN component parties and until the matter had been mutually agreed upon, the BN component parties would not make any decision.
"In fact, the quota introduced should also be respected by all of us (BN component parties). It's not only that (Behrang and Pasir Panjang state seats), maybe there are other seats too, but basically they must be mutually agreed upon," he told reporters after attending the state government's Meet The Clients Day, here today.
He was commenting on the statement by MIC president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel that the party was keen to swap state seats in Perak with other BN component parties in the next general election.
Palanivel had said that the MIC was prepared to give up the Behrang and Pasir Panjang state seats in exchange for Buntong, which has 48 per cent Indian population, while the other seat was still at the negotiation stage and if the MIC did not get the seat sought for in Perak, the party would opt for Dengkil in Selangor as second choice.
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Zambry, who is also the state Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman, said the swapping of seats was among the issues discussed together with the BN component parties and until the matter had been mutually agreed upon, the BN component parties would not make any decision.
"In fact, the quota introduced should also be respected by all of us (BN component parties). It's not only that (Behrang and Pasir Panjang state seats), maybe there are other seats too, but basically they must be mutually agreed upon," he told reporters after attending the state government's Meet The Clients Day, here today.
He was commenting on the statement by MIC president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel that the party was keen to swap state seats in Perak with other BN component parties in the next general election.
Palanivel had said that the MIC was prepared to give up the Behrang and Pasir Panjang state seats in exchange for Buntong, which has 48 per cent Indian population, while the other seat was still at the negotiation stage and if the MIC did not get the seat sought for in Perak, the party would opt for Dengkil in Selangor as second choice.
Labels:
General Election 13th,
MIC,
umno
Pakatan 'yes' to Hindraf blueprint on Indian issues
Pakatan Rakyat will early next month sign its acceptance of a five-year Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf ) blueprint for the resolution of problems faced by the Indian Malaysian community,…
Pakatan Rakyat will early next month sign its acceptance of a five-year Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf ) blueprint for the resolution of problems faced by the Indian Malaysian community, said Hindraf leader P Waythamoorthy.
"In principle, they (Pakatan parties have) said they agree with and support (our blueprint), but we want them to sign the document.
"They agreed to sign it in the first week of January," Waythamoorthy (left) told Malaysiakini after officiating at Hindraf's World Human Rights Day celebration at the Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur last night.He said Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim will put his signature on the blueprint after some minor issues are resolved.
Hindraf will then consider mobilising participants for the Pakatan-backed "people's uprising rally" in Kuala Lumpur next month.
Hindraf had previously announced that any political party that endorses its blueprint for the progress of the Indian Malaysian community will enjoy its support in the next general election.
The blueprint highlights six major problems of the community that Hindraf wants resolved within the next five years.
Waythamoorthy said Hindraf "has not reach the stage" of fielding candidates in the coming general election.
'Don't discriminate'
Some 50 people attended last night's hour-long event, held around the fountain at Dataran Mederka.
The orange-clad crowd held placards bearing lines from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which also urged the government to implement and respect the declaration.
Among the cries made in the placards were 'No slavery', 'The right to trial' and 'Don't discriminate'.
Some Hindraf leaders made brief speeches, criticising the government for failing to build a just society.
Some 25 Kuala Lumpur City Hall enforcement officers and police officers stood by, but they did not take any action.
The gathering dispersed peacefully at 9pm, after the crowd sang the Hindraf anthem 'Tholvi nilayane ninaithal' (Failure isn't permanent).
How low can Najib go over the stateless in M'sia?
MP SPEAKS Sometimes, numbers do not matter. What's shocking is that Indian Malaysians are stateless in their own homeland. So let's not fight about whether there are 9,000 or 300,000…
MP SPEAKS Sometimes, numbers do not matter. What's shocking is that Indian Malaysians are stateless in their own homeland. So let's not fight about whether there are 9,000 or 300,000 of them who are without personal identification documents.
And
since Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has admitted, by default I must
say, that there are thousands of stateless Indian Malaysians, he must
mobilise a special team to ensure they are registered immediately. Making promises to look into the problem cannot be accepted any more.
And this is more so when Indonesians hold Malaysian papers and are able to obtain them easily.
Indians came to this country a century ago to work the tin mines and rubber plantations and have contributed greatly to the building of Malaysia.
They were instrumental in the clearing of land for infrastructure. They helped establish rubber plantations, built roads, set up transmission lines and managed early Malayan railways, ports and airports.
Fast-forward to 2012 - thousands of Indian Malaysians are to take to the streets of Putrajaya tomorrow to demand government recognition for their inherent rights as citizens.
And all Najib did was to hold out an olive branch at MIC's annual general meeting over the weekend, and then insult the community by referring to them as BN’s “fixed deposit”.
New underclass
Najib has clearly got it wrong. If he thinks that Indian Malaysians are going to unthinkingly throw their support behind him and his coalition, he had better think again.
It may be true that with Malaysia's politics firmly divided along racial lines and Indians not having a majority in any parliamentary seat, many had once resigned themselves to their plight. But that has changed in recent years.
In
2007, tens of thousands of Indian Malaysians took to the streets of
Kuala Lumpur to demand reforms. That call has not disappeared. They have been vocally airing their dissatisfaction with the federal government, which has been too complacent to look into their rightful demands.
So I would not be wrong if I conclude that the permanent smile plastered on Najib's face at the MIC meeting, and his sweet words, were just a ploy to further hoodwink a marginalised community. I wonder if he can stoop lower than this to hold on to power.
Despite most Indians having been in Malaysia for three or four generations, they are emerging as the new underclass with relatively high levels of hardcore poverty.
A large section of the community shares less than 1.6 percent of the country's wealth. And that too after having made this country their home since the 19th century.
Therefore Najib shouldn't be offering false promises of citizenship to the Indians. He must instead walk the talk as it is the only fair thing to do.
CHARLES SANTIAGO is DAP’s member of parliament for Klang.
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