“Why would any sane investor ‘invest’ in a
company that has lost a total of RM4.3 billion for the past three
years?” This was the question raised by Perak DAP economic development
bureau chief Chong Zhemin in a reported statement on the subject of the
government bailout of MAS.
Well, this makes sense. But the trend amongst politicians from both
sides of the divide is the same. Take for example the goods and services
tax (GST). While we hear pockets of criticism on GST, none of the
parties in Pakatan have come to a concrete conclusion that they would
abolish the GST should they come into power.
But the insensitive middle-class elites who are indoctrinated with the
‘ubah’ (change) slogan would conveniently forego any thoughts on serious
matters pertaining to socio-economic imbalance as it really does not
matter to them as long as political enhancement and rhetoric is
achieved.
Let’s take another example. The Selangor saga. The elites seemed to have
forgotten the root cause of the current saga. The Kajang Move was a
breach of trust placed by the people on the assemblyperson who wa
‘forced’ to resign to pave the way for a certain politician to become
the MB.
Now let us come back to the statement of Chong Zhemin. He further
criticised the mooted MAS Act to facilitate staff transfer and review of
employment contracts, bypassing the bankruptcy procedure.
He raised an interesting point and let me reproduce what is quoted.
Chong said the enactment of a MAS Act would change the legal status of employment for MAS staff, which could be unfair to them.
“The MAS Act is against natural rights and unjust as it could nullify all current employment contracts with MAS,” he said.
Interestingly, Anwar Ibrahim, too, came up with a statement. He had this
to say: “Did you think what’s the future of the 6,000 affected
families? Can you reflect on that for one second. Is it their fault?
Were they lazy? Were they not competent? Whose fault is this?”
Now the issues raised are valid. Both Chong and Anwar speak on the
natural rights of MAS workers and the unjust associated with the new
deal. I agree. But have you ever wondered where was natural rights and
social justice when 800,000 estate workers were displaced from the
plantations and the Indian Malaysia community were left stranded, their
suffering unimaginable, and worst still this fact is not known to the
Malaysian public during their displacement process since the 70s.
Anwar was the agriculture minister in 1984 when the estate displacement was taking place.
Let us for a moment ponder on the plight of these 800,000 mostly Indian Malaysian displaced estate workers from the 1970s.
They were employed in the plantation for four or five generations. They
made the estates their permanent home. They were made to believe so by
their bosses beginning from the white man right till the last employers.
Towards the ‘tail end of their services’ (I mean before they are
evicted), their bosses who are the mighty and rich would play a game
just like how it is now proposed on our national carrier MAS. Their
bosses would sell the plantation to a new owner ie one of their sister
company. Upon the sale of plantation, new contracts of employment would
be drawn out with the estate workers who had loyally served their
employers and country for almost 200 years.
Their four to five generation service to the companies and nation are
lost permanently. These illiterate estate workers depend on the mandors
in the estates who act as their chief or spokesperson. Many of these
mandors are also the estate MIC chiefs and the workers union heads.
‘Workers have lost their rights on the land’
The illiterate workers do not realise that they have lost their rights
on the land they and their forefathers toiled and made the British and
subsequent Umno masters (Guthrie, IOI, Kulim (M) Bhd and Sime, for
example) and towkays (Berjaya Group, IJM, Hap Seng, etc) immeasurably
rich.
Finally the sister company sells the plantations to another (most
likely) of their sister companies or crony entities which would be a
property development company (eg Sime Properties Sdn Bhd). Then the
sister property company would send their henchmen to evict the workers
out of the estates with meagre compensation.
In recent times the workers have obtained ‘very good compensation’ for
the sacrifices they as well as their forefathers have made. During one
of my negotiations on the Bukit Jalil estate, the Federal Territories
Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor openly told me not long ago that the
practice was to pay not more than RM1,500.00 compensation for each
family.
So with RM1500 the estate workers are supposed to be thankful for the
compensation successfully negotiated by the mandors and union leaders,
whereby thereafter they are supposed to utilise these ‘huge sums’ for
relocation into new housing Tamans, pay their own deposit for a new
house they could ‘comfortably’ purchase, ‘retrain themselves’ in new
skills so that they can seek new employment opportunities in the urban
areas they would be moving into, and pay for a psychiatrist should they
need to recover from their trauma.
Eight hundred thousand plantation workers have been ejected this way
forcibly either through government acquisition or private, yet the
selfish elite middle class community as well as politicians from both
sides of the political divide of Malaysia do not see that as human
rights violations.
The community becomes fragmented, lose their jobs, falls further below
the poverty line, they are the new urban underclass, they build new
squatter houses to survive the effect of displacement, they build new
temples and shrines on trees as a mode to keep their hope in this nasty
world alive and yet bear the brunt of accusations by the middle class
elites as “Oh Indians ah - they are always like that. Just give them a
tree and they start a temple”.
A populist cause
The middle class and politicians like Chong Zhemin will speak up for MAS
workers’ rights because it is a populist cause. It catches the
attention of the middle class media. It catches the attention of the
pseudo-human rightists. That class of the community understands human
rights as they prefer to perceive it.
The plight of the poor and defenseless estate workers were never an
issue. They are the lowest strata of the community anyway. Who cares
about them? They are sub humans aren’t they? They are not politically
worth a mention, until the election bell rings. Oh, it’s easy, maa. Just
get our henchmen in our own parties to throw crumbs and they would take
it.
If the crumbs are thrown by the Pakatan guys it’s okay because its
termed as assistance. But if comes from BN then the demonising and
stereotyping begins. “Indians deserve it. They are stupid. They never
learn,” and the list goes on.
Human beings are strange creatures. They choose not to see what they do
not wish to see. They choose to understand truth according to what suits
them. They do not see the plight of the sinking estate workers who are
struggling to survive in the deep ocean. To the poor, any help would do,
doesn’t matter if it comes from the perceived devil of the elite middle
class.
Many of these ex-estate workers succumb to the influence of urbanisation
and out of no choice join the underworld for survival. They would
eventually be shot dead by the police in the name of wiping out crime
and the middle class and elites would hail the police for doing a good
job.
For those of us in Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia who speak up for these
community are termed racist, extremist, selfish, not seeing the larger
agenda, etc. When we signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the
government to seek permanent and comprehensive solutions for the
benefit of this forgotten community, we were accused of treachery.
I for one would say the MOU was the underclass Indian community’s Bill
of Rights. And I make no apology for saying this or for entering into
the MOU with the government. We in Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia need not
be politically correct. We just need to do what is right. We are not
concerned with whom we work with as long as we can ensure a permanent
solution to the community.
We the Malaysian Indian estate workers and all those descendants of
indenture and contract labourers are no different than the black
Americans who were once degraded as Negros. I see us as no more than
the once black American Negros who were exploited and their rights
denied.
The Hindraf neo-democratic revolution would continue to evolve to bring
meaningful changes to the socio-economic position of Indian Malaysians.
Selamat Hari Merdeka yang ke 57. (Happy 57th year independence anniversary.)
P WAYTHAMOORTY is president of Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia and is a former deputy minister in the PM’s Department.
More than 11,000 people have traveled from abroad to fight in
Syria, officials suggest, although some have gone back home again. They
ally themselves with different factions, and sometimes change loyalties
as groups merge, disband or change allegiances. Naturally, countries
with bigger Muslim populations tend to send the largest number of
fighters. Viewing this on mobile? Click here to see a larger version of this map.
But some countries with relatively small Muslim populations have
sent a disproportionately large number of jihadis. Finland and Ireland
have the highest number of foreign fighters per capita -- nearly one per
1,400 Muslims living in those countries has gone to Syria. Viewing this on mobile? Click here to see a larger version of this map.
Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, but tiny
numbers of fighters going to Syria. And even countries closer to the
conflict such as Turkey, Algeria and Morocco have sent relatively few.
(Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, which all have more Muslims than any
country other than Indonesia, have not issued official estimates of how
many of their citizens, if any, have gone to Syria.) Viewing this on mobile? Click here to see a larger version of this map.
Yesterday,
Wong, in an apparent reaction to the mass arrests in Penang, called
Khalid "ruthless" and likened him to Heinrich Himmler, a leading
military commander of the Nazi Party.
This means, Aziz (left) said, the current sultan "may not" be able to insist on more names to be submitted as candidates for Selangor menteri besar.
He
described the 1992 document as an attempt by Umno at that time to
subdue the palace, which the party saw as a threat to its dominance.
