MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

Malaysia is caught in its own trap

POLICE STRIPPING CHINESE TOURISTS is the issue. The visas were valid. Not even the authorities dispute that. Because of what happened to those with valid visa, the Chinese tourists are not coming here. The New Straits Times said on 21 November 2005 said 50,000 tourists come here and disappear. That they disappear is not the issue. Neither is it that those with valid visas break the law. Instead of hunting them, legal tourists are stripped. The news has gone back. Sixty five per cent less tourists from China come here. The government of Malaysia is in a dilemma. It does not seem to know why. The tourism minister is go to China to find out. But the runaway police gives the country a bad name. But the authorities seem to be protecting the policemen in the official statements they have issued. They will probe what happened. They would not have, it seems, had not the newspapers highlighted it. It also is true that the police would not have stripped them had the tourists been Caucasian. They thought there would be no reaction. So far Pak Lah has kept quiet. The Cabinet has not said a word though it would be quick to say something if something goes wrong in a municipal council. The Chinese tourists are going elsewhere. It is costing us money as a result. But this stripping of women is not an isolated incident. A statement that this is prohibited under the law is not the response China is expecting from Malaysia.

The RELA (auxillary) police do this all the time. Complaints are useless. But it is a fact that they photograph women urinating. First these women are picked up for a whole list of alleged offenses, then made to squat for hours at a time usually in a void. Some of these women ask to go to the toilet. Permission is granted. Surrepticiously photograps are taken, which nowadays is easy to do secretly with handphones that can take photographs. This is then passed around, violating the women's privacy. The authorities often say they have no reports on this and so they would not investigate. But these women would not report, for they have heard, probably untrue, that they would be further violations of their privacy if they did. It is an open secret that people going on leave would not inform the police as in the past for that is now an invitation to have it burgled. Worse, they are officially told not to. Probably this is not true but the people believe it. People would rather tell their enemy than the police about their movements. Why do not people come forward after an accident? The easiest part comes with witnessing the accident. The harassment at the police station, especially the assumption by the police that those who came forward committed the accident. They would rather stay away.

Why don't Malaysians enter details other than what is required in the state-of-the-art MyKad? The authorities have said that no one but the official concerned would get the details from a special reader. But the readers given policeman are such that he knows all the secrets you have. A lost MyKad is a hassle. You have first cancel the extraneous inform it contains, then pay a fine for losing it. A man is stopped by a policeman in the evening for speeding. He did not have money on him on him for a bribe. The policeman told him he had more than a thousand ringgit in his bank account, and could draw from that. The policeman got into the car so that he could go to the nearest branch of his bank, where he withdrew sufficient funds to bribe the policeman. The man was told by the police to lodge a report. He did not want to for that would have tied in knots. It would have been a wasteful effort, and would have cost him plenty. He did the next best thing. He removed from his MyKad all extraneous information and today it contains only what is the bare minimum.

The officials do things half-heartedly. That is why these things happen. There is no accountability. When caught out, the wrongdoers are protected and those who dare complain is made the convict or wrongdoer. The government is happy as things are. In fact, we have been told it is doing right by detaining people just because they are in the opposition. The US, for instance, did it after 11 September 2003. It has thrown its commitment to democracy in doing what is unconstitional. That the great US follows what Malaysia has been doing for decades is proof, in its view, it is right. Detention without trial is an extraordinary and extra legal piece of legislation. Every nation needs it - to have in reserve. It should be used only against those whose activities can affect the nation. But this legislation is used against opposition members as a political weapon to ensure the Nation Front is in power for all time. How many opposition MPs were arrested in the past for no reason than their activities upset the National Front?

Pak Lah thought the Chinese would be happy to be told that without them Asia would be different. But China looks after its citizens overseas. Maybe it is done so that it is a big boy in the region. Whatever the reason, it is prepared to 'punish' a government for putting its citizens in such incidents as stripping in public. If the tourists are prostitutes, or breaks the law in the countries they visit, the Chinese government would not raise a finger to help them. But if they are harassed by officialdom, as many are in Malaysia, then it would act. The Indians do not. The Pakistanis do not. The Bangladeshis do not. The Sri Lankans do not. The countries in the region do not. So it was assumed the Chinese would not either. But it had assumed it could treat them as the local Indians and Chinese. But the 65 per cent decline in two years because of government wrongdoing will continue if Malaysia does not reform. It is more concerned with the Caucasians than Asians, especially if they are Indians and Chinese. When MAS was bleeding, it thought of hiring Caucasians of. It did not think of Malaysians, because it would have had to call in Malaysian Indians or Malaysian Chinese. Facilties are built not for the locals but for the Caucasian foreigners. God forbid, these people are not Muslims either.

The Malay civil servant is promoted not for competence but for how Malay and Islamic he is. He is waiting for the day the last non-Malay in the civil service retires. It will be soon. Today, the token non- Malay in the civil service is recruited for his incompetence. The bright non-Malay does not join the civil service because of a glass ceiling he cannot break though. The non-Malay at the top is a token to show the outside world Malaysia is a multiracial country. As the non-Malay leaders in the National Front government. The Malay civil servant is there to keep the non-Malay out of sight as he acquires more privileges for himself. The government has allocated RM1.2 billion to train 3,000 Mara students, and none for the non-Malay. This is normal in Malaysia. If the foreign countries are angry with Malaysia for being shortchanged, so are the non-Malays. China's reaction is the first foreign reaction which has hurt Malaysia. There would be other protests, but it would not be from foreigners. Getting Chinese ministers to show how Malay it is would not help.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com