Friday, February 1, 2008

Rising to challenges or denial?

(source: Malaysiakini)
by Lim Teck Ghee

The past year has been a tumultuous one for Malaysians. Despite the economy doing well with booming oil and gas revenues and soaring primary commodity export values, and the achievement of a milestone as the nation reached its 50 anniversary of attaining independence, the mood of the country has turned somber, and amongst some segments of the population, sour and negative.

Increasingly, many observers are becoming pessimistic at the prospect for future peaceful development and steady progress if current trends in the country continue. This picture of a country racked in anxiety and dissatisfaction on many aspects of nationhood that neighboring countries feel at greater ease with - or take for granted - runs counter to the official depiction of a harmonious and unified multi-ethnic and multi-religious country that the government and its supporters are keen to convey to Malaysians and the rest of the world.

What has gone wrong during the past year, and where is the responsibility for the fault lines that have widened on key aspects of the country’s fragile social cohesion? On the religious front, concerns over an increasingly assertive and illiberal Islamic state system intruding into the religious rights and freedom of other faiths have been steadily increasing amongst non-Muslims.

In late 2005, the public’s attention had been riveted on the case of mountaineering hero, Moorthy, a Hindu who was converted to Islam literally on his death bed and - against the wishes of his family - was buried as a Muslim. The Lina Joy case saw an attempt by an ordinary citizen wishing to exercise her right to conversion from Islam to Christianity reflected in the removal of her Islamic religious affiliation in her identity card finally rejected by the country’s highest court of appeal.

The handling of both cases by the authorities only served to aggravate already mistrustful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, especially Hindus and Christians. It also seemed to mark a decisive encroachment by Muslim zealots on the secular character of the country’s constitution and signaled the increasing willingness of Umno, the ruling party, abetted by its supporters in key institutions such as the judiciary and bureaucracy, to use the religious card to ensure continuing political support from the Malay/Muslim population.

On the racial front, it is not surprising that the most significant event of the year was sparked by the rising sense of religious (and racial) marginalisation and discrimination felt by some segments of the population. What is perhaps surprising is that this particular event took so long to materialise.


Communities displaced


Amongst the various minority ethnic and religious groups in the country, no other community (apart from perhaps the Orang Asli and other smaller non-Bumiputra indigenous minorities) feels a greater sense of being neglected and left behind in the country’s progress than the Indians. Despite the one-sidedness of the official statistical system in focusing on bumiputera poverty and bumiputera lack of participation in the modern sectors of the economy, there is sufficient quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that poor Indians (and possibly those from the middle-class too) are falling back in key aspects of economic and social life.

A recent report to the Government containing proposals for the Ninth Malaysia Plan had identified the plight of low income Indians as one of the main issues that needed urgent attention by the authorities.

In analysing the lack of effectiveness of government measures and earlier plans to address the socio-economic problems of the Indian community, it is noted that these problems are rooted in the displacement of the community from the plantation economy. These plantation communities, scattered all over the country, earned low wages (although above the official poverty line), lived in poor conditions without adequate facilities, experienced low levels of health care and had their children educated in poorly equipped Tamil primary schools.

Government rural development programmess in the 70s and 80s never reached them or provided assistance to small token numbers. Though the government regularly promised that specific strategies would be adopted to improve the livelihood and quality of life of the plantation population, little was done to improve their lot.

Despite the country recording impressive economic growth in the last four decades, the largely Indian plantation communities were not only left behind but had become victims to the overall national development. Over 300,000 Indian poor had been displaced after the plantations that traditionally provided them modest livelihoods were acquired for property and township development or changed hands in other ways in the last two decades.

When evicted from the plantations, these workers not only lost their jobs; they also lost housing, basic amenities, socio-cultural facilities and their community support system built up over a long period of time. Another significant blow was the loss of access to plots of vegetable farming and cattle grazing land allotted by the companies to workers to cultivate and supplement their modest incomes.

Unprecedented public rally

It was not unexpected therefore that these people would face difficulties and hardship in negotiating the transition from the plantations to urban living. The displaced plantation communities, with few skills and little savings, have swelled the ranks of urban squatter settlements and the urban poor.

Most of these communities have began and ended in lower rung jobs, competing with foreign migrant workers for meager incomes. Despite the very large number of Indians involved in this involuntary stream of migration and full awareness by the authorities of the traumatic impact of their displacement – it has been known for some time that suicide rates are the highest amongst Indians and that many Indian youths have turned to gangsterism - little has been provided by government in terms of concrete assistance in the same way that the Malay poor has been targeted.

The combination of socio-economic exclusion and deprivation together with repeated disrespect of Hindu religious rights by state authorities in demolishing Hindu temples and shrines (many of these temples and shrines were set up during pre-independence days on private plantation lands which had since been transferred to state ownership) has become a powerful rallying point for Indian activists who have lost faith with the MIC.

Banding themselves in an organisation called Hindraf this - until recently virtually unknown - organisation appears to have precipitated a chain of events that has had the greatest political impact during the year.

Despite Hindraf cranking up the pressure internationally, the authorities continued to pay it little attention. This failure to appreciate the gravity of the situation and the deep sense of discrimination and marginalisation amongst poor Indians quickly changed when Hindraf called for their rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25.

The dramatic police crackdown on the Hindraf rally - and its aftermath in the use of the draconian Internal Security Act to imprison the five leaders of the movement indefinitely without due process - is now part of the political lore of the country. I

Its ripple effects, however, are already visible and are likely to continue for some time. In particular, the ability of the movement to bring together as many as 40,000 supporters (thousands more from other states and outside Kuala Lumpur were prevented by police road blocks from reaching the rally) in defiance of a legal order is unprecedented in the recent history of the country.

Government lambasted

The official view continues to be of a small group of political malcontents and mischief-makers using race and religion to whip up popular sentiment for issues and causes that have little or no basis in reality.

This, however, is being contradicted by the extensive damage control campaign that the government and its supporters have mounted since the rally.

Although the Barisan Nasional has attempted to provide the impression of a closing of ranks on the prime minister’s decision to crack down on Hindraf and his warning on the use of state force and power against dissenters, there is a considerable body of opinion within the ruling party itself that the government has over-reacted.

Prominent Umno backbencher and Kota Baru Member of Parliament Zaid Ibrahim – who also runs one of the biggest legal firms in the country – has argued that demonstrations should not be treated as a challenge or threat.

He further argued that although he did not agree fully with Hindraf’s demands, the government had indeed failed to address issues such as the series of religion-related controversies involving converts, demolition of temples and the perceived Islamisation policy.

A leader of another component party of the BN was even more forthright. In his scathing public statement entitled ‘Discrimination from Womb to Tomb’ S Paranjothy – the Gerakan Youth deputy chief - criticised the government for its policies towards the Indian community.

Pointing out that Indians form the most neglected group in economic terms, he lambasted the Government for treating them ‘as fourth-class citizens’ and pointedly stated that ‘where the Indians predominate over their fellow Malaysians is mostly in prison, violent crimes, gangsterism, suicide and social ills [as] government policies have failed to improve (their situation)’.

It may be too early to gauge but one of the most important outcomes of the Hindraf incident to date is the way it has opened the public space to close examination of the ideology of Malay dominance (Ketuanan Melayu) and its equivalent Islam-dominant ideology in the religious sphere, and the impact of these divisive policies on the rights of minorities.

Already, Indian NGO groups in a rare meeting with the prime minister following the detention of Hindraf leaders have requested the government to establish a Department of Non-Muslim Affairs that can take up the religious grievances of non-Muslims and help them overcome the obstacles they face from a Malay/Muslim dominant polity and bureaucracy that appears unable or unwilling to exercise fairness in protecting the basic religious and civic rights of the non-Muslim minorities.

What is clear – even if the Hindraf rally had not taken place - is that present mechanisms for non-Muslim concerns and grievances are totally inadequate. After initially indicating that the government would consider the establishment of the department as part of the civil service machinery, the prime minister has since back-tracked and argued that the existing BN structure is adequate in dealing with the religious and socio-cultural concerns of non-Muslims.

The larger ripple effects of the Hindraf protest campaign will probably not be discernible until the results of the country’s elections – expected as early as March 2008 - are tallied and its impact on Indian and other voters in the country assessed.

The political ramifications of the BN losing the Indian vote in the coming elections are not likely to be calamitous in view of the BN’s stranglehold on most Malay majority areas and the nature of rural-urban weighting in the national electoral system which guarantees a disproportionate importance to rural voters compared with their urban counterpart.

At the same time, the opposition parties are well aware that although there is no single parliamentary or state assembly constituency where the Indian voters constitute the majority of the electorate, they know that Indian voters represent over 10 percent of the electorate in 62 Parliamentary constituencies and 138 state assembly constituencies and they will play an important factor in determining the electoral outcome in these areas.

According to DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, the Indian voters will be the ‘kingmakers’ in 28 Parliamentary and 78 state assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia since they constitute more than 15 percent of the electorate. They can exercise a decisive influence as to who wins or loses in these constituencies.

Royalty speaks up

During 2007, too, support for more openness in the political system and for the authorities to pay greater heed to the many contentious issues of good governance came from an unlikely source - the Malay rulers.

The lead in the emergence of a more engaged monarchy in the affairs of the nation can be attributed to Sultan Azlan Shah, the Sultan of Perak and his son, Raja Nazrin Shah, the Raja Muda.

Sultan Azlan Shah called for major reforms to the judiciary in view of reports of disturbing events touching on the integrity of its members. This call for reform from a Ruler, who had spent a great deal of his life in pivotal positions in the Malaysian judiciary and was in a unique position to assess its qualities and shortcomings, has undoubtedly been a major factor in the government finally giving in to the public outcry for a royal commission to investigate the Lingam Tape incident.

The Raja Muda has been even more forthright than his father in sharing his views with the public on a wide range of contentious and sensitive subjects, including racial polarisation, religious tolerance, corruption, good governance, the independence of the judiciary and the need for the government to deal with problems through dialogue and negotiation with key stakeholders such as enlightened social movements.

The simmering sense of public outrage during the year - cutting across ethnic and class lines – in fact had culminated just a few days before the Hindraf rally in the largest anti-government protest in more than a decade.

An estimated 20,000-30,000 marchers converged in a march in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 10 to deliver a memorandum petition to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong on urgent reforms needed to the country’s electoral system to ensure that it did not continue to be unfairly tilted in favor of the ruling party.

The ability of the predominantly civil society organisers to mobilise so many protestors indicates a growing body of citizenry concerned about the integrity and fairness of the electoral process and willing to take to the streets to stand up for their basic rights of assembly and expression.

Challenging the status quo

It could be that the BN leadership may simply ignore the various statements of concern from individual Rulers and members of the royalty on the way the country is being run and their publicly articulated guidance on the need for higher standards of governance and greater tolerance for dissent.

Also, the split within BN ranks may well be contained, given the enormous resources of the ruling party and its tremendous capacity to coopt or coerce dissenting elements into staying passive or compliant within the fold of the system.

The losses that may eventuate from the Hindraf-inspired dissent may also prove to be smaller than expected or even illusionary during the coming elections as the BN’s and Umno’s spin machinery (the latter is especially adept at playing on Malay and non-Malay fears of political instability through the use of the official mass media) goes into overdrive.

Certainly, no astute political observer in the country expects the BN to lose its power and control over the country even if the opposition parties can put up a much better showing than during the last elections.

However, what appears different this time from earlier occasions may be the rise of a formidable body of political and civil society activists no longer isolated by their lack of access to the mainstream media and its under-reporting - or politically-biased reporting - of issues of vital public importance.

Making full use of the Internet surge and the channel of phone text messages to get alternative news and views across, these activists and citizen journalists are adding their voice where it matters and challenging the status quo on an entire spectrum of subjects that resonate with the larger population – bread and butter issues, traffic jams, corruption, abuse of power, and other aspects of daily life and governance.

These dissident voices may be ignored in the short run but it would be a foolish or shortsighted government that fails to recognise the growing public restiveness on the imperfections of the BN system of government and the culture of opportunism, greed and self-aggrandisement that it has spawned in its half-century of rule, and on the need for wide-ranging reforms if the country is to move ahead.

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