Why Crucify Malaysia?

This is for the eyes and ears and mouths of Aljazeera, for Malaysia's  rotweilers and watchdogs of Human Rights, for our very own home-grown self-appointed and self-regarding crusaders in Malaysia's League of Human Justice like Captain Malaysia ( Branch Office in Penang), Kelawar Man and Murai (with Kelawar Kar awaiting the completion of Penang's Undersea Tunnel), Minah Hebat and Minah Kelawar  (ubiquitous and merata rata in the cosmopolitan centres on the west coast of Semenanjung Malaysia).  Or to simplify it, let's lump them all as the BHL or Bleeding Heart Liberals.

We are all concerned about the situation that Bangladeshi migrant workers - like all migrant workers - find themselves in.    Often, it is a cruel situation.    A situation of unfairness and exploitation.    So let us find out from one who really should know (and thinks) about Bangladeshi migant workers.

Let us hear from the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

Firstly, on 6 December 2014, the PM of Bangla Desh Sheikh Hasina had a "successful and effective" three-day visit to Malaysia.


See:
https://bdnews24.com/economy/2014/12/06/malaysia-visit-successful-manpower-export-will-increase-pm

Other than deals on easing visas, promoting tourism etc, note the very glaring export drive, that of "manpower export".  According to the PM, citizens of Bangla Desh can be itemised as a commodity to be sold on the free market like mangoes or iron ore.

I would like to ask Md Rayhan Kabir (the gentleman used by Aljazeera as the spokesperson for the benighted Banglas in Malaysia): do you agree and are you happy with your Government's description of you and your countrymen as part of Bangla Desh's export trade, as the export of the brawns and sweat (and despair) of your kinsmen?

As an export entry, your countrymen, according to Wiki .....

........ remitted from Malaysia to Bangla Desh about US$5 million in 1993 - up to US$57 million by 1999.

According to the World Bank, remittances from this export of manpower in 2016 were nearly $15 billion which accounted for about 9 per cent of Bangla Desh's GDP.

When you were "sick with worry" about how the Malaysian authorities were treating your 'friend' during the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic, did you stop to think about how you and your 'friend' would be treated (medically) if you, as an unskilled worker, remained in Dhaka, Chittagong or Sylhet?  Can you see yourself haranguing your Government authorities (or perhaps calling up Aljazeera) for better treatment - especially since you and your friends contribute so much to the national coffers when you worked in Malaysia as legal or illegal foreign workers?

Here in Malaysia, we have some citizens who by virtue of paying Income Tax and contributing little/much (????)  to the national Treasury (like you do in your country), are allowed to demand that members of the Malaysian Armed Forces who only "eat and sleep" should be put out to work in FELDA  plantations!  Some of them even question the validity of the Monarchy as enshrined in the Constitution.

We await with bated breath for  Aljazeera's 101 East Team to investigate another blot on Malaysia's landscape.  This team consists mostly of Aussies like Senior Reporter and producer Drew Ambrose, Executive Producer Sharon Roobol, Producer Jenni Robman, Digital Producer Rhionai-Jade Armont and cameraman Craig Hansen.   Is that surprising?    There is a long pedigree of Aussies who take it upon themselves to expose and pontificate on the ills and errors of Asian countries, especially Malaysia, notwithstanding their very own scabs on their chest (pekong di dada dan kuman di seberang) especially the abysmal mistreatment and discrimination of the Australian Aborigines.

The Aussies seem to have a fetish about denigrating Malaysia.  I don't think many of our BHL know much about the problem of Vietnamese refugees on the east coast of Semenanjung Malaysia at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

See my previous postings :

https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2015/06/kudos-and-brickbats-and-pontianak.html

https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2016/10/maintaining-cordial-relationship.html

https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2015/05/damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-dont.html

All it takes to whip up a strong brew of bile and prejudice against an Asian nation is a bunch of Aussie cobbers by the billabong, cobbling up a mish mash of ignorance and bias in their billy cans.  But I digress.   I must confess (some) Australians and Australia leave AsH with a nasty taste in the mouth, especially their double standards with regards to the non-white nations of Southeast Asia.

In our part of the world,  we tend to think (wrongly) of Bangla Desh as nothing but a poverty-stricken nation.  But how biased can we be, especially when we remember that song 'Bangla Desh' by George Harrison, an eminent Beatle from the 60s?  Bangla Desh (or originally East Bengal) has a sad history of wars, famines, natural disasters, and today a rising sea level (as a result of global warming) threatens to inundate villages and fields along the coastline.  Not too long ago, during the Second World War, 2.1-3 million Bengalis, out of a population of 60.3 million died of starvation during the Bengal Famine of 1943.  If Md Rayhan Kabir thinks his people are badly treated in Malaysia, here is what Sir Winston Churchill (much admired strangely enough in India, Bangla Desh and at one time Brunei as well) thinks about his forefathers, the almost 3 million Bengalis who died of starvation.

We can happily say that 77 years after the Bengal Famine, Bangla Desh has moved on.  It has, like Malaysia, a burgeoning middle class.  (See video below)

Perhaps concerned and unhappy Banglas like Md Rayhan Kabir should turn to the middle class in his own country to connect with our middle class liberals to set up a united front to defend the cause and human rights of "suffering foreign workers" in Malaysia.  They could draw up a working agenda to co-ordinate the conditions and regulations concerning these foreign workers.  Md Rayman Kabir and friends (not just his fellow kinsmen)could perhaps begin with cases like corruption and exploitation by Bangla Desh's consular officials in Kuala Lumpur who, according to Wiki overcharged Bangla workers by RM 200-300 for their passport renewal.

 They managed to appropriate RM 10-15 million.  And a valid passport as we know, is crucial for documentation of their legal status.

So what degree of culpability has Malaysia got to bear over the situation of foreign workers (not foreign immigrants), whether they are PATI or legal during this Covid 19 pandemic that is tearing apart the world's economic and social infrastructure on a global scale.  Are any other nations like Singapore, Burma, USA, UK, the EC, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Russia, China doing it any better to meet up with the Gold Standard Ratings drawn up by the bleeding heart liberals in Malaysia?  If our Aussie crusaders wanted to, they could produce a score or more similar videos which demonstrate the "inhumanity" of the policies of their fellow-Caucasians in comparison to what dastardly Malaysia is doing - with reference to foreign -migrant workers and foreigners.

Where does the buck stop?


Well, here's the Prime Minister of Bangladesh once more.


Secondly, on 25 May 2015, PM Sheikh Hasina denounced the country's  migrants as "Mentally Sick".


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/bangladesh-pm-calls-migrants-mentally-sick-150524192524482.html


According to Md Rayhan's PM ...

If that's the case why is Malaysia, and especially Malaysia still facing a flood of illegal foreign workers from Bangla Desh?

However ....

CONCLUSION

In New York, there is a plaque on the Statue of Liberty which reads ...

Malaysia, when it was still Semenanjung Tanah Melayu, had this ''greatness" thrusted upon them when our British overlords required cheap foreign labour from India and China.  The Malays, like other natives whose territory was "founded" by Christian Western nations had no say and no choice -they are now living and managing and coping with all the trials, tribulations and challenges of having a mult-racial population foisted upon them.

For most larger and richer nations, they have the room to take in such "huddled masses".  The USA especially under Trump has reneged on this proud heritage of America and Americans.  China, India (under Modi, Muslims are not welcomed), Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the EC and UK have no room for the "tired and the poor" except for those who are professionals (educated in their own country) and wealthy (with wealth derived from their country of origin).  With regards to Rohingyas and Bangla Deshis who flock to Malaysia, they are out of the equation altogether.

As for Malaysia - supposedly a nation of racists, full of Malay-Muslim extremists and fanatics who have no respect for the Human Rights of the populace and impose gross inequality on the minorities (translate that as non-Malays) who end up as victims of discrimination and treated like the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - we are expected to be whiter than white and as pure as the driven snow according to the demands of the Human Rights Confederacy.

If we are so despicable, why are our shores a favourite landing spot for Burma's "refuse of your teeming shore" and the "helpless tempest tost" of  Bangla Desh??   We have no "lamp beside the golden door". We have our own poor and needy to look after.  We do not farm them out as human exports to foreign fields so that they can remit their wages to support their families at home.  But we do have a different calibre of human exports, with one difference.  They consist of our educated and well-heeled who for the most part do not have to support impoverished families at home.  Instead they, especially those residing in Australia, have the privilege if they so wish, to slag off their ex-country in the hope of  gaining more kudos and looking more presentable and acceptable in their new country.

So why oh why are we still being crucified ....  by Aljazeera, by the liberal Western press, and by social media both home grown and foreign?  

Maintaining a cordial relationship between Malaysia and Australia

We are all familiar with the term "Aussie" .  Then there's the word "Ocker".  I came across it when I was reading Jan Morris's "From the Four Corners" many years ago.  Strange name, I thought, for the people from Down Under.  Only when I learned to take part in the Internet World  did I discover its origin.

From Aussie Slang Dictionary - Macquarie University

Following the recent incident of the nine middle-class Australian citizens baring their all  - well, at least 99% of 'the parts that cannot be reached' *- carefully hidden by an itsy bitsy teenie weenie swimwear based on the Malaysian flag - I decided on this posting to repair and enhance the relationship between Malaysia and Australia - and to dispel the Ocker's idea of us Malaysians as 'humourless'.


All cultures of whatever colour or religion have their own set of rules and etiquette.   It's a way of organising life, of lubricating relationships and creating a sense of order.     However, we Malaysians (and especially the Malay-Muslims) have been mocked and scoffed at because we have too many taboos in our culture: no alcohol, no pork, no bikinis or mankinis. no sultry dancing, etc., etc.    Perhaps this is why Thailand and the Philippines are top of the bill for Western (and Middle East, Eastern, and Down-under) tourists.   And perhaps this is why the fun-goers have recently been so upset:

Read more about it here : ..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3838931/Bangkok-grinds-halt-thousands-mourners-line-streets-mark-passing-Thai-king-British-tourists-complain-news-red-light-district-shut-MONTH.html



But what about the lands of the customers themselves?    In particular, what about Australia?   Well,
Australia has the usual set of rules pertaining to law and order and decency.   We must obey and respect them.     A visitor or an immigrant to Australia has to be reminded of the way of life of their host country, and where better to start than at this website:

 http://www.destinationtips.com/destinations/20-things-not-to-do-in-australia/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=adwords&utm_content=Dont+Do+Australia&utm_campaign=ADW001-DST-VAR-VAR-00000-01-var&utm_term=-113649954081-p-australia&gclid=CJbV_riA xc8CFU4eaAodOX4FHg
                                                 
.

Apart from the general rule of not dropping your trousers in public, there are various things to avoid in Australia.   Here's a selection - and please ignore the black numbering in the boxes:



1.   When you're  at a football match in Australia, don't try to be too pally and exclaim to the cobber next to you: "I'll be rooting for your team, mate."   This will be an unforgivable boo boo because...

2. 

Too true, too true.  For a dose of "fair dinkum Aussie charm" , take a visit to the smaller towns.  But you won't charm the city or small town ockers if you come with the objective of pulling down your trousers and displaying the Australian flag on your  underpants!  Even if you might be able to buy underpants decorated with flags from various nations of the world at places like Chow Kit or Chowrasta it's still not nice to be that disrespectful. Don't diss the flags and symbols of other cultures.  Among other symbols .....


3.

Diss = Aussie slang for disrespect.

You might just develop a taste for vegemite.    You might have to in a small town - your own culinary symbols (like belacan and durian) may be nowhere in sight.     And vegemite is healthier than the sight of topless men in their briefest of briefs!  (Besides, in some parts of the world you have to pay for such beefy strip shows).

Still, if you are pathetic enough to copy that arrogant tease in Australia, let's hope you can get an Australian lawyer as understanding and as sympathetic as Mr Wan Aizuddin (one of the defence lawyers for the Ocker Nine) who claimed,  "They all have good jobs in Australia and come from good families. .....  There were mitigating factors. They are young fellows.  They never meant to cause offence."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/world/australia/malaysia-budgie-nine.html?_r=0

Which makes me wonder:  first, if our Mat Rempits could claim such dispensation when they're hauled into court; and second, if our ocker friends would find the courts quite so kindly if they performed their inoffensive little pranks in Singapore.......



4.

Uluru, previously claimed as Ayers Rock by the early Aussie colonists.

Most certainly, but the same is expected of those Brits, EU Citizens, Americans, Kiwis and Aussies who visit places like Angkor Wat, Borobodur .... and Mount Kinabalu - which is also sacred, and also a favoured place for Mat (Rempit) Sallehs to show their flab.

5.

We Malaysians ( well, to be precise, Malays from Tanah Melayu) also have a colonial history (and we too are still living with its consequences) so we will certainly respect that - provided they don't mock us as wogballs descended from monkeys or layabouts descended from pirates.



6.   For this item, you are expected to be familiar with speaking Strine and having a skin as thick as a kangaroo's hide.

I suppose what those well-heeled ockers did at Sepang was "taking the piss" out of us locals.     Wow, those Ockers set a tough standard: must we all pull down our trousers and wear the Ocker flag on our backsides in order to be respected?

7.

The above seems like fair dinkum.  Thank you for the tip.  But something worries me.  If 'graduating  high schoolers'  celebrate end-of-school-days  'with a lot of drink-filled hormone-fuelled debauchery'' how  do the graduates and the adults celebrate the auspicious days of their life?      Should we avoid Sepang (or Mount Kinabalu) for fear of bumping into too many celebrating Ockers?


8.
In Australia, beer and liquor are a national hobby.  For instance you have to be very precise and almost fastidious in picking your drink especially your beer. Pronounce beer without the 'r' in the land of amber fluid and gold, but when in Australia, do as the Aussies do.  Get your beer vocabulary right!

Of course. as the Aussie Nine were getting sozzled at Sepang, they would have to make do with drinking from their shoes - they can't  get a schooner or middy or pot for love or money at Sepang!


Nevertheless, Australia (like the UK) faces a fluid problem.

Just as Malaysia should be running a very serious campaign against obesity - the Australian  Government is attempting to educate their population about binge-drinking.  While on a long haul MAS flight, I picked up a magazine and was intrigued by this full-page advertisement by the Australian Government about binge drinking.

If there was no indication that this advertisement was issued by the Australian Government, I would believe that this 'nightmare' was typical of a non-Western society.  Look at the star in this advertisement: she could be Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Syrian.   Most certainly it does not indicate a white European in Australia!!  Strange indeed!

Read more in -
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/health/aussie-women-drinking-m e-alcohol-than-ever-university-of-nsw-booze-study-reveals/news-story/6cb3d4aae51185313ecf2d50c736f729

So, it looks like Australia will have to take better care and supervision of their women folk instead of worrying themselves about foreign women in hijab and nikab and their oppression by the menfolk.   Or do only non-Europeans get drunk in Australia?

*******************************************************************************************************

So we now know what NOT TO DO in Australia.   Well, fair enough.    But all these strictures, all these little rules of etiquette and proper conduct, beg an important question.      How do the Ockers treat the rest of the world - both within and beyond Ockerland's national boundaries?  

Firstly :  The plight of the Australian Aborigines.  (What oppression?  They're our Abos!  Never ever!!)

Read : https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/04/yabu-a07.html




Secondly :  The plight of asylum seekers at Nauru.  (A cover- up of abuse by Australia, the bastion of freedom, democracy and equality and Human Rights in Asia? Well, I never!!)

Read :  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/10/the-nauru-files-2000-leaked-reports-reveal-scale-of-abuse-of-children-in-australian-offshore-detention


Don't worry about this poster if you're coming as a tourist or a potential immigrant bringing loadsofmoney, speakee good English and maybe a bit of Strine and a credible qualification.  Not being a Muslim would also help.

Thirdly :  The plight of the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
(Doctoring of information by a country that pontificates about freedom and democracy and equality and environmental responsibility in Asia?  Never!!)

Read ; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/27/great-barrier-reef-un-report-lead-author-shocked-all-australian-references-removed

                                         ****************************************


Do you come from the land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?

                                        ******************************************

 *   I can't resist putting in this advertisement  referring to 'parts that cannot be reached'.

G' day all.

Downunders showing off their down-unders in Malaysia

The setting:  the year is 2054 somewhere in the suburb of Bruceville, just 120 km southeast of the little town of Kangawoombaroo in a secluded outback of Australia.  A little boy is sitting on his grandpa's lap  'flicking' through the old man's  album on the computer.  Grandpa (GP), who lives in Wankerton, was staying over for the weekend to spend quality time with his eight year old grandson (GS).

GP (pointing at a picture) .... And there's your Grandad in Malaysia in 2016, protesting at them chopping down trees.     ( He often went there to collect the evidence).  

GS:  Yeah, Dad says all us Aussies are real keen conservationists!    But hang on...what's this?     It says "Malaysian Grand Prix 2016"

GP   No, it's nothing interesting  (as he clicked off the photo).  Hey stop that!  ( when GS clicked back to the photo).

GS  Hey this is cooooll !!  Which of those arses ... ouch! (GP smacks the boy for using the a-word) is yours?  Daddy told me how you went to Malaysia to watch the Formula One Grand Prix.....    But he never told me about this!  Wait till I show this picture to my mates in school. Crikey!    I can tell them what a brave hero my Grandpa was in his younger days!!      Who are the others?

GP  Just cobbers.......

GS:  But Daddy told me one of your mates then was an adviser to the Minister of Defence Industries.      Was he one of them?   Wow, if only our Cabinet Ministers today had the same cheek.

GP   Hmm, yes... hmmhh  (feeling and looking pink with embarrassment, like the nude pinky skins in the photo ).   Look skipper, let's look at another (as he clicks to an image of a Malaysian crowd)

GS   Granddad Granddad!  These people look shocked - but some seem to be yelling and screaming with joy!  Are they going doo-lally over the Grand Prix - or are they just delirious to see us in our underpants?  (clicks to next picture)

.... And hey!  You got a picture of the newspaper story too!    But I think their newspaper made a mistake calling them undies.  Undies are only for girls.  Or were you and your mates wearing girly underwear?    Ha ha ha, what a scream!    You really have the guts man, just like our ancestors who cleared the forests and chased out the Abos.  (Abo is an offensive term referrring to the Australian Aborigines)

Just thought of something grandpa - it's quite funny.  If you reverse the u and  n in undies, you get the word nudies  (as he rolled  around in rollicking mirth on grandpa's lap)

GP   Get off me, you silly b..... r.  You are becoming more and more obscene and rude.  You have no respect for people.  (GP stormed away in anger and disgust).

GS   Yeah grandpa, guess where I got this from (as he tripped away singing 'grandpa's undies, grandpa's a nudie, grandpas's pinky butty). 

NB  I do apologise to the apes on our planet for humankind's  abuse of the word 'apeman'.

Kudos and Brickbats and Pontianak

KUDOS to Malaysia for taking immediate action against the  European showoffs  (even if it's only 4 out of 10) for their blatant display of arrogance and contempt for local beliefs and culture on Mount Kinabalu, Sabah.

 I wonder - what if some Malaysians  (male and female) peeled off their clothes and urinated  at .....

Petroglyphs Park Woodview, Ontario (Photo by Robin L. Lyke)

Maeshowe, Orkney Islands - part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site - just like Mount Kinabalu.

... and

Assen Megalithic Site (Netherlands) containing granite 5,500 year old burial mounds.

Do read   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/eleanor-hawkins-british-woman-arrested-for-posing-naked-on-malaysia-mountain-is-scared-and-very-upset-says-father-10312059.html

It seemed that Ms Eleanor Hawkins, aged 23,  a graduate in aeronautical engineering,  was quite 'upset' and 'distressed' , according to her father.  Being arrested is 'not a situation she's been in before'!. Oh dear, how many times have she and her 9 comrades  been in situations where they go starkers just for the hell of it!

Because this news item referred to Malaysia, I always get very curious about the comments contributed in The Independent.  This is because ....

Extract from MORI social research institute  "You are what you read" by Bobby Duffy and Laura Rowden

..... as seen from the research above, the readership of The Independent is not made up of the 'great unwashed'  and the hoi polloi.  The last-mentioned inhabit papers like The Sun and the Daily Star.  As for The Independent,  46% of the readers come from the top A/B class ( Higher, intermediate managerial administration, professional occupations who make up 22% of the population)  and 36% from the C1 class  (Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative, professional occupations making up 30.8% of UK's population).

Quite a number of the comments were quite sympathetic to the distress of the people in Sabah.  There were others who were simply bigoted and pig ignorant.

But , as I expected, any news pertaining to Malaysia never fail to bring out a good dose of  Malay-Muslim bashing, a favourite pre-occupation of the 'liberals' in UK's media.

The irony of it  - Malaysia  (a "muslim majority country notorious for discriminating against every other race and any other religion" ) -  is adamantly critical of the insult and distress heaped on her native and Christian  population in Sabah and took immediate action to bring these miscreants to justice.


 KUDOS to Singapore for taking swift action against 16 year-old Amos Yee ...

.... for 'crossing the line between freedom and offence' (Chia Boon Teck).  In March this year he was arrested - facing multiple criminal charges -  when on You Tube he called Lee Kuan Yew a "horrible person". made an offensive drawing of Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher having sex and went on to describe Jesus and the late Lee Kuan Yew as both "power hungry and malicious'.

He's out on bail of GBP9,800 and faces a fine and up to three years jail if found guilty.

Check :  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/singapores-arrest-of-a-16yearold-youtuber-is-all-you-need-to-know-about-lee-kuan-yews-legacy-10146756.html

To quote a Singapore lawyer Chia Boon Teck, Amos Yee's "utterance against Christians amounted to a 'deliberate intent to wound religious feelings'  ".


BRICKBATS to Malaysia for allowing Alvin Tan and other mainly non-Malay and non-Muslim cybertroopers to get away with  'utterances' against Islam and Muslims  with a 'deliberate intent to wound religious feelings'.

Like the 16 year-old Amos Yee,  Alvin and the other hate-mongers were citizens of the country they deliberately offended.

Read http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/alvin-serenade-for-ah-bin.html


=======================================================================================
As I finish this posting, Leicester time is 6.48 am.  I don't think I will find time to read up on Malaysian news.   I have to get on with preparations for another peregrination - to balek kampung - to my tanah air  riddled with Pontianaks!

Damned if you do, damned if you don't - Malaysia's dilemma.

The spectacle of  'boat-people' stranded in the Andaman Sea brought on a sense of deja vu from 40 years ago.

In 1975, the Viet Cong defeat of the Americans led to an exodus of South Vietnamese 'collaborators' and 'sympathizers' to the United  States - initially mainly the well-educated and wealthy Vietnamese - totalling about 125,000.

The second wave began in 1978.   These were the 'boat people' , who were poorer and not as well-educated as the first wave.  They were mainly Vietnam's Chinese, 'long distrusted by the native Vietnamese'.  They were under pressure  because they had to leave their urban homes to go into the rural 'new economic zones' as labourers - and they feared being drafted into the army.  When China attacked Vietnam in 1979, the pressure got even stronger.  The Government imposed 'exit permits' costing about $3000 for those who chose to leave.  But there were many others, both Chinese and Vietnamese, who left sans exit permits because they could not bear the food shortages and living under Communist rule.    [The same scenario if the Malayan Communist Party had 'won' in Malaya?]  

On that journey thousands died as a result of water and food shortages, of drownings and attacks from pirates.  The survivors landed in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. 

Malaysia bore the brunt, because the Peninsula was the boat people's 'first line of  approach'. The east coast states of Trengganu, Kelantan and Pahang, - the poorest states of the Peninsula -  were deluged by flotillas of 'boat-people' landing on their shores. The boat people were coming at the rate of 65,000 a month.    While Thailand was able to send Cambodian refugees escaping Pol Pot's regime back into their homeland,  Malaysia had no such option, she had no common land border with Vietnam or Cambodia.  

The boat people who first landed in 1978 created a 'crisis problem' of 20 years for Malaysia. Malaysia was designated as a 'nation of first asylum',  Refugee camps for Vietnamese and Cambodians were set up in Pulau Bidong  (with 42,000).   "By the time Bidong was closed as a refugee camp on 30 October 1991, about 250,000 Vietnamese had passed through or resided in the camp "  (Wikipedia). Other camps were located at Sungai Besi (1975-1996) and Pulau Tengah.  On the departure of the refugees in 1981, Pulau Tengah, - endowed with beautiful reefs and where leatherback turtles lay their eggs - was declared a marine park.

According to Bram Steen, UNHCR Malaysia, 240,000 Vietnamese refugees from Malaysia had been resettled in third countries and  9,000 others opted to return to Vietnam'.

Check : http://www.unhcr.org/43141e9d4.html

While Malaysia was stretching over backwards to provide transit camps for the refugees, she also co-operated with the UNHCR to facilitate their repatriation to third countries like USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and even Israel.  This task took nearly 20 years.  It was not smooth sailing for Malaysia. The bouquets went to the receiving Western countries.  The brickbats were reserved for Malaysia - and especially from Australia.  The latter even made a movie to castigate Malaysia's attitude towards the boat people.  I refer to the movie Turtle Beach (1992).

From Wikipedia

       

From Wikipedia

I suppose those who were just  "twinkles in their fathers' eyes" during that period  know little or nowt about the social and political problems that Malaysia had to deal with in being the "nation of first asylum" -  including the self- righteous and hypocritical whining of the British and Australians.


When people  opt to migrate, to leave their homeland for another,  two factors are involved - "push" and "pull".     One could say that Chinese immigration from 150 years ago into Malaya and Singapore was based on the the push factor of escaping poverty and the aftermath of wars in China. Unlike present day refugees from Afghanistan, African states south of the Sahara, Iraq and Syria, immigrants from China had an easier rite of entry.  They were needed and welcomed by the British Imperial authority who enabled and encouraged them to start a new life in the Semenanjung and Singapore with the option of returning home whenever they felt like doing so.

Zhonghandi - The late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's ancestral home in Guangdong Province built by his great-grandfather Li Muwen in 1884 with money he had earned in Singapore.

Read : http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/ancestral-home-be-turned-tourist-spot-20150326

From Malayan Reader Book 3 - a scene from the 1920s to 1940s.

Because of the positive and profitable experience of life in the Malay Peninsula, the pull  factor further encouraged the migration from China

From Story of Malaya and her Neighbours by Philip Nazareth

The moral is obvious.     Malaya - and Malaysia - have an honourable history of taking in migrants.   Which brings us to the most recent case of "boat people" on Malaysian shores.   In this case, a clear demarcation must be made between economic migrants from Bangla Desh ("pull") and political refugees from Myanmar ("push"). According to a UNHCR statement on 17 May, only 400 of the 1,000 boat people who landed in Langkawi waters  were Rohingya refugees.  The status of the Rohingyas as political refugees is clear cut.  Boat people from Bangla Desh, however, are a very different matter.  If they want to work in Malaysia or Thailand or Indonesia they, unlike the Rohingyas, have the facility and the means to apply through the proper channels like many of their kinsmen in Malaysia.

According to an article in The Australian (11 May 2011) :  "The Rohingya ....  are the second largest group from Burma to flee to Malaysia.  Denied full citizenship, education and travel rights in their native state, where they are routinely harried and harassed, there is little they can do to improve their lot bar leaving their homes for an unsure reception elsewhere.
Refugees International claimed ..... the Rohingya were one of the most persecuted groups in the world.  At least 200,000 have fled from Burma to neighbouring Bangla Desh, where only about one-tenth are recognised as refugees by Bangladesh's government and where most live in squalor.

What are Malaysia's options?  Malaysia is  already  'home' to more than 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly the mistreated Christian Chins and the even more persecuted Muslim Rohingyas. There are the others like those from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Sri Lanka. Besides these numbers, there are an estimated (a conservative one) 1.5 million people who are "undocumented migrants" mainly labourers from Indonesia.

Most certainly, those stranded on board their boats must be given food and water and medical treatment.   As for landing .... well, that is the nub of the matter - as Australia knows only too well ....

Furthermore : "The Canberra government, which is determined to prevent asylum-seekers from arriving on its shores by boat after a hazardous journey across the Indian Ocean, has warned the protestors they will never be allowed to live in Australia.         Peter Dutton the new Australian Immigration Minister reiterated that there would be 'no softening of Australian policy', that the government maintains 'absolute resolve' that such refugees would 'never arrive in Australia'.

Read :http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/refugees-detained-in-papua-new-guinea-and-desperate-to-reach-australia-resort-to-hunger-strikes-and-selfharm-9985687.html

For Malaysia, then, it is a double damnation: damned if you do, damned if you don't.   The Malaysian dilemma needs to be analysed in terms of the larger context, of the global displacement of people by wars, poverty and extremism.




Malaysia only needs to observe how the Christian-Caucasian founts of human rights deal with the problem.     Our bleeding heart defenders of human rights - always so quick to follow Western strictures against Malaysia - could learn a little from European, Australian and North American policy and resolutions with regard to migrants - and especially the boat people problem.  They cannot expect Malaysia to be "whiter than white', so to speak.

BUT, there is one stark difference between the plight of the Mediterranean boat people and the one in Southeast Asia.  The former is almost entirely the making of the western world  - the political and economic breakdown of the African states, the War on Terror in the Muslim Middle East and  the pursuit of the Arab Spring in Libya.  It's a case of "the chickens coming home to roost".  However, the main perpetrator of this chaos, the USA has somehow been cushioned from facing culpability.

In the case of the Rohingyas,  Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia bear no responsibility.  The crisis is entirely the creation of Myanmar's extremist political and religious policy.  Those crusaders for elections and a government based on human rights in Myanmar, celebrities like Aung San Suu Kyi should be persuaded to now turn their liberal intentions to stopping the persecution of the Rohingyas.


====================================================================================

POST SCRIPT :  (after my posting) referring to Aung San Suu Kyi

Take a look at : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/aung-san-suu-kyi-is-turning-a-blind-eye-to-human-rights-in-the-name-of-politics

==========================================================================================

As for El Dorado Europe, now facing daily the problem of poor and desperate people crossing the Mediterranean in their thousands trying to get in, is it any surprise that they are now turning to their kinsmen from down under for a solution? ....

One brain wave and trend setter from Australia

Another brain wave, this time from the European Union.

In the past week or so, the print and electronic media in UK have been giving a lot of publicity to the boat-people in the Andaman Sea, as they have with the situation in the Mediterranean.  But embedded in it is a touch of giving Malaysia a 'ticking off ' - almost a re-hash of the criticisms made by Malaysia's human rights brigade.

As a matter of interest, Christian Chins from Myanmar who are stuck in a "ghetto of sorts in Kuala Lumpur's Imbi district" can draw hope from the success of their fellow-Christian Myanmar refugees, the Karens. They (170 Karens ) are happily settled in a small town ( population 2,300) in Victoria (Australia) where they contribute $41m benefit to the local economy working at a local poultry producer Luv-a-Duck.

Australia has this warning for immigrant hopefuls from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Syria etc.

But there's hope for a select group of people.

From Reuters 7 August 2014

And the British Government (ever ready to learn from Australia?) has just announced exactly the same policy.
                                              *              *             *            *            *

Forty years ago, when Malaysia had to provide refugee camps for Vietnamese boat people, they fought and got the assurance from western countries that these refugees will be repatriated to third countries and/or return to Vietnam.  The Myanmar government have denied any responsibility.  It is obvious that 'third party' countries that are richer than Malaysia will not offer asylum to the Rohingyas.  They are all suffering from 'compassion fatigue' - they just have too much "collateral damage" to deal with - and the EC is well on the way to turning itself into Fortress Europe.

Above all, Malaysia still  has to sort out their present problem of over 1.5 million refugees, asylum seekers and  illegal migrant workers!!

Let the experts deal with the solution - people like Lilianne Fan (a Bangkok- based expert on humanitarian and conflict issues in Asia, research associate at the humanitarian policy group of the UK's Overseas Development Institute), Charles Santiago (Chair of Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a coalition of lawmakers advocating for fundamental rights in Southeast Asia), David Mane (Executive Director of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, Australia and principal solicitor and migration agent) and Jeff Labowitz ( Chief of mission, International Organisation for Migration, Thailand).  See :  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/15/how-to-solve-asian-migrant-boats-crisis-expert-views-rohingya

Whatever suggestions are made by these experts and other pontificators;  some people, some organisations, some countries will have to put their money where their mouth is.