LIGHT of LOCKDOWN - a much-appreciated gift from all our Frontliners and Volunteers.

Thank you Malaysia, from a Malaysian bumiputera (left) and a UK 'bumiputera' (right).

Here's another contribution from my Anglo-Scots spouse. The last time, he expressed his dismay at the blatant ignorance of some expatriate Malaysians about their country's health system:

https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2020/11/dr-audrey-yi-hui-teh-kota-kinabalu-lass.html

But this time he's a lot more cheerful!

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We had a marvellous experience on Monday 7 June, at the Putera World Trade Centre.     Actually, it was something we'd been expecting for weeks, nervously, fearfully, full of deep, dark forebodings.    I won't say we were both nervous wrecks when we arrived there - but we were pretty close to it.

We had our vaccine appointments, and we weren't looking forward to them: perhaps we'd be turned away because both of us had underlying health issues; perhaps we'd be waiting for hours in the sun; perhaps the organization would be chaotic and we'd be chasing our tails.    Perhaps we'd have terrible after effects.     Perhaps the sky would fall on our heads.

Well, nothing like that happened.      And this is the story.

We arrived early, and the security men at the entrance were paragons of courtesy and helpfulness.   We were directed immediately to the Special Needs section (although we didn't ask to be), and from then on we were guided by ushers, both uniformed and not to the registration desk deep on the ground floor of the building.    These two late-septuagenarians were treated like royalty.     But so too were all the other elderly souls who were arriving for treatment.      For once, it felt good to be old.

We were cleared for vaccination by a volunteer called Puteri.    Puteri is a Pisces lass completing a Masters course in Computer Engineering at UITM.    She had been working at that desk for almost a month, from 8 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock at night, and she was still as fresh and cheerful as a daisy.    She talked us through our consent forms, and filled two of them in for us because we'd completed them wrongly.   She checked Maznoor's particular drug allergies with a medical colleague, and told us she'd be held back at the end for a longer observation.    Just in case.    She was a model of cheerful concern.

Then we were guided to Dr Zafirah.    Dr Zafirah is a doctor at KLIA international airport.   She too had been working at her PWTC desk for almost a month.     She too was lively, attentive, and enormously helpful.    She reassured Maznoor about her allergies and her medication, and the look of relief on Maznoor's face was a joy to behold.    Then she went through my various problems: she reassured me about the danger of bloot clots, with some well-chosen medical facts and figures; and she clearly knew plenty about one of the rarer blood disorders - haemachromatosis - which I happened to suffer from.   Dr Zafirah, too, was a model of cheerful concern: she was clearly a lady of sound medical training, deeply and widely informed, with an excellent bedside manner and a wonderful sense of humour as well.     She, just like Puteri, was a pleasure to meet.

From Dr Zafirah we went straight to the desk in front for our vaccination.    It was quick, straightforward, and painless - and the lady who did it held up the syringe so we could measure its contents, just as she'd done 200-300 times every day.   She was sweet and efficient and said little - and I shall always regret that I don't have her name.    After all, without the people who put in the needles, the entire programme would fail.    Please, dear lady, accept my apologies.     You did an important job to perfection.

Finally, for our clearance papers, we went to see Pirin.   Pirin had just finished at Medical School in Kedah and was waiting for a hospital placement.    Like all the others, Pirin was attentive and solicitous.   She checked us out just as lunchtime arrived, and when we were finished she personally led us to the exit and helped us take our souvenir photo.

The entire process, from start to finish - and including half an hour's monitoring at the end - took just over one hour.    Every worker we met was a gem.    From the security men to the ushers to the people at the desks - there was not a single unhelpful person.     And not the briefest delay.

There's a moral in this story.     Here was a major logistical operation, to address a critical situation in the health of the country - and it went off without a hitch.     Yes,of course, as elderly people we were favoured, and younger people might have to wait a bit longer.     But surely one measure of a good society is how the elderly are treated.   There are other measures: for example, how all the components of government and "civil society" come together in a crisis; how "front-liners" acquire and apply their skills; and how courtesy is made part of the job.

In all these respects, and judging by what happened to Maznoor and I, Malaysia has a lot to be proud of.   And so do all those "front-liners" and volunteers we met on Monday at the Putera World Trade Centre.   A very necessary job, and a job excellently done.

Congratulations and thank you from two elderly admirers.

   ....................................................................................................................................................

It only goes to show, doesn't it, that Penang and Singapore aren't the only places where things are done properly!

LOCKDOWN LAMENT

 Thanks to our Ramadan and  Hari Raya revellers, our happy shoppers and diners, and our "patriotic" factory and business owners, a total lockdown is upon us again.  In the streets around our house, a so-called "elite area" as claimed by our well-heeled middle class neighbours, every night for almost the whole month of Syawal, there were crackers and loud fireworks  galore .  Most of the time, out of respect for prayer times (bless them), the show did not begin until after Isyak, from 9.30 pm to 11 pm!!  Good night, sleep tight, Setiawangsa!

I am in awe at the guts of these Malays.  They scrambled over highways and ratways to "balik kampung". The ones remaining still had money to burn for crackers and fireworks.    And I thought this country had to tighten its collective belts to see it through this Covid-19 struggle over life and livelihood.  

Of course, because of our seasonal happy abandon, our medical facilities and frontliners are at breaking point.   But never mind, for most Malaysians it's business as usual.

Our Immigration appointment for this Friday was "rescheduled" to heaven-knows-when because of the lockdown.  But we count our blessings.  The stallholders on the streets around us have, once again, lost  their means of livelihood.  There are many, many other distressing stories - but who wants to know? 

STOP IT ASH  - you are beginning to foam at the mouth.  So let me take a much-needed break.    I usually find this video very therapeutic when I'm angry......

[Kev and Perry are two typical badly - behaving teenagers.  This video was during the era when Oasis from Manchester was the rage.  By the way, Perry is played by Kathy Burke, one of my top favourite comedians from the '90s ]

                  ...............................................................................................................

So now on to the point that I really wanted to make:

In anticipation of the start of the lockdown, I decided to fiddle around and about my room, to find ways to keep me sane.  I was not disappointed.  I have enough junk here to keep me occupied.  In one corner .....

A Cosy Corner

.......  I came upon this book.

An Anthology of Malay History

The Chapters

When I was 7 or 8 years old, while playing or resting in the afternoons at our kampung house at Lorong Abu Kassim in Pasir Panjang, my mother would often tease me;  "Kau bukan anak Mak. Mak pungut kau di tong sampah,"  (You are not my child. I picked you up from a dustbin ).  I did not know how to feel or to respond.  

I half-believed it, because our relatives and friends, and even my teachers and colleagues, would look  at me and say, "Kau ni muka Cina?"  (You look like a Chinese?)  People still say it today.  In Aeon supermarket, not long ago, a Chinese lady said to me in English, "You sure you not adopted ah?"   So I thought I'll jolt her a little and replied, "Wa bue hiao, lah" in Hokkien, which means "I don't know lah."  She looked so flabbergasted and I smiled and said,  "Sudah makan banyak blacan, mesti sudah jadi orang Melayu!".

Sometimes I get annoyed at these rude busybodies, but most of the time I just have to laugh.

How did I deal with my Mak's teasing?  One day, I had a little tiff with her and I retorted, "Ya lah. Nor tahu Nor bukan anak Mak dan Abah. Nor dipungut di tong sampah."  ( I know why. I am not your or  abah's daughter. You picked me up from a dustbin.)  My Abah overheard.  He looked shocked.  He went to my mother and they both left the room.  I never knew what happened.  But my mother's teasing stopped altogether from that day on!!!

During my mid-teens, Mak revealed that her mother was an adopted Chinese girl from the island of Bawean.  I later read that at the turn of the 20th century, the Chinese who came to settle in Bawean and the local Boyanese too found that eking a living in Bawean was hard.  That was why many of the latter moved to Singapore to find themselves a living (after all, moving around was a way of life in the Malay Archipelago).  My maternal grandfather was one of them.  As for the Chinese, what they tended to do was to give away their daughters because daughters were not as useful as their sons.  My grandmother was one of those daughters - and I'm guessing my Mak must have had a bit of teasing in her growing up years in Singapore about her non-Bawean mother.  Her teasing of me was probably what she had to go through as a child.  She certainly had no happy memories of her own mother who left  Mak with her ex-husband and took with her the two elder daughters and her son.  Mak was brought up by her stepmother who she loved immensely.   Every Ramadan, towards the end of that holy month,  while we were helping her to stir the dodol or halwa maskat, I could see a smile on her face as she said, "Aaah, your Nenek is here."  They were that close!

Nenek  & Tok Malik

And why am I remembering all this?    Because of this page on "Hamba Hamba di-jual di SIngapura" in the above book "Tawarikh Melayu".

The First Part

The Second Part

In blue are the victims, the slaves.  In red are the purchasers.  The Bugis were the slave traders.  And the venue is Singapura the great entrepot hub created by Raffles and today one of the richest countries in the world.

Singapore Today

When I read this page, just like Abdullah, "Maka aku pun meleleh ayer mata-ku sebab terkenangkan hal anak-bini siapa-kah ini?"

Many questions came into my mind.

Do these tormented slave-women look like this?

How the West caricatured Malay women in this 1931 postcard "Malay Natives. Penang"

 I can picture the torment of these slave-women.    If they were lucky they might have ended up as wives and concubines of those purchasers of many colours.   Many would have been maltreated and raped and their children would have been lucky to end up as family members of their owners.  Although more likely they'd end up as work horses for their masters - the same fate as the black slaves in USA.

I can understand why Mak vexed me about my origin as she must have had the same dose of mockings about her own mother who did not originate from her culture.   But this did not stop me from having difficult (to put it mildly) bouts of figuring out just who and what I was!  

I can imagine what the children of these slave women must have gone through in trying to understand why they didn't have the same physical configurations of either of their parents, where their mother came from, and the whole sorry predicament they found themselves in.  Surely, whether they "made it" in life or didn't, some of those women would have talked to their children about where they came from and how they were taken away from their homes and villages - what would the children have felt?     Would those women and their children and grandchildren wish to affirm such a heritage?     Or would it be put in the back of the mind - as a shameful episode to be blotted out?

History poses some troublesome dilemmas.

As an afterthought:  for such heinous crimes like Corruption and Slavery, we always condemn the one who takes the bribe and the trader who sells the slaves.  However, I think justice is better served  if the corruptor, the one who gives the bribe, and the purchaser who creates the market for slaves do not go unpunished.

And all I wanted was a little escapade into my books to see me through the lockdown!!

APA SEBAB BURUNG TERBANG?

I have finished my postings (which I said I would do) on Remember Me -2 and Remember Me - 3.  But they have to remain in cold storage.

After I posted Remember Me - 1; on the very next morning I clicked on to it - and ..........

This was what I got (minus the part in the rectangle enclosed in black) and the address of my blog in the space in the paragraph above.

So readers to Ash, you have been warned that this is a deceptive site and and I just might "reveal your personal information, e.g. passwords, phone numbers, credit cards etc".

Aaah!  "Social Engineering"

What does that mean?

Really!  Did I do all that??

So, I got my knuckles rapped.   Sorry Sir/Madam, Sorry Boss/Madam, Sorry Guv/Madam.  I promise not to .........   

From now on I shall only write about food, fashion, celebrities, cars, Bitcoin, property investment ...... and nice fluffy rabbits!!!

What about Sinovac and prezzies and donations?

Can I make a mention of a teeny-weeny bit of Apartheid?

Pretty please?

As Malaysia is struggling with the horrendous rise of Covid 19 cases, we and the rest of the world are counting on the vaccines to counter this Third (?) Wave that is bringing chaos to our lives and our livelihood.

As usual, this boils down to accessibility and cost.  Last year we were fighting for ventilators.  This year the saviour vaccine becomes the main issue. Read ...

https://www.dailynews.lk/line/anis-chowdhury-and-jomo-kwame-sundaram 

Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram, of course, is a well-known Malaysian academic appointed to the now-defunct Council of Eminent Persons created by the last Government led by Dr Mahathir when Pakatan Harapan won a resounding victory in the 2018 Malaysian General Election .    Well, Dr Jomo is concerned with vaccine apartheid - but aren't we all?

Let's consider Penang.

Just recently and it's still ongoing, there has been quite a bit of kerfuffle with Penang over the Sinovac vaccine.

It seems that Penang has been given 2 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine .... but .....

There are several issues here.

1. Sarawak got the approval to buy.  How did Penang manage to get a gift of 2 million doses?  Who is the donor and why the handout?  Surely there is a difference between  a donation and a purchase.

Donation

Purchase

2. The application was submitted on 15 February but  ......... come May, even .....

Still waiting for approval.

3. Malaysia, on 23 April  allowed conditional registration of Sinovac.  Singapore was still making an assessment on 18 May.

It was left to the Chinese Embassy to highlight the arrival of Sinovac in Singapore.

....... and furthermore,

Just three questions.  

1.  If this Sinovac came free - who is the kindly donor? Is it from an individual or an Institution or commercial benefactor? 

2.  Why to Penang only?  Smacks of some kind of special selectivity, or a variation of apartheid?  Is it a reflection of the irresistible charm of the DAP government of Penang?

3.  What if Kelantan or Trengganu received such a  "gift"?  That would be branded as Ketuanan Melayu.

The moral of the story is :  Troy was brought down - after a long siege by the Greeks - when they brought into the city what they regarded as a gift of  a wooden horse that the Greeks had left behind.

The phrase "Trojan horse" is derived from;

Somewhat like "musuh dalam selimut"?

Hence we get the term "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts".

Greeks bearing gifts.

But be assured this posting is not a Trojan Horse.

Fingers crossed, I hope big brother does not deem AsH as a "deceptive threat" again.

Tanya sama burung

Apa sebab terbang.

Nanti jawab burung

Sayap digunakan.

Sauce for the Goose and Sauce for the Gander - Kong Hee Fatt Choy

 The Gander snarls  .....

Mr Lim's displeasure.

The Goose reminisces .....

But "the goose is cooked".  (It's an idiom meaning "the good times are over".)  Thanks to Covid 19.

One of the the caretakers in the Kitchen explains.....

Ash reckons .....

If only Hari Raya had been on February 12, 2021,  we could have had our celebration at the Pasar Malam or the Car Wash or at the Barbershop too!  Furthermore, there would be an improvement in hairstyle for all Malaysians!  And, this time, the B40s, the employees and their Taukehs would have been able to earn and bring home a bit more 'lui'  (money in Hokkien) for the family to celebrate an auspicious occasion.

Besides (and before Covid 19), Malaysians in Malaysian Malaysia have already been afflicted by another Virus, this time from the West - a virulent global bug known as Victimitis and MeTooitis.  It has developed most especially among the comfortable (and more 'civilised') urban denizens.  It is an offshoot of the Human Rights Crusade.  Unlike the invisible virus of Covid 19, this one is very, very conspicuous and in-your-face.

Everybody and anybody can put on the mantle of Victimhood.  But nobody wants to talk about their blessings or their responsibilities - only their self-entitlement.

Finally, as an anak jati Semenanjung Tanah Melayu, I hold my head in my hands and I fall back in despair of my heritage.

                                       I am standing with one foot in the grave.

Get Cracking Malaysia!!

 Heavens to Betsy, OMG, Goodness Gracious Me!!!!!!

This will not do Malaysia. 

13 January 2021 -  Declaration of  the return of the MCO. 

14 January - Heavens forbid. An Emergency was announced by the Paramount Ruler.  We are seeing the death of democracy and freedom in this country. 👎 Bring out the black flag (and maybe the yellow T-Shirts?), get the Petitions going, 👊 especially if you see yourself as the Saviours (Hallelujah) and guardians  of the Rakyat's Free Spirit (hic! hic!) and especially as you are dedicated to bringing back the Mandate given by the People in 2018.

24 January 2021 - More wailing and wringing of hands, more gloating and self-righteousness.  WOT! it has been 11 days since the MCO and the cases are still skyrocketing , now hovering at 4,000.

This will not do!   We must petition for Parliament to return, challenge the legality of this minority, backdoor Government.  We shall show them how.

So this is our plan.

LET'S HAVE AN ELECTION.  

LET'S ELECT A NEW GOVERNMENT FOR A NEW (SERIES 2) MALAYSIA.

LET'S HAVE ANOTHER SABAH-STYLE ELECTION AND EXTEND IT TO THE REST OF THE NATION - BRING THE 'SABAH VIRUS' TO MALAYA.  (Remember the speech made by the Sponsor of THE VIBES in September 2020 when he said, amongst other paeans of praises to Sabah, "Malaya has an infection and Sabah/Sarawak is the antibiotic we desperately need."!!)🙏

LET'S ANOINT A NEW PRIME MINISTER :     PRIME MINISTER  TUN/TAN SRI/DATUK SERI/DATUK/DATO/ ENCIK/MR  and maybe DATIN ..xyz... THE IX.  

MALAYSIA IS NOT SHORT OF AMBITIOUS WANNABES WHO, LIKE IZNOGOUD, WANT TO BE PRIME MINISTER INSTEAD OF THE PRIME MINISTER.     

(Explanation for the young and deprived: When I started buying Iznogoud Comics in 1975, I never thought how apt it would be to the politics of my Tanah Air wef from 2019.

The Authors, Translators and Publisher.

Here's the rallying cry of The Great Revoluton and Struggle of the Brave People of  Malaysian Malaysia.

There are many,many Iznogouds in Malaysian Malaysia, both covert and overt. Some are blatant, some are by proxy.

And in the end, it will all come true, maybe in a few months' time, perhaps in a year, perhaps never? 

I highly recommend this masterpiece as essential reading for the undergrads and lecturers in Malaysia's Institutes of  Higher Learning.  There's a video version available on YouTube for the hi-tech generation who are not accustomed to reading print (though the printed version is far superior, not tainted by the accent), for our budding young politicians and gung-ho social media personnel.

But not before Covid 19 tears this nation into shreds (especially the Rakyat)   However the ambitious, rich and powerful will survive, a sort of  culling of the weak and inefficient and unenterprising,  indolent, lazy and pursuing a deficient value system.  (Now where have I heard that before - Charles Darwin??  Naahh! Darwin's more intellectual than that.)  

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

That's enough frivolity AsH.  You are getting high on your Kopi Kampung!  Let's get back to basics, to please the chorus (sometimes raucous) of disapproval about Malaysia's Peformance in controlling Covid 19.  We are not doing enough to curtail Covid 19. But tell me which country has?

As I am fortunate enough to put  my feet up to rest in two cities, Kuala Lumpur (12 years) and Leicester (36 years), let me make a comparison of some salient features of these two countries that I call my home.

Comparison of Covid Cases as on 23 Jan 2021

                                  Population                Cases                   % of total population affected

UK                            67.88 million             3.58 million                                5.28 percent

MALAYSIA                32.7 million            176 K                                          0.538 percent

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Comparison of Covid deaths as on 23 Jan 2021

                                          Cases                        Deaths                       % of deaths

UK                                   3.58 million               95,981                         2.68 per cent

MALAYSIA                    176 K                        660                               0.375 percent

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Comparison of Economic Ranking

                                           Ranking                                       GDP

UK                                     6th largest in the world                $2.638 Trillion

MALAYSIA                      39th in the world                          $336 billion 

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*  1 Billion  =  1000 Million 

*   1 Trillion  =  1000 Billon

C'MON MALAYSIA, THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU RENEWED THE MCO AND IMPOSED THE EMERGENCY.  YOU ARE TRYING OUR PATIENCE!!!!  😡😡

Oh yes, must not forget this contribution by a Sabah researcher Dr Audrey Teh Yi Hui working in London who lamented " I'm from Malaysia where we don't have state health care and I've seen families bankrupted by medical bills."

See  https://anaksihamid.blogspot.com/2020/11/dr-audrey-yi-hui-teh-kota-kinabalu-lass.html

Finally ; .........

.......  yesterday our dear friend in Leicester sent us this picture of their garden.

Jackie's and Julia's garden, Leicester 25 Jan 2021.

Jackie wrote : Yes, hope you're both ok, apart from homesick?  The Covid situation here is dire, Leicester hospitals struggling, and on the local radio they were saying they need more mortuary space.

Jackie is a retired SRN (State Registered Nurse) and Julia is still serving in Leicester's NHS.

To all the Frontliners in Leicester and Malaysia, keep up the splendid work.  We are rooting for you.

This is the country that Covid 19 built

The nursery rhyme 'The house that Jack built' was one of the Nursery Rhymes I learned during my colonial education.   (You can read the complete rhyme here:  This is the house that Jack built)

It begins with these lines.

This is the house that Jack built.

This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the rat, 

That ate the malt,

That lay in the house that Jack built.

It's a long rhyme with a bouncy repetitive beat that we kids loved to recite.   But this short bit is enough - for in those few lines it sums up the state of Malaysia.

We have too many rats (and it's not just because this is the Year of the Rat) that ravish and gorge on the bags and bags of 'Malt'  ( resources, opportunities, wealth) that Malaysia has to offer.

Ever since 1789, this nation has  operated and thrived on the basis of the SAS motto of  'Who dares, wins'.  Of course most would connect this to the ethos that to be a winner you have to be enterprising and courageous.

And this subscribes very much to the Judaeo-Christian philosophy/culture, as reflected in this 18th Century tract.

Figure 1

It's such crooked thinking to suggest that it requires little perseverance or exertion of labour to achieve the barest necessities of life. In the case of Malaysia, say that to the faces of the fishermen and rice farmers, the market and pasar tani stallholders, the hawkers and warung keepers, the FELDA pioneers, the road-sweepers, the Grab and Panda delivery service riders, the taxi drivers and bus drivers in the urban centres.  That 'luxuries' and their 'consumption' will inspire men to be more industrious is even more ridiculous - for what this actually does is to enable the 'persevering and industrious' to make big profits and then create indebtedness among the 'savage and uncivilized hordes' and the 'indolent and dissipated'.  And the Malays have been tarnished again and again by some of our brethren (and others) with that word 'indolent'.  

Well, what hope is there for an indolent Malay to become an entrepreneur owning 26 factories or so?

As always it's back to basics, back to the hard, raw data.

It looks like even the Hokkiens, on losing 'official support'  were 'hard-pressed to compete with the Portuguese' and had to play second fiddle.

Is there actually a dividing line between the huasheng and the huaqiao?  

The above came from :

Yesterday, I was appalled to learn this.

First we had the spike from Sabah, thanks to our bog-standard quality of politics, politicians and democracy in Malaysia.  Now we have contributors from our own home-grown bog-standard (?) entrepreneurs, the kind that J R McCulloch   (see Figure1 ) was rooting for in constructing a civilized and productive society.

Who and what is Top Glove?  But first, a song about an ant and rubber tree plants, a silly old ram and a billion kilowatt dam. Nothing's too daunting if you want to be Top Dog in any field of power and wealth.

                                         That's the spirit for entrepreneurs par excellence!

As for Top Glove, here's just a little window on its makeup.

From Wikipedia

                                                       -----------------------------------------------

Yesterday, we ventured out for our usual Wednesday morning walk around the little lake at Sri Rampai followed by tosay at our favourite Mamak restaurant located within a shoplot of motor workshops and motor accessories shops.  On our way along Jalan Jelatek, I  saw a young lass ( I think she deserves the word 'lass', unlike our "Kota Kinabalu lass" -  5 November posting)  minding a little stall selling nasi lemak Gombak.  Jalan Jelatek is a busy, messy, gloomy, horrible road, which looks  like a scene from a dark Gothic movie. The massive construction of the 6-lane elevated highway is a ghastly scar on what was once a dual carriageway separated by a line of trees on the divider. 

Note the elevation of the flyover, about the height of 4 to 5 floors, and its proximity to the condominium on the right.

In all the years since 2007 when we were  driving along Jalan Jelatek, we have never, ever seen a single stall operating along this stretch.  It's such an unlikely place because of the heavy and fast traffic, because of the hideous flyover that blocks the sunlight.  You would not  expect any driver to stop to buy whatever you're selling.  But this child ( in the eyes of a 76 years-old AsH) was there, a solitary, forlorn and hopeful young woman.  In the midst of this cruel pandemic, she was trying her best to earn a little living for herself and her family.      

At 7.30 a.m., the traffic was all travelling on the far lanes, so few cars went past this lass and her stall.    Had she set up next to the busy lane, which was lined with bollards, few people would have been able to stop even if they wanted to    On the side she had sited her stall, there was room to operate - but there was virtually no traffic....and so almost no customers.      

We salute her, her immense courage and spirit.

This morning, we drove along that same stretch .....

A Kuala Lumpur road in the midst of rapacious 'development'.

There she sits, Putri Peniaga Melayu, surrounded by all the paraphernalia constructed by and which enriched the likes of Mr Koon Yew Yin and his entrepreneur-soul-mates.

I recall the words of Koon Yew Yin when he 'fretted' over what the hell is wrong with the Malays! And he was quite clever to quote the words of a Malay who does not wince at condemning his fellow Malays.  For Mr Koon, this is seperti bulan jatuh di riba!  This is indeed how the  Malays can be used to screw their fellow - Malays.  Aaaah si Luncai!!

One day, maybe, that young girl or her anak or cucu will be able to be more successful than Koon and his tong pao.  Maybe one day they will pick up the tactics and  tips from the writings and experience of the taukeh himself.

Or maybe Mr Koon would say "Oh yes. And pigs can fly".

However, my Putri Peniaga does not need to be a  Flying Pig.  She has to seek a life that is more meaningful than money can buy even as .....

Hasrat laksana tasik berlian,

Tidakkan hangus walau dibakar.

Tetap kuduga dalam lautan,

Biar terputus kail sejengkal.

We bought several packets of nasi lemak and karipap for our breakfast and our neighbours'.

As we left, I asked her to awas and jaga diri baik baik as this is not a safe place for a young girl to be on her own.  I hope she will be able to move to a more secure location.  As it is, the streets near us are already chocka-block full with stallholders desperately trying to make a living.  A year ago there were maybe ten; now there are at least fifty.   We get different groups of hopeful entrepreneurs during the early morning, midday and evening slots.  Furthermore some of our well-heeled middle class Malay neighbours are irritated because one of them has a problem getting her Mercedes through the clutter of customers at the stalls.  The other exclamed, "I thought this is an elite area!". 

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?