ANOTHER CRITICAL LOOK AT MALAYSIA

Wow. Even the US government is paying attention! Apparently the camel-corps over at State has realized that Malaysia's assaults on freedom of speech and freedom of the press should not stand. The Malaysian Charge d'Affairs, Mr. Ilango Karuppanan, was given a talking-to over the recent arrests of an oppositionists, a blogger, and a journalist.


Quotes:
"Peaceful expression of political opinions is a fundamental right and critical to a democracy,"

"The United States believes that the Malaysian government should provide due process and treatment consistent with Malaysian law and international standards,"

"We expect that democratic countries that purport to advocate free expression of political views will not curtail such freedom,"


[Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jaqcOFqlsYHyxjXfkbxuJcNRQ5_A ]


It should be stressed that the ruling powers in Malaysia do NOT believe in a fundamental right to express ANY political opinions - they tolerate such expression when it more or less agrees with their own ideas - nor does the Malaysian government adhere to international standards, save when convenient.

As for the expectation so eloquently expressed, such does not accord with Malay adat at all.

[Adat means traditional law and custom. The word is derived from Arabic. But the Malay interpretation means everything from enforced obedience to societal pressure and government dictat, to draconian legal measures against any form of dissent and non-Malay ethnic assertion.]



MALAY SOCIETY

The honourable Ilango Karuppanan has a less than enviable position; representing a society and a ruling class which fears dissent, independent thought, and outside influences. For such is the dominant ethos in Malaysia - an undereducated and superstitious agrarian hinterland occupied by Malay migrants from the coasts and the Indonesian islands, fiercely fearful of the influence and success of the urban Chinese and Indians who have made the peninsula prosperous, and the country viable as an independent nation.

[Malays originate in Sumatra and Riau predominantly, though there are Malaysian villages inhabited by the descendants of Javanese settlers, as well as Minang in Negri Sembilan. The dominant class in Malaysian Borneo are mostly carpetbaggers and the Malayized pirate classes of the coast, along with corrupt officials who have seized control of the natural resources in the upriver areas. The Buginese form distinct strata both in the peninsula and Borneo, but are nevertheless considered Bumiputra]


Twenty years of noteworthy service in Malaysia's foreign service also can not quite prepare even so intelligent an individual as Ilango Karuppanan for the promotion of what is essentially a system of apartheid; the legalized advancement and preference given to mal-educated Malays and Arabs-gone-native over qualified Indians and Chinese, the quotas and projects that benefit aforementioned Malays and Arabs-gone-native, and the legal privileges that being a Malay (or an Arab-gone-native) have.

[For background on Malay Apartheid and the term Bumiputra, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputra
and note especially the favoured position of Muslims. ]


Mr. Ilango Karuppanan himself may have some private objections to such a system - not being, strictly speaking, a beneficiary thereof.

[Bio of the honourable Mr. Ilango Karuppanan:
http://www.akronworldaffairs.org/programs/speaker_bios/karuppannan.html ]




HUMAN RIGHTS

Perhaps it is time for the rest of the world to stop passively accepting the Malaysian government's utterances at face-value, and actually start investigating the human rights abuses in that stalwart Muslim country?

I am sure that the activists of SUARAM could assist them in that regard, as well as all the people who have over the years been arrested and held indefinitely under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA) - including but not limited to human rights activists, activists of the ethnic and political minorities, plus lawyers, scholars, and people who have cast aside a former Islamic identity in favour of other religions.

Converts to Buddhism, Hinduism, or Christianity in Malaysia can certainly speak, from bitter personal experience, of the treatment they have received from their Muslim ex-coreligionists.
The experiences of reporters and politicians who at some point ran afoul of UMNO (United Malays National Organization - the major Malay political party) and were arrested under the Internal Security Act might also be instructive - ISA has in the past been used as a catch-all statute to squash dissent, punish recalcitrant politicians, and enforce the Mafia-like rule of local machers.

[For just one example of a reporter arrested arbitrarily, see here:
http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/12656/84/
and also read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7613754.stm]


If the world were to support the sincere and honest individuals in Malaysia in their attempts to improve their society, they would discover that Malaysians of all ethnicities have the capability to make Malaysia flourish. This is not a country that is starting from zero, these are not people without valid reasons for national and ethnic pride.
It is a great pity that the integration of Malaysia in the world economy has been at the expense of certain inalienable freedoms, and it is a tragedy that the international community has so profitably turned a blind eye to the rape of its own ideals.