Reference Article

Time Magazine

An excerpt from the Nov 26 Times Article by Baradan Kuppusamy
Facing Malaysia's Racial Issues





[1. It may have been one of Malaysia's most surreal demonstrations ever. On Sunday, an estimated 20,000 ethnic Indians brought Kuala Lumpur to a standstill for nearly six hours in the name of Queen Elizabeth II. They gathered in the thousands near the Malaysian capital's iconic Petronas Towers, waving giant posters with enlarged images apparently downloaded from the Internet, depicting the British monarch in full royal regalia, or in her Sunday best inspecting flowers in Kensington. One banner read in English and Tamil: THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND — THE SYMBOL OF JUSTICE, WE STILL HAVE HOPE ON YOU. Alongside the pictures of the queen, many protestors also hung images of Mahatma Gandhi around their necks to symbolize the non-violent nature of their march. The foreign tourists who hadn't already been driven out of the square by the crowds gawked and started taking photographs.

2. The demonstrators — mostly ethnic Tamils, the descendants of 19th-cetury indentured laborers brought to Malaysia from South India by British colonists — had planned to march on the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur's Ampang diplomatic enclave to submit a two-page memorandum urging the Queen of England to help them in a legal case brought against the British government. The class action suit, filed in London in August by the Malaysia-based Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) demands that the British government pay some $4 trillion in damages to atone for what the group calls the "150 years of exploitation" of ethnic Indians by their former colonial masters. Hindraf had organized Sunday's march to the High Commission in order to urge the Queen to appoint Queen's Counsel to argue their case, as the group cannot afford to pay the legal fees.

3. It's a worry many ethnic Indians share. Making up some 8% of Malaysia's population (Malays make up about 60 percent, ethnic Chinese about 25 percent), Indians are historically underprivileged compared to other ethnic groups and have long felt discriminated against, particularly by a Malays-first affirmative action policy instituted after independence in 1957. "Our community is backward, our schools are dilapidated. We are the last in the line for jobs, scholarships, health benefits," says opposition lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan, an ethnic Tamil. Hindraf, modeled after right-wing Hindu nationalist groups in India, is winning support by demanding an increased share of Malaysia's wealth. "For over a decade we have been appealing to the government for help to alleviate our poverty but all our appeals had fell on deaf ears," says Uthayakumar Ponnusamy, Hindraf's legal adviser. "The British brought us here, exploited us for 150 years and left us to the mercy of a Malay Muslim government. They should compensate us now." ]