Are Communal Policies in any Society a must?
With regard to a TIME Magazine article published 3 months ago, I believe we should see that this whole issue of HINDRAF in Malaysia which caused a big “hoo-hah” in the regional community of SEA had constantly revolved around the theme of Communal policies, not as an independent factor in itself, but rather we should cast light on this whole event in a way that we see it as an effect of the Communal policies in Malaysia, as ultimately, the HINDRAF Rally is a smaller subset of the large umbrella of Communal policies, of which encompassed the main theme we are exploring in this social commentary.
Now, by looking at the notion presented in the Article, it had implicitly asserted that communal policies are the fundamental causes for the current low standards of livings for the Indians, and ultimately set the trigger factor for the start of the HINDRAF Rally.
With reference to the context of Australia, whose employment of these forms of policies decades ago acted against the indigenous people living in Australia where all the economic, social, political policies employed by Australia in the mid 20th century were only favoring the White Australians, discriminating against the welfare of the Indigenous people, we do see that these discriminatory policies from the Australian government over a period of 30 years had only allow the Whites in the society to advance at an exponential rate while the aborigines were in a stasis state, as without the support of the government, it is near impossible for the aborigines to advance economically, socially and politically on their own. This resulted in the Whites and aborigines being segregated from one another, causing Men to be distinctively alienated from one another, and thus setting the underlying basis for further implications down the road where the underprivileged will soon through peaceful or violent ways, address their grievances.[1]
Here, we can see that the context of Australia draws many parallels towards our case study on Hindraf today, in that Malaysia also employed the same style of communal policies that worked in favour for the Malays of which they were given many economic incentives when working and only they get to enjoy the many economic, social and political benefits over other ethnic groups, and this, which HINDRAF claimed caused the income inequality gap between the Malays and the Indians to rise significantly as the years past, and this is the fundamental reason why Indians in Malaysia remained as one of the least affluent community even till today.
We do see that the implications of the selective nature of communal policies do fall in line with the main idea of the ideas of the author of TIME article who asserted that “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”. This is a strong reflection[2] of which communal policies will lead on to the inequalities of different co-existing communities in the societies, in that segregations of the societies are existent, alienating different groups of people in the society, and this incentivized the need for the underprivileged population to through different ways and means, solve the problems in the society, either peacefully or violently.
The implications of these communal policies don’t stop as that, in that the underprivileged communities, usually through violent means, will cause disruptions in the society economically, politically and socially. The HINDRAF Rally for example, is in fact a “dormant volcano erupting”, releasing its grievances, hatred and anger built up over a period of years. Till now, the favoritism in the economic policies to Malay had lasted for more than 50 years and the HINDRAF Rally allowed the marginalized Indians to release all 50 years of their grievances under UMNO’s communal policies.
Though I am no staunch critic on any Communal policies as stated in the disclaimer, I personally believe that the implications of the communal policies as seen in the HINDRAF Rally should not be taken lightly for it is ultimately a representation of the people’s anger with the government and a change has to be brought forward to solve this situation. Now, in this article, the writer had managed to touch briefly on the possible negative implications of the HINDRAF Rally such as the possible political instability in the Federal government of Malaysia where the ruling party may fear losing its 2/3 majority in the government needed to fully control the government and manipulate the political situation, as what the TIME article had stated, the writer agreed with analysts that the political dimension in Malaysia will definitely be met with instability and tight competition, of which will upset the political situation there leading to instability in the government.
By drawing comparisons between Sri Lanka’s on-going conflict[3] between the Singhalese and the Tamils, we do see that the implications of Malaysia’s communal policies are not as serious as that of Sri Lanka presently, but we must not forget that it is already a symbol that the people are angry and want changes to the communal policies now, and the government should seriously take into considerations of the long term impacts on the society as if they refused to solve the current crisis, there will be a high probability for these small protests now to eventually erupt into a full-scale conflict between the Indians and the Malays, just like the current conflict between the Tamils and the Singhalese, which will of course, post much more problems than it is now.
Though the article had not placed great emphasis on the future implications that might develop later, I personally believe that they should tackle the problem when it is still easy as this segregation of classes in the society will always remain as a ticking time bomb until the problem is solved. Though the possible implications of these communal policies, as suggested by the author, is still insignificant now in that UMNO will still retain the control of Malaysia, I do hope that UMNO can still reformat its communal policies.
After all, losing a few seats in parliament is still way better than the long-term, everlasting impacts that will ultimately cause the country to be engulfed in possible conflicts and civil wars between the majority ethnic group and the minority groups in the long run.
----------------------------
[1] . It was due to this serious lack of sufficient education policies, health-care, economic incentives and policies to aid the Aborigines in coping with the globalizing world that resulted in only 39% of the Indigenous students could continue their education up to high school as compared to the 75% of the White Australians, the average incomes in the Aborigines annual income being only 60% of an average White Australian annual income etc.
[2] Here, I will like to bring forth the speech of Murugesan, one of the 5 leaders of Hindraf, where he argued against the current federal constitution of Malaysia and spoke in defense of HINDRAF, “Our community is backward, our schools are dilapidated. We are the last in the line for jobs, scholarships, health benefits”. Here he asserted that Malaysia’ communal policies that favoured the Malays had undoubtedly caused the Indians’ current low-standing position in the society as they were often left out in Malaysia’s economic developments, increase standards-of-living, allow modernization of the society, and all these constituted to Indians being underprivileged than other ethnic groups as ultimately, they were hardly included in the country’s economic improvement plans, causing deep segregation in the society between the wealthy, affluent and increased standards of living Malays and the poor, low-class Indians in the society, falling in line with the article’s original view that it was ultimately the communal policies that were the fundamental causes of the current low standards of the Indians in Malaysia. This is a strong reflection of which communal policies which will lead on to the inequalities of different co-existing communities in the societies, in that segregations of the societies are existent, alienating different groups of people in the society, and this incentivized the need for the underprivileged population to through different ways and means, solve the problems in the society, either peacefully or violently.
[3] The Sri Lankan government enforced communal policies that are much worse than that of Malaysia through its policies like the Official Language Act of abolishing the usage of Tamil in the society, much more discriminatory economic policies that clearly favour the Singhalese much more than the Tamils, the burning of the Tamil Library (which signifies the roots and traditions of the Tamils) that had led to the current “civil war” between the LTTE and the Government.
References
1. Kuppusamy , Baradan. "Facing Malaysia's racial issues." TIME 25 November 2007 4 March 2008 http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1687973,00.html
2.Siasoco, Ricco Villannueva Aboriginal Australia History and culture of Australia's indigenous peoples. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aboriginal1.html
3. Sri Lanka. (2008, March 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:27, March 7, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sri_Lanka&oldid=196298853
4. Indigenous Australians. (2008, March 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:28, March 7, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indigenous_Australians&oldid=196088499
5. Noor, Farish A. (2007 29 November). Hindraf, Communitarianism and the made-in Malaysia Dilema. Retrieved March 7, 2008, from The other Malaysia Web site: http://www.othermalaysia.org/content/view/132/52/
