Change must come from within ourselves

COMMENT
By JOSEPH RAJ

At the end of the day, it is in the hands of the Indians whether they want to do better for themselves and their future generations. Street protests are definitely not the answer.

I DO not profess to know everything that is ailing the Indian community, but it has to be admitted that all is not well.

Some will argue that the community, which makes up about 8% of the population, has a decent, even an enviable, share of the economic pie in Malaysia.

But it has to be remembered that this is due to the fact that a few Indians have managed to do well in business as well as in professions such as medicine, law, engineering and accountancy.

The majority of Indians in the country are not as well off as their counterparts from the other communities. But this does not mean that Indians have to take to the streets to right what they perceive to be injustices done to them in the country.

Malaysia is a country that prides itself in achieving peace and harmony among the various races. As a matter of fact it is a success model of how people of various races and religions can work and live together to bring prosperity and success to themselves and the nation.

The MIC, which represents Indians in the Barisan Nasional coalition, says it is aware of the issues and problems confronting the community in the country,

“We believe in working from within the (government) system,” party president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said, referring to the illegal gathering organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

One must understand that the MIC faces an uphill task in uplifting the standards of many in the Indian community, whose roots are linked to the rubber and oil palm estates in the country.

Many Indians are either still in the estates or working as labourers and holding menial jobs to earn a living.

Many, however, have also wrangled free of the clutches of poverty due to their business acumen and education excellence. These Indians live a quality of life equivalent or even higher than their counterparts in the other communities.

Chances are their children and their children’s children will continue to do well in life due to the solid foundation provided by their successful parents.

The challenge that faces the community now is to emulate these success stories while the task before the MIC and other Indian social and economic organisations is to continue and further intensify efforts towards this ideal.

One needs to only look at the Chinese in Malaysia to realise what a good education can do. Ever insistent on quality education for their children, the community has become an economic powerhouse in Malaysia.

The Chinese have achieved this despite most of them also coming to the then Malaya as labourers and odd-job workers.

There must be a strong will among Malaysian Indians to emulate this and for the MIC and the Government to continue facilitating this endeavour.

For a start, the 25 leading Indian associations that rightly urged Hindraf to call off its illegal march to the British High Commission should perhaps come forward to help the MIC and the Government to help uplift the standard of living of the Indian community.

It would also be great for successful Indians to individually take the effort to sponsor or help the needy in the community.

Such good work may already be taking place but it will not hurt to double or even triple such efforts.

Parents must also ensure their children are serious about their studies and do well in school.

But at the end of the day, it is in the hands of the Indians whether they want to do better for themselves and their future generations. This, I know, is easier said than done but it is achievable.

Street protests like the one in Kuala Lumpur yesterday are definitely not the answer.

Such protests only seek to point out problems but do not strive to provide answers or solutions.

As an Indian, I believe we have the ability within ourselves to do better in life.

But the push should start from us, the Indians in Malaysia, with help from our friends from the other races, the MIC and the Government.

Source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/
2007/11/26/nation/19575192&sec=nation

Indians Are Not Marginalised, Says Azmi

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 (Bernama) — The Indians in Malaysia are not marginalised as claimed by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), the organiser of Sunday’s illegal assembly, a cabinet minister said today.

Pointing out that the rally was evidently politically motivated, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid said the Indians were given ample opportunities including advancing themselves in education.

Azmi said that during his visits to universities in Indonesia, the Caribbean countries and Russia, most of the Malaysian students studying medicine were Indians.

“Why must they talk about being neglected? We have more Malaysian Indians studying medicine in Indonesian universities compared with the Malays and other races.

“So from where the money came from? Definitely they got it from the opportunities to earn money in this country,” he told reporters after opening a conference on Forestry and Forest Products Research.

Illegal rallies would jeopardise foreign investments to the country which would in turn harm the nation’s economy and the people’s well-being, he added.

Thousands of Hindraf supporters gathered in the heart of Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to support the handing over of a petition to the British High Commission asking Queen Elizabeth II to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British Government for bringing Indians as indentured labourers to the then Malaya and exploiting them.

Hindraf has filed a US$4 trillion (RM13.5 trillion) suit in London claiming that the British were to blame for the marginalisation of Indians in Malaysia.

– BERNAMA

Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/
v3/news.php?id=298825

Indians say British caused economic woes

By JULIA ZAPPEI

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

Malaysian authorities charged three ethnic Indian activists with sedition Friday in an apparent attempt to stop a rally in support of a lawsuit that holds the British responsible for the Indians’ economic woes.

The $4 trillion lawsuit, filed in London in August, demands that Britain compensate Malaysia’s ethnic Indians — who comprise some 8 percent of the country’s 27 million people — for bringing their ancestors to then-Malaya as “indentured laborers” and exploiting them under colonial rule.

The Hindu Rights Action Force, a nongovernment group, hopes to gather 10,000 people to demonstrate outside the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.

Authorities have warned that the rally would be illegal and have thrown a security cordon around Kuala Lumpur, citing concerns of potential violence ahead of the protest.

Police arrested the Indian group’s chairman, Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy, his brother and a senior associate Friday. The three men were later charged in court with making seditious comments, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Two were freed on bail, but Waytha Moorthy remained in custody because he refused to post bail in a gesture of defiance. The court was scheduled to hear the case Monday.

Kuala Lumpur Police Chief Zulhasnan Najib Baharudin said police refused to issue a permit for the rally for security reasons and warned that protesters could face arrest. Malaysian law prohibits public gatherings of five or more people without a police permit.

“If there is any assembly, it’s unlawful,” Zulhasnan said.

Police have mounted security road blocks throughout Kuala Lumpur since Thursday, sparking massive traffic snarls.

Ethnic Indians, mainly Hindus, form one of Malaysia’s largest minority groups. Activists say more than two-thirds of them live in poverty, partly because they are deprived of opportunities by affirmative action policies that favor the ethnic Malay Muslim majority.

Government authorities have rejected claims of discrimination.

Police had earlier served Waytha Moorthy a court order forbidding the rally’s key planners from being present outside the British High Commission.

“We’ve told our people to continue” with the rally, Waytha Moorthy said.

A Malaysian human rights group, Suaram, called the arrests an “attempt by the police to intimidate and to prevent (activists) from exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression.”

The group plans to submit a petition Sunday urging Queen Elizabeth II to appoint lawyers to represent the Indians in the suit, which is meant to show that British neglect allegedly caused Malaysian Indians to remain economically disadvantaged after independence in 1957.

The planned rally would be the second street protest in Kuala Lumpur in less than a month. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse activists Nov. 10 at an opposition-backed rally that drew thousands of people demanding electoral reforms.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/
financialnews/D8T3HLD02.htm

Teargas used on rare Malaysia demo

The largest political protest in nearly a decade erupted in Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur, Saturday with riot police aiming water hoses and tear gas at thousands of protesters gathered to demand electoral reform.
art.malaysiaprotest.ap.gi.jpg

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur to demand electoral reform.

Opposition parties and civic groups demonstrated against alleged fraudulent activity in the electoral process and demanded an overhaul of Malaysia’s electoral commission ahead of general elections widely expected for early next year.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had vowed to suppress the demonstration, and on Saturday police had erected roadblocks and ramped up security in an attempt to close down the city’s center.

Nevertheless, in defiance of a government ban, between 30,000 and 40,000 demonstrators massed outside the royal palace in Kuala Lumpar, according to media reports. Opposition group leader and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim put the number much higher, claiming more than 100,000 people had gathered in the streets.

One witness said police fired tear gas and jets of “chemically-laced water” at hundreds of demonstrators who sought refuge in the city’s Jamek mosque and in commercial buildings.

“Squads of police are chasing hundreds of protesters along alleys and on the city streets,” the witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said blockades had been set up around the city to hem in demonstrators.

Photos of the crackdown showed protesters dressed in yellow t-shirts and head scarves shielding their heads as water from cannons blasted down on them.

New York-based Human Rights Watch slammed the rally ban and urged the government to support free speech ahead of elections expected to be called early next year.

“If Malaysia wants to count itself a democracy, it can begin by upholding constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. The way the system works now, only the ruling coalition can get its messages out,” it said.

Human Rights Watch said Malaysian elections have been sullied by vote-buying, the use of public resources by the ruling parties and accusations of bias against the Election Commission.

Malaysia has had only one party in power since 1957.

Speaking to CNN after briefly addressing the opposition-backed rally, Anwar said “we are demanding that the (election) process be cleansed. There are no such thing as fair elections in Malaysia at the moment.”

He said a memorandum detailing allegations of corruption by the commission had been handed to Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia’s constitutional monarch.

Malaysian law stipulates the sultan must give his royal assent to the commission after it has been appointed by the government.

Opposition party leaders, including Anwar, called the mass meeting to protest alleged fraudulent activity in the electoral process.

“This was an attempt to threaten the people. But I am very proud that Malaysians were not intimidated and turned out in such great numbers and that they behaved peacefully,” Anwar said.
advertisement

Anwar was heir apparent to former premier Mahathir Mohamad until 1998, when he was sacked and charged for corruption and sodomy.

The sodomy conviction was overturned, but the corruption verdict was never lifted, barring him from running for political post until next year.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/
asiapcf/11/10/malaysia.protests/