Malaysia After Hindraf Forum (A Long Summary)

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After the blackest day I have ever had the misfortune to experience in my adult lifetime, I really needed to take my mind off things and engage myself instead with other people as I have been sitting at home and moping for the past few days. So I went to a forum Not the greatest of cures, but I bring you what happened tonight, so be nice

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The Civil Rights Committee of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH) would like to invite you and your friends to attend a public forum titled “Malaysia After the Hindraf Rally”.

The details are as follows:
11/12/2007
7.30pm (showing video clips); 8 pm (forum starts)
Auditorium, 1st Floor, KLSCAH

Language: English

Panelists:
1) Sivanesan, lawyer, HINDRAF (he came!)
2) Dr. Kumar, Central Committee member of PSM (came too)
3) Dr. Dzulkifli Ahmad, Director of PAS Research Centre and central working committee member (arrested, couldn’t make it)
4) Haris Ibrahim, human rights lawyer & initiator of The People’s Parliament project (couldn’t make it)

5) Nathaniel Tan, Information Bureau , PKR (attended and was his witty self).

6) Special Branch (saw a few sitting in the corner, hello!) 

Chairman:
Wong Chin Huat (vice-chairman, CRC) (also was arrested, couldn’t make it)

The rally organized by the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) has brought the nation’s and the world’s attention to the perceived discrimination of Indian Malaysians in religion, culture and economy. The huge estimated turnout of 20,000 to 30,000 despite heavy road blocks, harassment and intimidation by the police spoke volume of the intense discontent within the Indian community. Such expression is unprecedented and phenomenal considering the Indian community has always been one of the strongest supporters of the ruling BN coalition.

The Civil Rights Committee of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH), like many others in the civil society, sees this as a national rather than ethnic issue. It goes beyond the Hindraf lawsuit against the UK Government. All Malaysians and especially the government have now deep soul-searching to do. The dissatisfaction and frustration of the participants will not go away and cannot be answered simply by more intimidation, denial or accusation of communalism.

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The talk was held in the theater area of the KLCAH, second floor, and was full. We had only standing room towards the end. I’d say 50 percent were Indian, followed by 30 percent Chinese and 20 percent Malays. The forum was conducted largely in English, which was kind of bad, but I guess people understood what was said, due to the crowds response, either nodding of heads, or clapping, or loud woots (this came usually when a good point was made), or the boos (when Samy Vellu or other MIC bedfellows were mentioned)

The started screening videos from Malaysiakini first, during, before and after the HINDRAF rally, as well as the mainstream media’s news reports. I think this was somewhat informative, I hadn’t seen many of them videos, as for some reason Malaysiakini.tv refuses to load on my mac. Ah well. I’ll state again, the police were brutal. But, most of you reading with the exception of one or two know this. Moving along.

They started the forum with Dr. Jeya Kumar’s speech. Here’s some of his points:

Most Indians did not take to the streets for the money, or rather due to the 14 trillion USD / 7 mil USD per person claims. Nor did they want to hoist the Queen’s picture out there for no reason. They went to meluahkan perasaan, about how they’ve been feeling for the past few decades.

Dr. Kumar went on to highlight the problems faced by the Malay working class youth, and the Mat Rempit phenomenon, and related it to the social ills Indian working class youth are also faced with. He made the point that, despite being Bumiputera’s, these youth who are in the Mat Rempit gangs are not on the receiving end of the affirmative action policies supposedly put in place for the Bumiputeras. Due to this, and the lack of the trickle down effect, they too are resentful and angry about their situation.

Basically, Dr. Kumar believes this is a class war, from what I understand, and not that based along racial lines as many are trying to portray. The working class in Malaysia, which makes up a large majority – are suffering greatly due to cheap foreign labour supplied by the endless amount of immigrants who will work for lower wages, and even less security on the job, and are very easily cheated in Malaysia by their employers. This, has effectively lowered the bargaining power of the people when it comes to getting an increase on their wages. If they don’t turn up for work, or complain, they will be very easily replaced with a Nepalese or Indonesian who will be willing to do the job for much less. It doesn’t help, says Dr. Kumar, that the cost of living too has increased and that the “working class are under a tremendous amount of pressure because the the economic policies are pro-corporations.”

Currently, Dr. Kumar says that 75 percent of Malaysians are wage earners. He illustrated their situation with a cartoon, saying these wage earners were trapped between the capitalists and the government. And this trap he said, was something that ALL wage earners across the board, Malays, Indians and Chinese, were facing. These policies he said, allowed for no ethnic discrimination and was happening to all as the secular/left of centre voices were slowly killed off. In the economic terms, nothing is really racialised. However, the analysis in the news and in politics were the ones that racialised everything – and these reports were the ones that focused on other races feeding from the economic pie.

Post HINDRAF, Dr. Kumar believes that there are definitely ethnic tensions in the air, fuelled by the government. Which, has refused he says, to even take into consideration the genuine complaints of the people who walked that day. “The government has not evens set up any commission of inquiry, but instead are arguing over semantics and inciting the people. Other relevant information brought up by HINDRAF has been pushed aside, while they continue to demonise the memorandum.”

Michelle: Which is why, from the beginning, I’ve distanced myself from the movement in HINDRAF and have been critical of their methodology, which I still believe is the most important facet in any movement, next to their cause. They government needed a reason, they didn’t have one after the professional and clean manner BERSIH was conducted. HINDRAF was just ripe for the picking. I mean, come on, these people are waiting to pick on you for the slightest thing. Going out there with all these loaded terms and language, just drove the stake right into the cause. YES, it mobilised people, but at what, and who’s cost? Sigh.

Dr. Kumar then continued to say the move to go to India, was a bad one. It gave the impression to many that HINDRAF was looking at Indian as the motherland, which is hardly true (Michelle: Yeah, most of us are third generation Malaysians for God’s sake, my motherland is Malaysia, however much other Malaysians deny me this right). He continued to say that the attempted murder charge was ridiculous, as the crowd didn’t fight back, and there was hardly any damage.

Then, he mentioned a very relevant point. The punitive damages suffered by the 31 are going to be really bad. These 31 are already working class mostly, they will now be suffering even more. No money coming in for their families, no money to pay rents/loans. He reiterated again, the government should have formed a commission. These people now can’t post bail, and their families will suffer for the next year, or as long as the case goes on. He also said, instances like this feed the perception that Indians are the “anak tiri” in Malaysia.

He applauded Harakah for addressing the issue in their newspaper that UMNO was using HINDRAF fully for political mileage (this recent edition). He also highlighted that affirmative policies to eradicate poverty irrespective of race, like DSAI’s New Economic Agenda were more beneficial to Malaysians. He went on to say that the working class in the country, should get together and fight this scourge together, without any race based agendas. “It’s good that Indians are not apathetic anymore, but we have to fight this together.”

He made some valid suggestions for the government (Michelle: Which I have no doubt they will ignore! ) to allow bail for the 31, and to stop bullying the people with the attempted murder charge. He highlighted other groups like the Mat Rempit’s and the Orang Asli who were also suffering and mentioned that so far, development in Malaysia has favoured the rich and not the workers in the country – effective class division. He said Parti Socialis Malaysia was heavily critized for not mobilizing their members, but they had to take a principled stand, because HINDRAF under the banner of race was only addressing a small part of the problem and not effective enough for a long term solution. Dr. Kumar ended by saying it was a time for political education and the effective dissemination of information to encourage debate on a broad based multi-ethnic movement.

Sivanesan

He’s one of the lawyer’s with HINDRAF, as soon as he walked in (and when he was walking out) people started clapping, wanting to shake his hand (not just the Indians, but the Chinese and Malays too) with a bit more fervour than for the rest of the speakers. He started by saying he didn’t want to be political, but it was unavoidable. Talked about Nazri (de facto Minister of Law) and said he had no respect for the ‘rascal’ as he was a Minister with no portfolio. “He’s no Minister to me.” Talked about newspaper reports where Nazri, had asked the Indian community to “not desert MIC in its hour of need.”

Sivanesan mentioned that 87 percent of Indians had always been BN supporters, until 25th of November, when there finally was a change in the Indian community. “To the Malay brothers and sisters who felt attacked, it was never our intention. The government is misleading the people.” (Michelle: Hmmm, let’s look at the memorandum again. I know they mentioned UMNO, but most of it when unclarified, and it was really damn annoying.) Sivanesan also challenged the government to an open debate about the issues at hand.

“That Samy Velu is another rascal. Giving figures in the paper of how Indians are doing well. Two weeks ago he said we have food and clothing, what else do we need!” He asked out of the 18 public universities, how many did Samy know which had a VC, or even a Deputy VC [who was Indian] (Michelle: I’m a bit unsure about this part.) “Why can’t we [Indians] contribute to the nation, why can’t we contribute to the development? It is a genuine request we have to the constructing of this nation.”

He went on to mention how on the 25th of November, it was the first time the police [and FRU] really “Kerja siang dan malam. The courts were open til 9, hearing submissions too. We don’t want to run down the government, but the Indian community and the Malay community have been taken for a ride. We are two very trusting communities, at least the Chinese, they have some reservations first.”  He said that with Samy Vellu, Pandithan [and his caste politics] then with Kayveas, the entire community was taken for a ride by those “rascals.”

(Michelle: I get what he’s saying, but I really can’t stand speeches that hit on racial lines like his clearly was doing, somewhat of a good observation, but still… Sigh) Sivanesan then talked about how in Simpang Renggam, almost 40 percent of the inmates were inmates, and how this was not normal, as Indians have always been law abiding citizens. He told a story about his father, who used to take him around in a bike, and his father respect for the police. “He used to carry me on his bicycle on the back, like those Lat comic, and he would stop at the police station, get off the bike and walks past. So I asked him one day why he did it, and my father told me it was because he was respectful, and also because he didn’t have a light on his cycle.” (joke)

So, Sivanesan asked, how did these law abiding citizens end up this way? On the streets? He highlighted the misinformation by the media, about how the crowds were unruly. Then he told us how HINDRAF started as a small movement in Negeri Sembilan, teaching religious classes. And how they eventually got involved in conversion cases like that or Moorthy’s, where he was counsel. Tomorrow he’s supposed to get the verdict, for a case that’s been going on since 2005, but it’s not going to happen. He then talked about how easy it was for the Syariah courts in Malaysia to give out an ex parte injuction, “Sorry to all my Muslim brothers and sisters, but it takes 30 minutes there. And it took me three days in the Federal court to get an order to even try and get the body. So they got the body.”

“There were 2000 Muslims waiting for us outside, we ran for our lives, where were the police then?”

He also said he didn’t want to justify Uthaya’s use of the word ‘ethnic cleansing’ as it was Uthaya who used it, and it has a much wider meaning.  He also mentioned the Rayappan conversion case briefly, and the Taman Medan case, and the Kampung Jawa case.

Most importantly he told us some more personal details about the 31, which were quite frankly sad. “Among them are an 18 year old with a hole in the heart, a 72 year old man, and a man whose is a kidney patient. The judge asked us where is the medical report, and told us the dialysis card was not enough. Then the AG says these people are a threat to security. I told them, they came with not even a broomstick, they had nothing, it was the police who were fully equipped that day. And he should be doing bigger cases, like Altantuya’s.”

One nice moment. “I have to tell you, today Uthaya’s bail of RM 50K, Rm 9632 was donated by our Malay brothers and sisters, and Chinese as well. It’s the government who is saying we are anti-unity. Khairy the one that waves the keris around. They misled us, told us Uthaya was being taken to Cheras, but he’s being held in Pudu jail. Basically, we don’t want to harm anyone, we just don’t want to be third class citizens anymore, in fact the Indonesians are third class citizens, we may be worse.” (Michelle: That was said in a joke-y way. Then he left to go back to the jail).

Nathaniel Tan

He started with justice being under siege. Commented on how we observed a minute of silence for the arrested, and how we have remained silent for too long, with a government that stole money, ignored the marginalized, stopped freedom of assembly, so got us all to stand and clap for a minute. And we did. It was nice.

He mentioned how we are currently fighting a media war, and how him and his girlfriend, went out to malls over the weekend, and everyone is so oblivious to what is going on. (Michelle: This is true, I noticed it especially today, when I was feeling all weepy in Bangsar, and everyone just went about their day, not even knowing that it was probably the darkest hour in Parliament. Sigh.)

He asked us to tell our friends about what was going on, to inform people. He complimented Uthaya for speaking out and saying to Utusan, “HINDRAF hanya memusuhi UMNO.” Told us to not take an emotional response to this, asked HINDRAF to change their method and words, because they were alienating a wider cause, and many would not understand him. (Michelle: How true!) “No community can fight this alone. And this is not an Indian problem, it’s a Malaysian problem. If HINDRAF continues on this racial line, they will not acheive thier end goals. Stop talking about it as a Hindu/Indian issue.”

“Don’t equate Malays to UMNO either. Lots of Malays can’t stand UMNO! (laughter from the crowd) Be fair and open your eyes people. Don’t let the problems in your community make you blind to the problems in other communities. Look at Kampung Berembang, that was a Malay kampung. Take the moral high ground, like Gandhi, as a leader, you cannot say “I cannot rule out violence.” You can’t say that!! If you stand up, and you stand your ground with your Malaysian flag, and your picture of Gandhi, the government cannot do anything, they will fall like the British Empire.” (loud applause)

Nat went on to say, this was the first line getting thrown down, and soon they would come for the second and ultimately when all these people were taken, we would be left standing, and we would have to step up. “Because if you don’t it will destroy us and this country.”

He made some good points. About how the PM mentioned ‘no one is above the law.’ Well then PKFZ? Khairy at KLCC, Altantuya?

Public safety? Well, he mentioned how well Pas Unit Amal took care of us, and how everything was so safe at BERSIH, what with their human chains to protect us from them, and them from us, at the rally. “500 police personnel on Sunday, where were they with Nurin’s killer? The floods in Johor? Now PM is okay with ISA, it’s like he suddenly woke up. Go read Malik Hussein’s accounts of being in ISA and the torture you go through. If Abdullah signs that detention form, it’s him effectively taking a stick and beating the detainees, and it’s blood on his hands. They think it’s a joke, but let me tell you, once you cross the line with the ISA, there is no going back. And these people are not even afraid of God, they can say these sort of things.”

Nat ended with asking people to keep standing together and bring to light unjust people and the unjust government. To persuade and understand people, and not to scold those who don’t understand.

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/END!

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