Zahid Hamidi challenges Malaysians to do dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs for a pittance
Umar Mukhtar
In the short period since he became Minister of Home Affairs, Zahid Hamidi has said three things about the immigrant workforce that do not reflect his intellectual capacity to be fit for a minister in spite of his PhD, and what more a Deputy Prime Minister. God forbid if he should ever become our Prime Minister. These insights to his mentality are:
1. “Malaysians do not want to do dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs.”
Then he concluded by offering to solve the problem by giving the jobs to Bangladeshis who will flock by the millions, brought in by a certain company into Malaysia. It is as if to punish Malaysians who still have an apparent choice of saying no. Malaysia is just about the only country in the world where the number of its unemployed matches its foreign labour.
Where and how do these jobless Malaysians earn a living? I guess that is none of his business. He is only the Deputy Prime Minister. Does he even know that Malaysians do dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs too – but abroad. For the right pay, of course, not slave wages.
Just because Bangladeshis accept a much lower quality of life, that doesn’t set the standards of human dignity that Malaysians should accept. Bangladeshis spend their tenure as immigrant workers as near-slaves – living in unhygienic conditions, sometimes twenty to a house, eat rejected food, bullied by cops, punched by bloggers who became their own law, and these poor people send 80% of their earnings home.
So now Zahid also seems to be a promoter of these squalid conditions. Malaysians are not lazy, but they are not stupid either. Say what you want but Malaysians are not allowing themselves to be exploited by capitalists who are saving their unfair profits to escape Malaysia anyway. That brings us to the second idiotic thing Zahid said.
2. “It’s the industries who want these Bangladeshis, the government is just facilitating it.”
What a lame excuse! So, by that rationale, if the industrialists of Denmark want cheap labour, their government will flood Denmark with millions of slaves? No, Zahid, the Danes will make stuff here because of idiots like you. No way will smart people burden their country’s infrastructure. They get subsidised power, tax incentives and can still bitch about how stupid you are.
With increased industrialisation as a result of foreign capitalists and local exploiters, Malaysia’s GDP will increase to the pride of our government. Nobody talks of the gini coefficient, which will show the widening gap between rich and poor Malaysians. Isn’t it the responsibility of the government to take care of ALL Malaysians, not just the towkays?
3. “The government will be strict with immigration laws.”
Bah humbug! What ever happened to the loudly publicised 6P initiative of a few years ago, that cost millions of ringgit to the taxpayers? Any evaluation? Last I heard, like yesterday, the government is arranging to re-employ illegal immigrants who already here in Malaysia. You mean they are back again? Or they had never left? 6P was never implemented? Or the leakages are like there’s no bottom?
For that matter, I am tired of watching TV news snippets of foreign GROs allegedly working illegally, selling sex, squatting on the ground with their hair covering their faces and all that drama. It would be nice to balance that with snippets of their court trials too. Unless of course, there have been no trials, just back room deals – and so they are still here.
Just about every kopitiam, fast food joint and eateries use foreign workers as waiters. Hundreds of thousands of them. Suddenly a deputy minister, as if just awoken from sleep, warned them that they can only be employed in the back room as per the terms of their permits. The convenience stores too are now full of foreigners with dirty fingernails and smelly clothes. Owners just want to make money.
This infringement has been happening for years such that all the deputy minister needs to do is bring about a hundred trucks and cart them away from the malls. This does make it appear that Malaysia is a lawless or selectively lawless country. Employers just want bigger profits so they don’t employ locals because locals ask for more, it seems. So Zahid, damn the country’s future, let’s feed the kera in the forest for the sake of these employers’ greed.
I do envy the importer of these foreign labourers. He has his lucrative work cut out for him. Thanks to Zahid Hamidi.
