Malaysians and their slaves
What’s more disgusting than the back alleys of Bukit Bintang? I’d say the way Malaysians treat migrant workers.
Maybe it’s a holdover from our days being colonised by the British but too many Malaysians I meet see these people who work as maids, labourers and janitors as beneath them.
Isn’t that rich? Malaysia was still a Third World country the last time I checked and these Malaysians see other fellow Asians as lower-class beings.
Those Indons. These Banglas. Those others. All said with a condescending tone as though we, Malaysians, are somehow better than them.
Let’s start with maids. Why do so many middle-class people act as though they’re entitled to maids? Somehow Malaysians have been brainwashed into thinking that paying these foreigners a pittance for doing a ridiculous amount of work is something they deserve.
“I don’t see why I should give my maid a day off,” one woman told me. “I already take her everywhere I go. They (the maids) are here to work. Not enjoy themselves.”
Maids are people. People need interaction. Freedom. Space. They are not beasts of burden for you to feed, shelter then work till they drop.
“You cannot be nice to these maids, Erna. Else they naik kepala (overstep themselves)” another maid “owner” said.
Get a trained dog, then. Or a monkey. You can chain them so they don’t run off with mates or steal your belongings.
Don’t even get me started on the women who make their maids carry their children while they walk in front, with the only things in their hands being their handbags.
You don’t deserve to be mothers because a real mother would know children grow too fast and the time you get to carry them is short and precious. A handbag can be bought and sold, but not your time with your children.
Doing the dirty work
Migrant workers come to our country with hopes and dreams, but find that here they’re paid a pittance for too much work. Not too long ago, Tesco Malaysia was charged with paying its workers less than RM300 a month for working up to 80 hours a week.
Labourers or factory workers often live in appalling conditions — their passports are often kept by their employers, as well as being housed in cramped makeshift shanties.
The ones who are lucky might get a day off. You’ll see droves of these migrants visiting our shopping malls or sitting outside Central Market. They’ll congregate in their own bunches while Malaysians ignore or avoid them.
Just watch the average Malaysian walk past them and note the discomfort, the way they pretend not to see these unwanted but necessary aliens.
But I suppose most Malaysians are far too affluent to have much empathy. Older generations walked miles to school. This generation buys their children cars so they can drive themselves to college.
Don’t Malaysians understand that in contrast to natural disaster-prone nations like Bangladesh or Indonesia, we’re just lucky? We have no volcanoes, tropical storms tend to pass us by and we get mere hints of tremors instead of full-blown earthquakes.
If things had been different, I wouldn’t be writing this rant on a laptop but washing my employer’s clothes, minding his children and perhaps fending off his unwanted sexual advances as the hapless maids in the Middle East endure.
We as a nation seem unable to comprehend the level of hardship and desperation it takes for a foreigner to leave home to be nothing more than human beasts of burden here. Is compassion as rare a commodity as is a sense of humour in this country?
We don’t want these people here, or so we act, but they don’t want to be here either.
They flee poverty and unemployment only to meet with squalor, backbreaking work and disdain.
The least they deserve are proper wages and decent living conditions. Yet we deny them those essentials as well as the one thing many Malaysians don’t think they deserve — their dignity.
Opinion
| Erna Mahyuni blogs aternamahyuni.comwhen not writing for a living or dabbling in the performing arts. Currently plays too much Dragon Age. |
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