Decency needed in migrants' plight

Decency needed in migrants' plight

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad may have suspended the
deportation of undocumented Filipinos from Sabah over the
weekend, but it is the undiplomatic remarks of his chief
diplomat, rather than his decisive action, that continues to roil
the waters between the Philippines and Malaysia.

Speaking of protesters who burned the Malaysian flag and
Mahathir's effigy outside the Malaysian Embassy in Manila,
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters in Kuala Lumpur
last Friday: "They have acted in an uncivilized way."

Apparently, to Syed Hamid, the democratic practice of vigorous
street protest is yet another sign that the barbarians are at the
gate. His remarks reinforce the international perception that the
architects of Malaysia's admittedly impressive economic growth
have struck a bargain with the modern-day devil; they have traded
off political freedom for economic security.

Flag-burning may be, quite literally, incendiary, but the
wider the democratic space the less danger this act of protest
poses to the polity. A fire inside a house may be a real hazard;
outside, in the open air, it is nothing more than a temporary,
flickering symbol of outrage. If Syed Hamid thinks that the
burning of his country's flag and the torching of his prime
minister's effigy are inherently dangerous, that may well be
because, in democratic terms, he lives in a small house. (And
somewhere in the cellar of that house ex-Mahathir heir apparent
Anwar Ibrahim lies in chains.)

Unfortunately, Syed Hamid also waxed indignant over the
alleged ingratitude Filipinos have displayed toward his country.

"Have they forgotten this is the place that their countrymen
earn a living? Is this how they show their appreciation?"

Funny he should ask, because that was exactly what the street
protesters had in mind. Because Sabah is the place where the
deportees earned a living, and because any which way you cut it
those deportees contributed their share to Sabah's economic
growth, the Filipinos who worked there deserve all due
consideration.

Whatever they may have lacked in official documents, they did
not deserve to be rounded up like cattle, caned like stray dogs
and then packed in floating tin cans like sardines.

Another Malaysian official sounded another variation on the
theme of ingratitude. After denying that any children had died at
the detention camp in Sabah, camp deputy chief Ismail Zakaria
said, "After what the government has been doing, the money we
have spent on these immigrants, this is the thanks we get."

Apparently, for Zakaria, "immigrants" like the thousands of
poor Filipinos who eke out a sorry existence in Sabah do not know
how to behave when they are detained without much food and
deported without much thought. For Zakaria, "immigrants" thus
detained and then deported should thank the Malaysian authorities
for grudgingly spending money on them, and treating them like
dirt.

He even had the courage to point out what is apparently a
unique feature of Malaysian penology, that staying in detention
was at the detainee's discretion. "But these immigrants, they
don't want to remain in the camp longer than they have to, so
they fear missing the boat home while they are in the hospital."

It is the Malaysian government that missed the boat -- of
simple fellow-feeling, of plain common decency -- on this issue.