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.