Nasution, TKI specialist

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

There is one piece of parental advice that M. Arif Nasution always keeps in mind: "Education should be the best guiding light in your life."

Nasution absolutely believes in this advice and therefore he puts it into full practice.

Thanks to this conviction he has devoted his life to education and he has reaped the rewards. He will soon become a professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the North Sumatra University (USU).

Nasution has always been especially interested in migrant workers' affairs. He has conducted various research, particularly those related to Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia.

He has published books on this subject, such as Mereka yang Ke Seberang (They Cross the Seas, 1996), Meniti Ombang Menggapai Impian (Riding on the Wave Reaching Dreams, 1997), Globalisasi dan Mobilitas Tenaga Kerja antar Negara (Globalization and Interstate Mobility of Workers, 1999), and Labor Movement in Southeast Asia (2000),

Born on July 3, 1962, Nasution has long traced the problems Indonesian migrant workers face in Malaysia. Between 1991 and 1997, he conducted research on this subject in Malaysia.

To find out information about illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia, Nasution visited numerous places in both Indonesia and Malaysia, visiting establishments where the workers were staying.

In his opinion, the presence of illegal Indonesian migrant workers does not need to be viewed only from the perspective of a geographical movement but also from economic, cultural and historical perspectives.

Professor Samad Hadi of the Malaysia National University (UKM) was the first person to offer Nasution the chance to conduct research on Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia.

At first he did not feel up to this job. However, thanks to the recommendation and encouragement from Graine Hugo, his advisor while he was studying at Flinder University in Australia, he took up the offer.

In 1989, Nasution, a 1986 graduate of the School of Social and Political Sciences of North Sumatra University, earned his master's degree from Flinder University under the sponsorship of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

He then received a scholarship from the Malaysian government to pursue a doctorate degree at UKM. In 1998, Nasution, the son of (the late) Kamaluddin Nasution and Kalidjah Lubis, earned his degree from UKM with a dissertation titled The flow of Indonesian workers to Malaysia, a case of Indonesian workers in the fostering sector in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He received the scholarship because he was considered successful in his research on Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia.

"Malaysian scholars have failed several times to make a study on this subject from Indonesia's perspective so they asked me to do it," said Nasution, a father of three.

To carry out the project, he received a grant of US$10,000 from the Malaysian government for his doctorate studies.

His first assignment from UKM was to study the presence of Indonesians in Chaw Kit, a trade area in Kuala Lumpur previously controlled by the ethnic Chinese. The ethnic Chinese later left the area following the presence of Indonesians.

"At first, the Malaysian government did not seem to believe that Indonesians could economically take the place of the ethnic Chinese, something that indigenous Malaysians had tried before but failed to do.

"Malaysia had tried to find out why Indonesian workers there had so much strength in unity. They failed to get a satisfactory answer so they asked me to study this matter under the control of UKM," said Nasution, a lecturer in the post-graduate program of USU.

Nasution will be installed on Sept. 7 as a professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences of USU.

His research found that Indonesian workers in Chaw Kit were strongly bonded to one another because of their families and the mutual help they developed in the form of arisan (solidarity). An example of this, Nasution said, was if a newly arrived migrant worker, in Malaysia for only a day or two, is suddenly arrested, then other Indonesian migrant workers, out of solidarity, will provide bail for his release.

"Every ethnic group in Indonesia, such as the Buton, Minang and Madurese, are united although they live in their own groups. They are very great in number," he said.

After doing research for a year, Nasution accepted an offer from the Malaysian government to teach at the geographical department of UKM. He began his career at UKM and was appointed research assistant.

Nasution, who is married to T. Kemala Intan, is the first scholar to have studied Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia.

He is especially happy and proud to learn that the result of his research, published in his 600-page dissertation, was made a guideline by the Malaysian government for the study of the flow of Indonesian migrant workers, legal or otherwise.

That is why, he said, Malaysian police could easily arrest illegal Indonesian migrant workers, because his dissertation graphically showed their exit and entry points into the country.

In his dissertation, Nasution also explains that the push and pull theory, which some people hold true, is, in fact, wrong. The common theory states that Indonesian workers go to Malaysia more out of a common cultural factor, economic attraction or geographical proximity.

But Nasution has his own answer. The flow of migration from Indonesia is caused by economic pressure, a consequence of disparity in domestic development. This condition, which forces some people to leave the country, continues to be utilized to pursue the economic interests of some companies and labor recruiters disguised as Indonesian labor recruitment companies (PJTKI).

"So it is not a matter of Malaysia being more economically attractive. Logically, they should have chosen Singapore, which is more advanced than Malaysia," said Nasution, who believes that it is better for the government to dissolve these labor recruitment companies.

Nasution has frequently been criticized by Indonesian representatives in Malaysia. In 1994, he spoke at a seminar in Malaya, where he described the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia as "performing poorly" in handling workers.

"The Indonesian Embassy did not consider me an Indonesian citizen because I exposed the rottenness of my own nation abroad," said Nasution.

He said he simply ignored the criticism because he had all the data to support his allegations.