Saturday, December 01, 2007

Our Indian friends up north should read this

The street protests by Indians in Malaysia have been very much in the news lately. A rally organized by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) recently, attracted thousands of Indians to the streets of Kuala Lumpur. They wanted to submit a petition with 100,000 signatures to Queen Elizabeth II to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British government for bringing Indians as labourers to the then Malaya and thereafter exploiting them.

If I were speaking on behalf of the British, I would ask the protesters to take a look at the front page of the 30 November 2007 edition of Singapore’s TODAY newspaper.


In it, you will see the faces of two prominent Indian Singaporeans. Tharman Shanmugaratnam is the present Minister for Education. He will be given another important portfolio today, that of the Finance ministry. The other picture is that of Vivian Balakrishnan, another high-flying Indian who at the age of 44 became Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports as well as Second Minister for Trade and Industry in 2005. In fact, we have another Indian holding an even higher position. He is deputy prime minister Assoc. Prof. Jayakumar.

The question that I will ask our Malaysian friends is this: Weren’t the forefathers of Mr Tharman and Dr Vivian and thousands of Singaporean Indians similarly brought in to the then Malaya as labourers by the British? How come no Singaporean Indian is sueing the British government?

The answer is obvious isn’t it? If you really want to sue someone, you should sue your own politicians; especially the half-Indian who ruled Malaysia for 22 years.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is the same for the Chinese. Our fore-fathers were brought here directly or indirectly by the British colonial govt to develop Malaya which included Singapore where there was a dire shortage of labour then. Are we going to blame the British? In my view no, ironically many of our fore fathers were in fact felt lucky for such a chance to escape the hellish political situation in China which the rest of the world described as the 'sick man of asia'. The basic human right is that all citizens irrespective of their origins (in the eyes of the law) should be treated as equal. The main problem lies in the political government of the day. There are some people in the administration who hold power, and very skillful in the art of political wayanging, marginalise other races for their own political ends. These are the people to be watched out, not the common Malaysians in the streets or kampongs. If we talk about immigrants as less loyal to the country, then the Red Indians in North American may 'jolly well' say that they are the original people and all the other Americans should be chased out of the country. This type of thinking should be totally erased from one's thick head, especially that we are now living in a borderless world.

Anonymous said...

Meantime, the real 'sons of the soil', the Orang Asli's don't seem to be enjoying much special privileges.

Anonymous said...

In fact, they suka suka tore down an Orang Asli church recently. See report here

Victor said...

You forgot another VIP - Very Indian President.

Anonymous said...

Oh! you cannot call a true patriot (100%) as half Indian, because Bapa Malaysia said something only like one third. Furthermore when a person embraces a true religion he should be considered a 'son of the soil'.