WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN S. AFRIKAN APARTHEID & NEO-COLONIAL MALAYSIAN APARTHEID?
It is sad as the writer points out that on top of the general UMNO BN oppression of the masses is another layer of oppression of foreign workers by the class (not race) that cannot do without their amahs!
We must be careful not to fall into UMNO’s trap of blaming an entire race for the wrongs of those who can afford home help. This practice of hiring amahs applies to all races who can afford hired help. Remember the UMNO Malay Minister accused of raping his Indonesian maid?
But if people are aware of such injustices as in the mistreatment of foreign workers they must bravely expose such injustices regardless of race or class. We must not by our silence become party to the crime.
If Malayan writers are not aware they should see the similarities or parallels in the Malaysian UMNO Malay supremacist colonial apartheid situation with that of South Africa prior to its liberation from white supremacist apartheid rule.
The oppression of workers and non-bumiputras in the Malaysia neo-colonial system follows the pattern of discrimination in South African. People were treated as “commodities” and as sub humans. There is extensive materiel on S African apartheid available of which a close examination may help to understand the UMNO version of Malay supremacist ideology.
Fundamentally both are systems designed to keep down the working class laced with a racial supremacist ideology to maintain the power of the ruling class. In S. African it was white power and in neo-colonial Malaysia it is brown skin power.
The UMNO supremacists treat non-bumiputras as no less than non-existent beings. This is a serious violation and deprivation of human and democratic rights both against its own citizens not to mention migrant workers.
They are treated as such by its general institutionalized discrimination against the Indians and Chinese and other non-bumiputra. The term “Bumiputra” has come to mean the favoured race which is misleading as only the ruling class is the favoured race. Most of the “bumiputras” have been kept poor and obedient to the dictates and cynical manipulations of UMNO.
The connection is not far away since both countries experienced British colonial domination which fostered racism in its colonial administration.
The regime that currently hold sway over us is but a replica of the British colonial template bequeathed to UMNO in 1957 and enhanced with the annexation of Sabah and Sarawak in 1963.
The people of Sabah and Sarawak in particular have a heavy burden to bear with the UMNO racist system and colonial domination plus fully sudbsidizing the development of Malaya not the other way round.
UMNO embarked on its institutionalized neo-colonial Malaysia apartheid system after its instigation of the May 13 massacre in 1969 with rarely any criticisms from the democratic western nations.
UMNO was the favoured protégées of Britain and is still receiving this favoured treatment in so far as UMNO backs western imperialism. Part of this favouritism is the restrain with which the western powers have in not criticizing UMNO for its violations of human and democratic rights in Malaya Sabah and Sarawak.
The USA in its anti-China and anti-Russia campaign has blamed the two countries for the Syrian massacres by their vetoing the US attempt to manipulate the UN to invade Syria as they did to Libya. But China and Russia have merely exercise their democratic (UN given right) to veto such plans. Their stand is based on the UN own principles of non-interference and non-aggression in the resolution of the internal politics of other nations. No one says anything about the US/UK massacres in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
On the other hand we have hardly heard anything critical from the USA or UK on the blatant violations of our rights by UMNO.
Locally we need to examine the layers of racism practiced by ourselves and start with a clean slate when we change the system.