Upsetting the ecological balance

The Indians and Chinese we have in Malaysia today are descendants of the immigrants of the 1850 to 1920 era. In short, today’s Indians and Chinese are Malaysian-born, which means they are Malaysians and not immigrants. That is why these ‘immigrants’ are loyal to Malaysia and not to India or China, which is very important (and if I have to explain this statement then you are brain dead).

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

What Mahfuz Omar said, reported by The Malaysian Insider (read below), is very interesting. In time, what he said will certainly happen. The implications, however, will be farther reaching than how Mahfuz has explained.

The bottom line is you can’t upset the ecological balance without seeing something happen. When you clear the forests, remove the mangrove trees, or terrace the hill slopes, something always happens. And it is normally bad rather than good.

Look at Britain today. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was an influx of Asian immigrants. Of late, it is an influx of Eastern Europeans. Britain is no longer the Britain we once knew or the Britain I was born in. It has transformed so much that I really don’t know whether to call it good or bad.

For one, honesty has gone out the window. In the old days, you could put your newspapers and a box outside your shop and customers would take the newspaper and put the payment in the box. Today, they would take the box of coins.

Rental and property prices in ‘immigrant’ neighbourhoods are low. The crime rate is high. And the cost of car insurance is higher if you live in such neighbourhoods because the danger of theft or vandalism is higher.

Unemployment is up and the standard of living has declined. More people are on welfare and in time Britain is going to face bankruptcy because of the ‘freeloaders’ it has to support. The NHS (national health service) has practically no more money. And they have had to increase fees for universities.

The long and short of it: Britain’s 50-year old very lax immigration policy is finally taking its toll on the one-time Empire where the sun never sets. The sun is certainly setting very fast on Britannia that no longer rules the waves.

Malaya, too, in 1850, had a very lax immigration policy. In 1920, the British Colonial Government realised that if they allowed this to continue it would upset the ‘ecological balance’ and Malaya would erupt into chaos. So, in 1920, the British stopped bringing in Indians and Chinese.

The British realised very early that the country could support only a certain number of immigrants before all hell breaks loose. In their wisdom, the British said, ‘Enough!’ and thus ended the immigration policy.

The Indians and Chinese we have in Malaysia today are descendants of the immigrants of the 1850 to 1920 era. In short, today’s Indians and Chinese are Malaysian-born, which means they are Malaysians and not immigrants. That is why these ‘immigrants’ are loyal to Malaysia and not to India or China, which is very important (and if I have to explain this statement then you are brain dead).

Now, the government has reversed what the British did. We are now ‘importing’ foreigners at a higher level than what the British did from 1850 to 1920. We may think that we are importing ‘fellow Muslims’. Well, that’s what Britain thought as well when they allowed the ‘Christian’ Eastern Europeans into Britain in droves.

But these Christian Eastern Europeans have a different culture and set of values. And that is the problem. The ‘Muslim’ immigrants coming into Malaysia also have a different culture and set of values. And, in time, Malaysia is going to face the problem that Britain is facing today.

What Mahfuz said is partly true. But the problem is not going to be confined to just their rejection of the Monarchy. The implication is farther than that.

We must remember, these immigrants are not facing political, ethnic, or religious persecution in their fatherland -- like those who went to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, etc., around the Second World War. In those days, they had to emigrate or die. So they owed their adopted country their lives. And because of that they owed their adopted country their loyalty.

But the new (post-Merdeka) immigrants into Malaysia do not face death in their country. They do not owe Malaysia their lives. They are merely ‘economic refugees’. It’s all about money. Their loyalty is to money, not to Malaysia.

Those are the types of people we are giving ‘instant citizenship’ to. And in time we shall realise the folly of this immigration policy.

They have no memories of the British Colonial era. They have no memories of the Japanese occupation. They have no memories of Merdeka. They have no memories of the Emergency. They have no memories of the creation of Malaysia. They have no memories of the Konfrontasi with Indonesia. They have no memories of May 13. They have no memories of anything at all that Malaysians hold dear. They are here only for the money.

So where do these people’s loyalty lie? Certainly not where our loyalties lie because they do not share our culture and value system. They are only loyal to the Ringgit and as long as the Ringgit is there they will become ‘true Malaysians’. However, once the Ringgit is no longer there, they would not care two hoots about Malaysia.

Learn from Britain’s mistake. Britain, which was once Malaysia’s Colonial master, is beginning to pay a heavy price for being too lax in its immigration policy. It took 50 years but it is finally taking its toll.

In time, Malaysia too is going to pay for this mistake. By then, however, just like in Britain today, it will be too late.

Sure, this new immigration policy is meant to help Barisan Nasional in the next general election. The ‘instant citizens’ are going to vote for BN.

That is the short-term gain, of course. But for the benefit of short-term gain, Malaysia is going to suffer in the long term.

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Pakatan says foreign voters will bring down monarchy

(The Malaysian Insider) - Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers demanded today an emergency sitting of Parliament over claims that 1,600 foreigners had been given citizenship and voting rights, claiming that if left unchecked it would erode Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy.

PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar told reporters today that the permanent residents who were being given “express” citizenship and voting rights “would not appreciate our royalty as we do.”

DAP publicity secretary Tony Pua said the “campaign by Barisan Nasional (BN) and the authorities to turn all permanent residents into citizens, if not monitored, will cause the peninsula to be like Sabah.”

“There, permanent residents who have become citizens outnumber actual locals,” the Petaling Jaya Utara MP said, referring to the claim that BN had given votes to foreigners in the east Malaysian state in the 1990s to reclaim power in the 1999 state election.

“This will cause the fall of our monarchy. They don’t appreciate our constitutional monarchy,” Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz said.

PR handed a memorandum demanding the emergency sitting to be held within seven days to Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz today, who received the demand on behalf of the prime minister.

The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said he would hand over the letter to Datuk Seri Najib Razak when breaking fast today and “after discussing with him, maybe we can respond.”

The minister in charge of Parliament said that there was no problem for Parliament to meet during the fasting month as that had been the practice in the early 2000s, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was prime minister.

Although Nazri refused to comment on PR’s claims, he said that complaints over fraudulent voters should be brought to the Election Commission to be investigated.

“I don’t think it can happen. To vote, you need a blue identity card,” he said, referring to the document that proves citizenship.

PR had also claimed that 1,108 permanent residents in the Klang Valley were given the status of full citizens on August 2 alone, and ridiculed the notion that over 1,000 identity cards were issued within a day.

PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub also showed documents claiming that between 1.06pm and 2.30pm on August 2, three voters had their status changed from permanent residents to citizens “in the blink of an eye.”

“This was information downloaded from the NRD website itself and we have a total of 1,597 cases across the country,” the Kubang Kerian MP had said.