Eight years to 2020, Malaysia is still divided by race, religion and food!

Soon, very soon we would clock 2020 – the year that BN claims will earn Malaysia its ‘developed status’ certification. Not many years from now though.

But we would by then also have given the USA and the world a new benchmark of how democracy is managed to sprout a classed society that discriminates not only along race and religion parameters but right up to hygiene and health for its citizens.

Wonder what Hilary Clinton’s speech would sound like when the nation arrives on the ‘developed world’ certification stage? Would she still strike her harp and render a speech lamenting that the United States of America wishes more nations on the global circuit should emulate developed Malaysia?

Clean food only for the wealthy

Take a look at our eateries all over the country including the federal capital. What is most distinct is the fact that there is clean food for the wealthy while the working class can have only dirty outlets for their meals.

This is the permanent feature of hygiene and food quality in Malaysia. If you cannot afford to fork out RM25.00 per meal, go and eat all you can at filthy eateries that dot the entire nation.

The enforced philosophy appears to be one of clean and wholesome meals are for the rich while the working class has access to food and drinks that suffer from compromised nutritive value and lack in basic hygiene and near non-existent enforcement.

Take a look at the restaurants and coffee shops in shopping centers. They are nice and pleasantly clean. Good food that is clean and hygienic is the brand. But if you do not have RM10.00 for a cup of coffee to start with, you are not welcome there.

Now, how many of the working class that forms the bulk of the population can afford to fork out RM25.00 a day, daily, to have lunch at these clean and standards-complying outlets?

Waiters are imported; they wear dirty clothes; practice poor hygiene – including sneezing in the open; the food handling will make you puke; no, never visit the kitchen for you will see cat and mouse feeding side by side while flies have a field day. These are the hallmarks of the thousands of eateries that the working class is left to patronize because of affordability.

Eight years to 2020, but still far behind

Despite fifty years of opportunities to upgrade the standard of hygiene and make it affordably available for the larger population, we have instead arrived eight years to 2020 with a classed-criteria for general health, nutrition and hygiene for the citizens.

The mantra is ‘clean, nutritive and hygienic food must be expensive; dirty, questionable quality and compromised hygienic standards will remain affordable’.

Is this then an integral and inevitable part of developed nation status? If it is, as it appears set to be, then Malaysia would be setting a new benchmark for the world to emulate, i.e. governments must further divide their population with a classed-structure even in food and hygiene standards.

The conclusion is, you must be rich in order to eat right, eat clean and stay clean. If you belong to the ‘working class’ fighting hard to make ends meet as you struggle a fragile balancing act with your monthly pay verses payments ranging from credit cards to utilities to transport costs and car and housing loan repayments – not to mention education and household expenses, then you can only have dirty eateries and near rotting food.

Sad? Or is it the case of its okay, it is normal lah?

Malaysia Chronicle