I have a soft spot for Africa. I studied the continent a fair bit during my undergraduate days, and spent a few weeks interning in Sierra Leone some 10 years ago.
Faced with the Ridzuan Condominium controversy, I started thinking about how we can separate the signal from the noise?
A blanket ban on all Africans seems to suggest a simple, reductionist logic that is generally typical of racist thinking: I see some Africans engaged in criminal activity, therefore all Africans are criminals.
This is clearly illogical. It is obviously equally illogical to ignore the fact that there are African criminals here in Malaysia.
The only question is how can we reward the good eggs, and act effectively against the bad eggs?
Good eggs, bad eggs
The first step is to acknowledge that there are in fact both good eggs and bad eggs. This is true of the people in every country, every city, every society, every ethnic group, every profession - the list goes on.
"Not every ABC is XYZ"; you can replace ABC with any human identifier (African, Chinese Malaysian, Israeli, New Yorker, fireman, Manchester United supporter, etc) and XYZ with any description (black, greedy, a Zionist, rude, hot, drunk, etc), and your sentence will probably still be accurate.
Faced with the Ridzuan Condominium controversy, I started thinking about how we can separate the signal from the noise?
A blanket ban on all Africans seems to suggest a simple, reductionist logic that is generally typical of racist thinking: I see some Africans engaged in criminal activity, therefore all Africans are criminals.This is clearly illogical. It is obviously equally illogical to ignore the fact that there are African criminals here in Malaysia.
The only question is how can we reward the good eggs, and act effectively against the bad eggs?
Good eggs, bad eggs
The first step is to acknowledge that there are in fact both good eggs and bad eggs. This is true of the people in every country, every city, every society, every ethnic group, every profession - the list goes on.
"Not every ABC is XYZ"; you can replace ABC with any human identifier (African, Chinese Malaysian, Israeli, New Yorker, fireman, Manchester United supporter, etc) and XYZ with any description (black, greedy, a Zionist, rude, hot, drunk, etc), and your sentence will probably still be accurate.
In order to differentiate between the good eggs and the bad eggs, we should treat the crisis at Ridzuan Condominium as a criminal problem, rather than a racial one.Eviction is a morally defensible option for a resident of any race or nationality that has a documented record of criminal or anti-social behaviour.
Just as financial need should be the criteria for government aid instead of race, an individual's right to live somewhere should be judged based on his or her conduct, not on race.
Better policing needed
Ridzuan Condominium is not the only place facing such troubles. Similar reports have been heard from other places, where unruly people who happen to be from Africa are engaged in extremely anti-social behaviour.
The people whose job it is to curb criminal behaviour is the police. Should security guards be unable to handle cases of residents causing trouble, the problem should become one for the police to handle and solve. Again, this is true for troublemakers regardless of origin.
The Malaysian police have demonstrated great efficiency in handling certain types of cases. It is hoped they can do the same for cases like these, which have an extremely detrimental impact on people's daily lives.
The bigger culprits
As has been accurately noted, there are many hardworking, good Africans who are here to study and contribute to the economy, trying to make an honest living like the rest of us. (A quick shout out to TGIF, which seems to be one of the only major employers of Africans in Kuala Lumpur).
The real question is, how do foreign criminals - African or otherwise - get in and stay in?
It is possible that part of the problem is the massive income generating business of Immigration in Malaysia?
Besides the horrific business of human trafficking already plaguing our borders, are there "schools" that are "collaborating" with immigration officials to churn out student visas to individuals who are willing to pay hefty sums to get into the country, but have no intentions of actually becoming students? How much are we doing to monitor whether individuals who come in as students are truly studying?
Are there parties that are compromising the integrity of our borders just to make a quick buck? If so, then they are the ones who should be most to blame for the problems the residents of Ridzuan condominium are facing.
Criminals come in all shapes and sizes. Some loiter around condominium lobbies pushing drugs and being a nuisance; others wear a suit and tie, sit behind a desk all day, and sell out the safety of our neighbourhoods for fat personal profit. Let us always seek to curb crime at its roots, and target those most responsible.
NATHANIEL TAN tweets @NatAsasi. He hopes to write something significant next week, and is on the lookout for a job.
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