Sunday September 7, 2008You really cannot fault anyone for not believing your claim to be a Malaysian when:
Malaysian spends 11 months at depot for illegals
By C.S. NATHAN
SEREMBAN: Young mother M. Rajeshvari spent 11 agonising months at the Lenggeng Immigration depot for illegals – all because she could not recall her identity card number and was not fluent in Bahasa Malaysia.
The 22-year-old, who was six months pregnant then, was waiting for a relative at a coffee shop in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, when a raiding police party asked to see her identification card. She could not because she had lost it. Worse, she also forgot the IC number.
...
- You do not speak the national language;
- You cannot produce your identification card (she lost it) and cannot even recite your identification number; and
- You cannot account for your own background including the addresses of your parents and relatives.
Secondly, all Malaysians must be able to fluently speak Bahasa Malaysia. That much should really go without saying. In many countries, command of the national language is a prerequisite to naturalization. It is therefore ridiculous for any citizen born and raised in the country to not being able to speak the national language. Again, this is a failure of the national education system. We must have only one system – the national schools system – catering to everybody. Public funding of vernacular schools – Chinese and Tamil – must stop, as do public funding of religious schools.
Thirdly, our basic biometric information, namely fingerprints, is already in the national identification registry. IIRC illegal immigrants processed for repatriation are also fingerprinted. Why, then, didn’t they look up her fingerprints to ascertain her claim?
Her husband tak cari ke wife dia hilang? Hilang 11 bulan pulak tu. Dah la tgh pregnant. Nevertheless, I agree that for most part, the fault was hers.
ReplyDeleteAda sorang professor aku kat UPM tak reti sangat cakap melayu walaupun dia orang melayu. Would it be the same case if he got caught in the same situation, and can only speak English? :-P
a funny and insulting story at one same time.
ReplyDeletefunny: 11 bulan hilang suami buat tak tau. ntah2 suka.
insulting: don't dare call yourself a malaysian if you can't even speak/understand malay language.
Though her story does sound fishy I don’t want to speculate. Yes, I’ve also met a UIA lecturer born and raised overseas who cannot speak the national language, while at the same time at the department I have colleagues from Africa and China that can.
ReplyDeletefor an academic you display some pretty bigoted views imo
ReplyDeletewhy do you find it so preposterous that a malaysian doesn't know how to speak malay?
nowhere does it state in the Constitution that one must be able to speak malay in order to be malaysian.
the traits that make us malaysian are incredibly diverse and there should not be one strict criterion that enables us to be labelled as one. Freedom to choose, freedom to have individual skills, isn't that what human rights are about?-something malaysia clearly lacks respect for in a significant number of events
you are right though in blaming it on education. If national education were perfect, we wouldn't need any other alternative. stopping public funding won't help if the only option available is ineffective.
If anything, malay no longer possesses the lingua franca status of yesteryears due to poor social associations with the usage of the language ie. rurality, lack of quality literature etcetc
This is by no means an attack and I don't expect riposte of any kind.
Only that it saddens me to see someone so erudite displaying such extreme views. Just my 2 sen(despite being discontinued-even more worthless) worth to appeal to your reasoning.
Interestingly enough the comments here seem to surround lady, the lady's husband and the blogger. Admittedly, the lady does sound fishy but that's not what I'd like to discuss in this comment.
ReplyDeleteLet's have a closer look at the last para posted by the blogger and put yourself in the lady's shoes.
Imagine yourself drinking / eating at the restaurant in Malaysia. Suddenly you are approached by the police. Despite your claim that you are a Malaysian and ability to produce your name and with your fingerprints available, the authority did nothing verify your identity first before sending you into the immigration depot. How would you feel?
You are not mute and have spoken to the policemen in either Tamil / Hindi / English. But the authority ignored you, branded you as an illegal and throw you into the depot. How would you feel?
You are not stupid and therefore has been repeatedly trying to voice this out to the depot authorities but for 11 months, either your voice is not heard or the authority just can't be bothered. How would you feel?
Point to note:
In the current process, what is sufficient proof that someone is NOT a Malaysian. (Note the NOT)
We are in Malaysia and by default isn't it natural to assume everyone here are either Malaysians or people legally allowed into Malaysia? We do not live in the communist era.
Does the gap reside in how the authorities handle the raid or is that proof that the authorities themselves are unconvinced of their ability to control people entering into our beloved country. On that note, shouldn't the energy be better diverted on controlling it before it happens (at all points of entries - we are not that big a country right?) rather than continuously raiding for illegals?