KG MEDAN: MASALAH IDENTITI MENJADI PEDEBATAN

Dr Jomo:

Menurut Dr Jomo, Malaysia semakin menjadi satu negara yang bercerai-berai budaya masyarakatnya (kerana memberi penekanan yang tidak kena pada tempatnya.)

Walaupun tindakkan PM mencanangkan isu perpaduan melayu tidak menyebabkan secara langsung konflik antara kaum di sini, ia telah mewarnai suasana menjadi perkauman.

"Sekarang, baru anda sedar betapa perlunya untuk menangani masalah keharmonian antara kaum dengan lebih segera. Rakyat Malaysia tanpa mengira bangsa telah muncul untuk menziarahi mangsa. Dan pihak pembangkang lebih mendahului untuk menghulur cadangan untuk membina kembali keharmonian antara kaum".

FT:

Polisi kerajaan BN lebih bersifat pro-perkauman sedangkan ia sepatutnya pro-ekonomi. Inilah punca konflik perkauman. Rakyat sepatutnya dibantu tanpa mengira kaum mereka. Jika tidak ia akan melahirkan perasaan tidak puas hati yang cemar dengan bau perkauman.

Soalnya ialah masalah identiti. Di Thailand rakyat minoriti Cina dan India disitu mengcam diri mereka sebagai warga Thai terlebih dahulu. Singapura pula mengutamakan perpaduan dengan kebolehan (merit) sebagai kuncinya.

Agus:

"Kawasan itu mempunyai semua unsur kimia untuk menghasilkan ledakkan. Keadaan infrakstruktur begitu teruk, begitu juga taraf pendidikkan. Mereka terpinggir dari arus pembangunan ekonomi dan politik terlalu lama.

Rakyat yang dilayan seperti ini akan memberontak bila mereka dihumban ke dinding. Mereka menggunakan peluang itu untuk menunjukkan rasa tidak puas hati untuk menonjolkan nasib mereka."

Menurut Agus lagi "pergaduhan tersebut tidak bermula kerana masalah perkauman tetapi meledak menjadi begitu kerana mereka terbiar dan sudah terlalu lama kecewa. Tidak ada ketegangan antara kaum di situ"

Star:

Menurut akhbar Star kawasan tersebut amat hitam dan paling teruk kadar jenayahnya. Terdapat 100,000 penduduk di Taman Medan, majoritinya melayu. Kira-lira 20% kaum India dan selebihnya pendatang Indonesia dan Bangladesh. Pendudu Indonesia yang lebih 'agresif' juga dikatakan menyukarkan lagi keadaan.

Kesimpulan:

Kerajaan seharusnya memandang masalah rakyat 'beyond ethnic approach' atau 'bukan dari sudut perkauman semata-mata'. Jika tidak kita akan mengundang lebih banyak bencana di masa hadapan. Polisi dan sikap kerajaan masakini hanya akan menambah ketegangan dan bahan tambahan untuk satu letupan. Perpaduan nasional sepatutnya lebih dititik beratkan dan pendekatan baru penyusunan ekonomi harus dilancarkan.

Dengan kata-lain rakyat tidak puas hati kepada tindak-tanduk kerajaan. Tetapi mereka terpaksa memendam perasaan kerana tidak dizinkan berbuat demikian dengan 'penderhakaan' dan 'menumbangkan kerajaan' sebagai alasan. Kerajaan sedang membina BOM yang sebegitu besar yang boleh memusnahkan dan Mahathirlah yang menjadi perancang. Dia telah memusnahkan demokrasi dan menodai kekayaan negara sehingga menjadi hutang. Patutlah rakyat hidup terbiar dan keharmonian pecah berantakkan.

Tetapi mungkin ada lain kesimpulan.
Mungkin juga hanya 'pemberontakkan yang mampu mengundang kemajuan'.... kerana kerajaan begitu berdegil untuk mendengar pandangan.

-TJr Kapal Berita-

Financial Times

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article& cid=FT3K0VYQCKC&live=true&tagid=ZZZC19QUA0C&subheading=asia%20pacific

Malaysia clashes fuel identity debate

By Sheila McNulty in Singapore

Last Updated: March 15 2001

Malaysian police on Thursday said peace had been restored after six racial killings in the past week outside the capital, the worst such violence since the 1960s. But analysts said the clashes underscored the need to deepen the country's efforts to build a national identity for its ethnic Malay, Chinese and Indian citizens.

Hundreds were involved in the street fighting that broke out after an Indian funeral procession went through a street where Malays were celebrating a wedding. Sporadic incidents continued the violence until about 200 people were arrested and a slew of knives, rods, parang swords, and hoes seized.

KS Jomo, political economist at the University of Malaya, said one lesson to be learned is that Malaysia continues to be a culturally deeply divided society. And while recent pleas by Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister, for the politically divided Malay race to unite did not directly cause the clash, Mr Jomo said it probably contributed to the racially charged atmosphere.

"Now, thankfully, you have a renewed sense of urgency about re-addressing inter-ethnic harmony," Mr Jomo said. Malaysians from all races have been visiting the dozens injured. And the opposition has put forward suggestions on how to rebuild racial relations.

Dr Mahathir's Malay-based Umno political party has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957 but been increasingly losing members to the opposition. In a bid to win them back, the prime minister has asked the opposition to meet to try to unify the Malays. This has come against a backdrop of resurgent Malay nationalism.

Though analysts credit Umno for maintaining harmony between the majority Malays and the Chinese and Indian minorities, they note it has done so as a solely Malay party working alongside parties grouping Chinese and Indians separately.

In addition, one of Umno's key platforms has been an affirmative-action policy instituted after race riots in 1969 to give the Malays economic parity with the richer Chinese, through quotas for education, jobs and public share offerings. Malaysians recently have questioned whether the policy should be based on economic need instead of race, to help poor Indians and Chinese as well.

They expect this would lead to a more united nation, instead of one where people identify foremost with their ethnic group. The regional model is Thailand, where the Chinese and Indian minorities see themselves, first, as Thai. Singapore has made racial integration a priority, with a system of meritocracy that sets an example by uniting the Chinese, Malays and Indians in the ruling party.

Lim Kit Siang, an opposition leader, said the racial clashes had set back the nation-building process and suggested establishing committees to build inter-racial harmony, investigating the underlying cause, and developing the impoverished squatter area in which the fighting took place. The authorities pledged to put up lamp-posts and build 5,000 low-cost homes.

"While certainly Malaysia has done more than other multi-ethnic societies, it has also got some profound weaknesses," said Chandra Muzaffar, political scientist turned opposition politician.

http://news.catcha.com/my/content.phtml?1&010&&afpnews.cgi&cat=malaysia&stor y=010314085632.ig6ycke1.txt

Troubled Malaysian district has "all the chemistry" for mayhem

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (AFP) - The run-down Malaysian district where bloody ethnic clashes broke out has "all the chemistry" for trouble including poverty, poor housing and gangsterism, analysts said Wednesday.

"The anger in Kampung Medan is a classic case of the urban poor working for crumbs," the Star newspaper said in an analysis.

Mohammad Agus Yusoff, political science lecturer at the National University, told AFP that poor infrastructure and a host of socio-economic ills bred frustration.

"The area has all the chemistry for trouble. It lacks infrastructure and consists of poor uneducated people who have been isolated and kept out of the political and economic mainstream all this while," he said.

"People like them tend to rebel when they are pushed to the wall. They are taking the opportunity to show their dissatisfaction, to highlight their plight."

Mohammad Agus said the clashes between ethnic Indians and Malays did not reflect overall ethnic relations.

"It did not start as an ethnic clash but erupted into one because residents there were marginalised and there is a latent dissatisfaction. But there is no tension between ethnic communities outside the area."

The Star said Malays and Indians shared problems of cramped living conditions, clogged drains and garbage-strewn narrow streets. It urged the government to recognise that socio-economic problems can create ethnic tension.

"These villagers have been neglected for far too long. They should not be courted only during elections," the paper's analysis said.

Six people have died, 23 are still in hospital and 220 were arrested after clashes broke out in the poor district adjoining leafy, middle-class Petaling Jaya west of Kuala Lumpur.

The immediate cause was a trivial neighbourhood quarrel -- a Malay wedding party which blocked a road and a later incident on March 8 when children playing with catapults broke a van windscreen.

Vijay Shanmugam, an adviser to Pintas, said tension had built up between different communities over the years in the absence of real racial integration.

"The fight showed there is both a physical and psychological separation between the two communities despite their having lived side by side for years," he said.

"There has been no rehabilitative integration program and people are insecure about their own ethnic background."

Community relation committees should be established, he added. Pintas is a consultative body to the National Unity Department on social ills and racial integration.

Selangor chief minister Mohamed Khir Toyo said Tuesday the state government would build 5,000 homes to resettle some 6,000 squatter families in the area.

Some 100,000 people live in Taman Medan, most of them Malays. Twenty percent are Indians and there are also Indonesian and Bangladesh immigrants.

The Star said the area has the "highest number of criminal cases ranging from gangsterism, drug addition, violence, juvenile delinquency and even incest."

The presence of "more aggressive" Indonesians complicated the situation, it said in its analysis, urging police to flush out illegal immigrants.

The newspaper said the government should create a more even national development program.

In a separate editorial, the Star said the country must "courageously move beyond the ethnic approach" to strengthen national unity and discard an "appearance of fragility in inter-ethnic harmony" after 43 years of independence.

http://news.catcha.com/my/content.phtml?1&010&&afpnews.cgi&cat=malaysia&stor y=010314093447.kalakvoa.txt

Wednesday, 14 March 2001

Opposition urges national unity council after ethnic clashes

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (AFP) - Malaysia's opposition alliance called Wednesday for a national unity council to be set up in the wake of the worst ethnic clashes for decades.

The four-party Alternative Front said an autonomous and independent Consultative Council on National Unity should include representatives from all religious and cultural communities.

Among other objectives it should suggest solutions to periodic ethnic disputes, propose ways to reduce racial polarisation and work out firm measures to eradicate prejudice.

The alliance also repeated calls for an independent inquiry into the flare-up between ethnic Indians and Malays in Kampung Medan west of Kuala Lumpur, in which six people were killed.

In a statement it said a proposed unity council could examine whether the government's approach to development had contributed to the disturbances.

Under a longstanding affirmative action policy Malays get special economic and other rights to help them catch up with the Chinese.

Indians, the poorest sector of society, get no special help.

The statement said a unity council could also examine whether attempts by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to "create a climate of fear within a particular community" helped to worsen race relations.

Mahathir said last week that "certain quarters" were trying to challenge the interests of the Malays -- an apparent reference to a Chinese pressure group which wants some affirmative action programmes reviewed.

http://www.asiawise.com/mainpage.asp?mainaction=50&articleid=1296

Asia Red Alerts: Malaysia

By Hope Leman, AsiaWise

15 Mar 2001 10:30 (GMT +08:00)

Malaysia

Mahathir under pressure

Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir's recent attempts to shore up the Malay component of the Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition do not seem to be going well. In fact, they may be heightening the racial tensions that the affirmative action policies of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) were originally crafted to eliminate.

Unfortunately for Mahathir, in some ways the policies worked only too well. Now there is a solid Malay middle class. The pro-Malay policies favor those with good connections to UMNO functionaries.