PERIYAR

RATIONALIST /SOCIAL REFORMER

PERIYAR (E.V) RAMASAMI (1879-1973)

Periyar Ramasami (1879-1973) was known as the Voltaire (1694-1778) of South India, particularly, in Tamil Nadu. Both were rationalists who aroused their people to realize that all men are equal and it is the birthright of every individual to enjoy liberty, equality and fraternity. Both opposed religion virulently because the so called men of religion invented myths and superstitions to keep the innocent and ignorant people in darkness and to go on exploiting them. In one of his articles, Voltaire said "They (the religious men) inspired you with false beliefs and made you fanatics so that they might be your masters. They made you superstitious, not that you might fear god but that you might fear them"

Voltaire and other French Philosophers of the 18th century awakened their countrymen to the fact that handful of People who had money and power kept them in a state of stupor, as it were, and went on treating them like animals. The awakening of the People brought about the French Revolution in which the heads of those who had exploited the People for generations, rolled to the ground. This revolution turned bloody" because it was mainly political. Because it was violent, its purpose was achieved in a short time.

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ISSUES PAPER FROM MALAYSIA

A. Introduction

For a large part of human history people were free to move between regions for economic, political or socio-cultural reasons but such freedom is curtailed in modern times with the demarcation of political boundaries and the creation of nation states which institute immigration laws to regulate cross-border migration.

However, these laws are often inadequate or not enforceable and international migration continues.

In the last three decades or so, labour migration the world over has accelerated. In the Asia-Pacific region, the acceleration is accompanied by a shift in the direction of major labour flows.

By the 1970s, the United States and Europe were no longer the main focus of migration from Asia; instead a large wave of migrants moved to the Middle East and then to newly industrialised countries in East Asia.

Most, if not all, countries are party to international labour migration either as labour exporters, importers or both as in the case of Malaysia.

While over a million aliens work in the country, an estimate of over 200,000 Malaysians are found working in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. This paper provides an overview of labour mobility in Malaysia, its consequences and the role of the government.

-----More The focus is on labour in-flow, a major concern in Malaysia today.

The state of research to date will also be examined briefly to identify key research issues that can be undertaken in the near future.

B. Malaysia: A Brief Introduction Malaysia, as a political entity, is geographically divided into east and west Malaysia, separated approximately 800 miles by the South China Sea.

East Malaysia comprises the states of Sabah and Sarawak; while West or Peninsula Malaysia, consists of twelve semi-autonomous states. These states form a federation, a parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarchy.

Malaysia’s multi-ethnic population is categorised by the government into two types, viz. the Bumiputra and Non-Bumiputra. The former term Bumiputra, which means literally ‘the sons of the soil’ refers, in Peninsula Malaysia to the Malays and the aborigines; and in Sabah and Sarawak, it refers to over twenty indigenous ethnic groups, such as the Iban, Bidayuh, Kadazan, Murut, Dusun, etc. The term non-Bumiputra refers to those of immigrant descent, chief of which are the Chinese and Indians. According to the last census carried out in 1991, the population was over 18.55 million of which 6 per cent were non-citizens. Of the 17.5 million Malaysians, 61.7 per cent were Bumiputra, 27.3 per cent ethnic Chinese, 7.7 per cent ethnic Indians and the rest comprising ‘others’. The majority of the population, i.e. over 80 per cent, were in Peninsular Malaysia. In 1995, the population was estimated at 20 million with a labour force of about eight million.

Malaysia’s multi-ethnic population is evidence of earlier in-migration which took place largely in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Under the British colonial rule, capitalist economic enterprises were introduced and with them the necessary infrastructure.

The opening of large scale plantations (coffee, coconut and rubber), the expansion of tin mines and the construction of railways, roads and buildings required a large number of workers.

As the local population was too small and generally not responsive to wage labour, the colonial authorities recruited and encouraged the entry of foreign labour, especially from China and India and, to a lesser degree, from neighbouring Indonesia.

Under the British colonial administration a divide and rule policy kept the immigrant workers apart from each other and from the indigenous population.

In Peninsular Malaysia, for example, the local Malays (and the Indonesians who, because of socio-cultural similarities, later assimilated with the Malays) were confined to the rural areas engaged mainly in peasant farming. The official policy of the British was to encourage the Malays to remain peasants, albeit better peasants than their forefathers.

The Indians were mainly employed as wage labour in the plantations and in the construction sectors, especially building roads and railways; while the Chinese worked in the tin mines and involved themselves in trade and commerce in the urban areas. Such segregation may exclude a small number of elites in each ethnic group; among the lower classes which form the main bulk of the population, however, it was the norm. Such a pattern of economic and geographical segregation is still found in Malaysia today, in spite of the government’s attempt to eradicate it.

Thus, the Malays and other indigenous groups are found largely in the rural areas, the Chinese in towns and cities and the Indians in estates and plantations.

During the colonial period, Malaysia (then Malaya and British North Borneo) was predominantly an agricultural country depending for export earnings on two primary commodities, rubber and tin. After independence in 1957, attempts were made by the government to reduce the country’s dependence on tin and rubber and to steer the country towards industrialisation. To achieve these objectives the government formulated and implemented a series of five year development plans. Since Malaysia’s inception in 1965, six development plans have been implemented: First Malaysia Plan (1965–70); Second Malaysia Plan (1971–75); Third Malaysia Plan (1976–80); Fourth Malaysia Plan (1981–85); Fifth Malaysia Plan (1986–90) and the Sixth Malaysia Plan (1991–95).

The seventh one is expected to be launched very soon.

The Second Malaysia Plan which encompassed the New Economic Policy (NEP) laid the foundation for industrialisation in the country. Two decades after its implementation, manufacturing, palm oil and petroleum replaced rubber and tin as the mainstay of the economy. Manufacturing, for example, account for 32.4 per cent of GDP in 1995 and 25.5 per cent of employment.

GDP growth is now 9.5 per cent, per capita GDP US$8763.00 and the unemployment rate of 2.9 per cent.

The growing economy has its attendant problems. While employment grew at the rate of 3.2 per cent per annum between 1990 and 1995, labour supply increased at only 2.9 per cent.

The resultant labour shortage was made worse by the selective attitude of local labour due to expansion of education, improvement in living conditions and access to upward mobility.

The implementation of the NEP which was designed to restructure society and eradicate poverty in 1971 led to a massive population drift to the urban areas.

This led to acute labour shortage in the rural and plantation sectors which was overcome by the importation of workers from Indonesia and Thailand, Malaysia’s traditional labour suppliers.

Initially, such recruitment was made surreptitiously as there were no legal provisions for the importation and employment of unskilled or semi-skilled aliens. The labour shortage later expanded to the construction sector and domestic services. Again, aliens were recruited, albeit illegally, to fill the gap. As illegal entry persisted not only has the traffic in immigrant labour increased in volume, the Indonesians and the Thais are also joined by other nationalities from countries in Asia, the Middle East and the African continent.

C. State Responses to Alien Labour In spite of the large number of illegals and the attendant problems associated with their presence, the Malaysian government is yet to come up with a comprehensive policy on the issue of immigrant workers. From time to time, measures are taken to address specific problems arising out of alien (legal and illegal) employment, but these measures are at times in contradiction with each other.

Thus mixed and confused messages and signals are sent out the aliens, recruiting agents, employers, the general public as well as government officials who are entrusted with regulating the entry and employment of foreign workers.

An outline of these measures is given in Table 1.

Throughout the 1970s no action was taken to address the issue of labour shortage and the infiltration of illegal aliens.

It was only when the number of illegals became large and noticeable and their presence began to cause problems for the local population, especially in the urban areas, that steps were taken to address the problem. The first of such measures was the formation of the Jawatankuasa Pengambilan Pekerja Asing (lit. Committee for the Recruitment of Foreign Workers) in July 1982 and the signing of the Medan Agreement with Indonesia in May 1984. The latter, which was designed to regulate the inflow of Indonesian workers for the plantation sector, was later extended to domestic maids.

Subsequently, in 1985, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with the Philippines to import domestic maids.

In 1986, permission was given to employers to recruit labour from Bangladesh for the plantation sector, and from Thailand for the plantation and construction sectors. Legal provisions were made to allow the private sector to form agencies for the sole purpose of recruiting alien labour direct from their country of origin.

In spite of these measures, aliens continued to enter the country clandestinely. In January 1989, amidst protests from some members of the public, trade union leaders and some politicians against the increasing number of illegal workers, the government sent directives to employers in the plantation sector to register and regularise their illegal workers.

This exercise, called the Program Pemutihan Pendatang Tanpa Izin (lit. Program for the Regularisation of Illegal Immigrants) received minimal co-operation from plantation management and had to be postponed twice until mid 1991. Its success was limited.

Many factors contributed to the failure of the government’s efforts to curb the illegal inflow of foreign (Kassim 1991, 1993; Zanifan Md. Zain 1991). Legal importation of alien labour was and still is time consuming and costly and, therefore, unpopular with prospective employers who prefer illegals as they are also easy to control and mobilise—and such labour could easily be found. There was, by the late 1980s, a large reserve of illegal aliens in the country whom employers could recruit readily.

In Kuala Lumpur alone, unpublished data at the City Hall Enforcement Directorate reveal that in 1989 there were over 12,000 Indonesians living in squatter settlements in the capital.

The actual number was of course much higher as there were many Indonesians and other aliens living elsewhere such as in kongsi (makeshift living quarters for workers) at construction sites and in private housing areas such as the Malay Reservation areas.

Fresh recruits, especially from the neighbouring Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in the case of Sabah and Sarawak, could also be brought in illegally, with relative ease.

The Malaysian coastline and border is far too long to be patrolled effectively by the marine police and immigration personnel which are limited in number.

The difficulty is further compounded by public apathy and abetment induced by socio-cultural or economic reasons.

Many Malaysians, as alluded to earlier, are of foreign descent belonging to similar ethnic groups as the illegals, some of whom may even be their distant relatives. The illegal entry also generated business opportunities and benefited many—especially informal recruiters, landlords, employers and syndicates supplying fake documents. Public collusion was induced by government inaction; few overt sanctions were taken against those who abetted the illegals even though they clearly infringed the immigration and employment laws.

This emboldened many more to break these laws with impunity.

In the 1980s there was also a basic flaw in the way the issues of labour shortages and illegal aliens were dealt with by the government. Measures taken from time to time, such as the Medan Agreement, the MOU with the Philippines, etc, were made on an ad hoc basis and addressed only labour shortages in the plantation and domestic services. Labour shortages in other sectors, especially in construction, where thousands of illegal aliens were employed by the mid-1980s, were ignored. Without legal avenues for their recruitment, foreign workers in these sectors continued to be recruited illegally. The number of undocumented alien workers in the country continued to grow alongside legally recruited ones and with it the negative consequences of their presence and employment (see below).

This caused strong antagonism against the aliens (including legally recruited ones) among some sections of the public. The need for measures to overcome the problems developed greater urgency. Legalisation of the aliens appeared to be the only answer and this was done through a period of amnesty when the undocumented workers were expected to register and legalise their position.

This was confined to the Peninsula only.

The amnesty was first announced in November 1991. Initially it was directed only at domestic maids who were given a month to legalise themselves.

The response was encouraging and this induced the government to extend the legislation exercise to 30th June 1992 to cover those in the construction and plantation sectors.

In April 1992, the Immigration Department also registered illegal aliens employed in the manufacturing and services sectors as a result of mounting pressure from manufacturers and others and in anticipation of an official directive from the government to extend amnesty to them.

During the amnesty period, i.e. between November 1991 and 30 June 1992, illegal aliens were to register themselves at thirty registration centres specially set up by the Immigration Department all over the Peninsula.

The onus for registration was on the employers who, after registration, would take their respective workers to their respective embassies to get their temporary travel papers and have a medical check-up to ensure that they were not suffering from any communicable diseases.

Only after passing the medical check-up could the illegal aliens be brought back to the Immigration Department to get their temporary work.

Those who were found to be suffering from communicable diseases were to be deported.

The registration exercise was accompanied by police measures to prevent further illegal entry, code-named the Ops Nyah I (lit. Get Rid Operation

I). Under these on-going operations, the Police Field Force was deployed to patrol over 100 posts, especially along the coasts of Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johore, where illegal entry by aliens is most active.

The patrol squads were to arrest illegals trying to come into Malaysia and turn them over to the Immigration Department who, in turn, would deport them.

At the end of the registration exercise on 30th June 1992, 442,276 aliens had registered. The Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Home Affairs estimated then that over 200,000 illegals were still at large and to force them out the police were directed to establish and implement Ops Nyah II (lit. Get Rid Operation

II). Under the Ops Nyah II, raids and unannounced checks were carried out in areas suspected of harbouring illegals such as the squatter settlements and construction sites.

Like the Ops Nyah I, the Ops Nyah II is an on-going exercise.

At the end of 1992, only about 20 per cent of those who registered eventually applied for work permits (The Star, 26 October 1992).

The rest of the registered aliens, i.e. around 375,000, are technically still illegal as they have not obtained their work permits—their Sijil Lawatan Kerja Sementara. It is clear that illegal aliens have not responded fully to the amnesty granted to them and the legalisation exercise has achieved only limited success.

In spite of the Ops Nyah I and Ops Nyah II, illegal inflow continues; the crackdown on illegal aliens has not stopped illegal entry by foreigners. Between December 1991 and December 1995, there were on average about 53 illegal landings on the Malaysian coasts bringing in on average 1,116 illegal aliens per month (see Table 2).

For about the same period, on average 773 illegals were arrested each week under the Ops Nyah II (see Table 3).

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