March 30th, 2007 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
There are only two big issues in this century-mass movement of people all over the planet and the environment. Everything else is passé.
Ever since the beginning of the world, people have been moving around. The early bush herdsmen moved their flocks to look for greener pastures far away from home, in the process they spread out and with the passage of time they built new settlements.
According to the scientists, we all started in Africa and spread out in all directions to populate the earth. If we subscribe to this, nobody can really claim that they are the true natives anywhere on this planet;as we all came from somewhere. The American Natives or the Eskimos look Asiatics but they are not found in Asia. By looking at their features we can speculate that they might have originated from this part of the world. The Europeans are said to have similarities with the Indo-Aryan people of India/Persia.
Here at home, the various Austronesian peoples of the Malay world and beyond are believed to have their roots in southern China, they paddled in their canoes to Taiwan, and later drifted further south to the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, Java and right to Easter Island off the coast of South America. Some studies claim the western parts of the Malay world were actually populated by these same people who had moved to Borneo earlier. Hence the claims of many similarities between the Dayaks of Borneo and the Bataks of Sumatra.
As for the peninsular, we all know that the aborigines or the orang asli were the original inhabitants. Dr. Mahathir has argued in his book ‘The Malay Dilemma’ the Malays became the ‘definitive people’ because the orang asli did not build any civilization, just like the aborigines in Australia. So, the white people who got there became the ‘definitive people’, so when we think of Australia, we see it as an European country, even though it is part of Asia geographically. Likewise, peninsular became ‘Tanah Melayu’ or the Land of the Malays.
Fast forward to this century, we can see the same movements of people. It’s nothing new, but, because of the modern nation-state concept where you are told you have the right to the land and the air, and that there are physical and mental boundaries erected between nations, most people feel uncomfortable when their space is invaded by people they perceive to be different from them.
So, the English get paranoid with the ‘Pakis’, and the French feel uneasy with the Berbers in their midst. Earlier, these two people had to fight their current hosts for their independence. This is their way of striking back, I suppose. And many Western Europeans are not happy with so many from East Europe coming to their shores because of the European Union ruling. Let us face reality. This is the globalised world, the borderless world, call it what you will, the floodgates have been opened and there is no turning back
In Sabah, most people have been screaming blue murder over the ‘illegals’ amongst us, who are proving to be more aggressive and more successful than the locals, but these people work hard. The Chinese used to do the same thing and now, they form the bulk of the middle class in this country. Before long, another wave of people will come in as the current crop of ‘illegals’ move up to the middle class. This is what is called evolution or the survival of the fittest. Remember, before the Austronesians moved here, the actual people they displaced were similar to the orang asli. They used to live in the Madai caves, sadly there are no traces of them left.
There are 80 million people to the north of us and over 200 million south of the border. If you are a businessman, you like the idea of the huge market potential of these two countries, but, the way they manage their countries, I am not sure if anything works there. Their people have to work, they have to eat and feed their families, so they are ‘pushed’ to this land of plenty and easy living. Because, we are humming along nicely, we are ‘pulling’ them to us.
While we are at it, let us ask ourselves who is going to take care of our children while both parents are busy working? Who is going to work on our plantations, construction sites and factories? Do we have any options? It’s very obvious that we need them and they need us.
Next time, if you feel like throwing stones at these people, stop and ask if you can have the kind of life you are having without them. We are stuck with them.
Our fervent wish is for the authorities to be more efficient in handling these people, but, with all the hanky panky we hear taking place, we cannot expect too much.
It would be nice, however, if we can have a transparent immigration policy based purely on our economic needs instead of this cloak- and- dagger approach. Why don’t we do things properly once and for all for the sake of our future generations? Will there be a future for them if we don’t make the effort now? Like they say, you can if you believe you can. It’s not a hopeless situation.
Chong Kah Kiat showed us that it was possible. Unfortunately,it started with him and ended with him.
They say there is no such thing as free lunch. We have been taking our environment for granted and now we are paying for it. It has never been a free resource.
We need to wake up to environmental issues as they have become political issues in some countries. There is a limit to abuse of anything in this world. The backlash by Mother Nature has financial implications which we can ill afford.
The earth is warming, the sea is rising, crude oil is depleting, and this is merely one way of looking at things. We should be more concerned about how all these will affect our economy and social development.
Water will be scarce, and it will be as valuable as oil now, it is not too far fetched to imagine that future wars will be fought over water. But, our awareness of this big issue is so limited we might as well be living on Mars.
It is also not that difficult to imagine that refugees of the future will be environmental refugees. With rising sea, low lying Maldives and some other islands in the Pacific might disappear like Atlantis, where will their people go? Don’t forget we are also surrounded by sea.
It’s not too late if we do something about it, get more people to be aware of this catastrophe waiting to happen. Talk about it to as many people as possible instead of bitching about our politics. Remember, we only have ten years to organise ourselves!