The famous American journalist and author Jorge Ramos once
said "The greatest nations are defined by how they treat their weakest
inhabitants". In modern day world a civilized state not only comprises of its
nationals but also of some foreigners living there. These foreigners are either
immigrants or refugees. The question arises what are the reasons when a person
leaves his motherland and opts to go for Foreign lands. The British writer
Warsan Shire has beautifully answered this by saying "No one leaves home unless
the home is the mouth of a shark". Home is like heaven but war, poverty, hunger,
religious persecution or political differences turn those heavens into hell.
People are compelled to enter foreign countries either as immigrants for better
economic opportunities or as refugees to save their skin. Many countries are
host to such immigrants and refugees including Malaysia. There was a time when
Malaysia was a Jungle and was not amongst the fast growing economies. Its
inhabitants mostly used boiled things as their food because they were unfamiliar
with spices, and did not know their use in food. But then God blessed the people
of Malaysia and sent foreigners there, who started working there and constructed
splendid roads, houses and buildings. Every foreign expatriate when leaves his
home intends to return to his own country once his economic problems are over or
the reasons of his seeking asylum are no more there. With the advent of the
immigrants and refugee workers, a sense of envy and jealousy arose in Malaysian
locals when they observed that expatriates coming from different countries earn
well from labor, because the native Malays are known for their bizarre nature.
Most of the time they do nothing and sit idle in their homes. The Chinese origin
Malaysian and Indian origin are considered very hard working as compared to the
Malay citizens. A recent study of different behavioural changes in Malaysia
shows that the Malays are often envious of the businesses and other achievements
of the foreign immigrants and refugees and they want to ruin them somehow. The
last year national media reports indicate that Malays even keep such conduct
with Muslim expatriates which is against the universal charter of human rights.
They even ingurgitate the salaries of their foreign expatriates working as
employees. Some criminal gangs are involved in keeping Foreigners in their
private detention centers and jails and they demand extortion money from them.
The local police and immigration department do not adopt a proactive approach
against such criminals. Even the refugees in Malaysia who are registered with
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR are also treated inhumanly.
There is no sympathetic treatment towards them. Neither they can do labor freely
nor they can roam around in a free manner. While the UNHCR plays a very indolent
role in their release once apprehended by police. The refugees have blamed that
there is no media campaign by this UN body in Malaysia for the rights of
immigrants, and the reason behind this is the poor performance of media section
of UNHCR at Malaysia. They are blamed for being lackadaisical while media
section Malay staff of UNHCR in others countries always strive hard to raise the
voice for refugees on every forum. UNHCR Malaysia needs to make its media wing
strong, by recruiting people who would diligently fight for the rights of the
Refugees. UNHCR needs to organize seminars and conferences for local police and
immigration officers in order to sensitize them. The UNHCR need to launch a
campaign to promote compassion towards refugees and to discard the frequent
arrests of refugees for no reason. UNHCR should work for resettlement of the
refugees who have been living in Malaysia for more than a decade as most of the
refugees treat Malaysia as a transit country.The Malaysian government should
also encourage UNHCR to speed up the process of resettlement for such refugees
who have been living in Malaysia for more than ten years. The civil rights
organisations blame the Work Permit System for the expatriates in Malaysia as a
faulty one. They demand the Malaysian authorities to redesign its Work Permit
System on the pattern of Dubai. These organisations also demand that the
Immigration and police department should recruit properly trained and well
educated people who can read and speak English so that they would be mindful of
the problems of the expatriates. No country in the world treats its foreign
expatriates and refugees inhumanly as it is done there. If these foreigners are
forced to go back to their countries, Malaysian economy will be in doldrums. In
order to improve its image in the comity of nations, the Malaysian government
should introduce pro-immigrant and pro-refugee policies to make its society more
cohesive and inclusive. The world is now a global village. We may have different
languages, we may have different religions, we may have different coloured skin
but at end we all belong to one Human Race.