LETTER | National reset needed now, more than ever

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say ‘Wait on time’.” - Martin Luther King Jr, ‘A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches’

LETTER | I have never been as alarmed as I have been lately. The more I see, the more I worry, and I am afraid for the young who will inherit what we seem to insist on leaving behind. We need to stymie the flow of ignorance and fear, prevalent among many Malaysian communities in recent years.

The poor, the hungry, the marginalised, the racists, the xenophobes, the silenced, the hidden, the disillusioned. They all need help. They need representation for their concerns, to counter both the indifference and the misinformation they are met with today.

As I write this opinion piece, the Klang Valley and other parts of Malaysia dread the rain that may resume before the year end, threatening to drown the already recovering neighbourhoods and highlighting the need for more blankets and sustenance.

Babies have drowned, slipping from the hands of tired mothers, holding on to them for two days of waiting, only to lose them. It was the worst flood in years and yet rescues and an implementation plan took days to activate.

In the meantime, citizens and grassroots community leaders and young people came in to save the day. What’s worse is that we were warned about the need to ready ourselves for flash floods five months ago, by Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar.

Nobody listened to her. Why? Because she’s from the wrong political party? Because she’s young and smart? A woman? Does this make her misgivings less legitimate in the eyes of decision-makers and policymakers who should have known better?

My friends and I met a 22-year-old woman, two weeks ago, who has submitted a truly impressive funding proposal. She is asking for a chance to set up her own restaurant.

She comes from a disadvantaged background, speaks three languages, is bright and hardworking, but cannot qualify for a loan or a grant to start a business. She lodges for free at her teacher’s house, unable to afford anything else.

Her proposal will be approved, despite the odds. She’s that talented but unnoticed, needing that leg up.

In an often-unnoticed part of Sabah, a single mother with seven children had the zinc roof fly off their home which just collapsed in the swell of a fierce rainstorm. They huddled last night under a tree, draped with a plastic tarpaulin, waiting for the storm to abate. Thank God, no one was hurt.

In Kelantan, yet another single mother asks for RM150 - for rent and food for a month. She doesn’t even have the fare for the three buses she needs to take to register with the Welfare Department in town, for the privilege of filling out the numerous pages of the registration form before taking the three buses back home. Where does she leave her three children even if she found the money?

I sat in on a meeting with a young group of inventors who are working in conjunction with two local universities here in Kuala Lumpur. They were asking a friend of mine for advice on developing their toy artificial intelligence (AI) boxes - how could they best reach poor, marginalised kindergarten-aged kids, who have no access to any early childhood education.

So many kindergartens and nurseries have shut down in the last two years. How are single parents, in mostly poor communities supposed to work when they have nowhere to leave their children?

I recently learned that the increasing utilisation of online education has actually led to an increase in dropout rates, as underprivileged children in both urban and rural areas have no access to this.

There has been an upswing in the reporting of cases of forced labour amongst children (read trafficking here), but the home minister insists forced child labour is only amongst migrants and non-Malaysians.

I need not repeat that many families have lost their jobs and have no food. Children are therefore compelled to work to help families out. Unscrupulous factory owners will even take on 10-year-olds and not pay them. We need to revamp our labour law and keep kids in schools. This is not a migrant issue alone, Mr Minister!

Advocacy for the Alternative to Detention (ATD) for children has reached its 10th year. Many of us working on this child protection issue are waiting (and waiting) to implement the pilot project that will allow five children to be released from detention centres and placed in a more humane, nurturing space with NGOs. Is the urgency of this so hard to understand?

I lay out the harrowing illustrations because the real questions I am asking are - how long will all the above truths be silenced? How long will these Malaysian voices go unheard? Where is the access to social justice?

It is obvious that we need a departure from the status quo where elected representatives are not delivering results. Nazir Abdul Razak has been lobbying for a Better Malaysia Assembly. I signed on in support of his initiative because I do not want to be another excluded voice.

What I would like is for Noraini and her seven children to stop living on the streets, have clean dry clothes, be fed and be safe. I want Nurul to get her aid, so she can work, and put her kids in school. I’d like to see Farah get her much-deserved loan and for authorities to help set up her restaurant.

Let’s get Ahmad out of detention - he’s 10 years old and alone. I’d like Pak Cik Mat not to worry about the literal roof over his head or have to climb that flimsy roof when he can barely walk. I want to assure Mr Lim that his food will reach the poor and that he doesn’t need to ask his wife to cook another huge vat of food for the same group next week.

Can everyone “celebrating” this festive season in villages and plantations just have enough to eat?

We need to analyse the causes that give rise to these issues, discuss them openly and strip them of any political slant. We the citizens need to come together in assemblies like the Better Malaysia Assembly where stakeholders deliver real, valuable input designed to find solutions in a deliberative process that will result in workable recommendations that are not just lip service.

“The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” - Marcus Garvey

HARTINI ZAINUDDIN is a child activist.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.