obscure future for malaysia’s working class

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Last updated

Sunday, September 08, 2013 11:42pm

Kuala Lumpur

25 C, Mostly Cloudy

Opinion

Obscure future for Malaysias working class

September 5, 2013

Praba Ganesan is chief

executive at KUASA, anNGO using volunteerism to

empower the 52 per cent.

He believes it is time to get

involved. You can contact

him at

[email protected]

or follow him on Twitter

@prabaganesan

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cure future for Malaysias working class | Praba Ganesan | The Mal... http://www.themalaymailonline.com/opinion/praba-ganesan/article/obs...

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SEPT 5 It was raining in the city yesterday just before office hours lapsed. The many were making

their way through the rain and for the buses.

The rest, like me, were stuck in the mamaksipping their preferred hot drinks. I was on the kopi o kosong

kau panas, or black coffee for the rest of the world.

It reminds me of those days sitting at my step-grandads short-lived street-side tea stall, usuallymidmorning. Since the citys general workers start their shift before dawn, by that time they are halfway

done for the day.

Both the same for me, in that you see people get on with their day.

The scene helped me with two thoughts bugging me, piecing together a conundrum. Not solving it, but

giving it better shape.

The thoughts were actually two things told to me the past 24 hours.

One, a student telling me in class by way of explaining taxation that the state presents benefits to all

despite the poorer population not doing anything. Second, an old friend explaining to me why his logistics-

related firm worries about alcohol cargo, because the largely Indian workforce would be tempted to pilfer.

These thoughts were obviously swimming along with the constant media reminder that people who look

like me male, Tamil and from a working-class neighbourhood are likelier to be criminals that other

Malaysians and a current police dragnet is on to reduce crime, by extension means to have less of me on

the streets.

The clearer shape was this: I am often forcing middle-class arguments about working class predicaments,

attempting to make the former feel for the latter.

Which ultimately fails to please the intended group and at the same time remains irrelevant to the other

group since most of them dont read this column or news portal.

And as this nation begins a period of economic tightening starting with the petrol price hike, perhaps we

have to talk about the group of people about to face the brunt of it, the working class.

And we have to talk about them from where they stand.

At least, not like how my student and friend spoke about them, anyways.

The indefensible and the defenceless

My best friend says that the only path to green technology is allowing fossil fuel to become expensive

enough that investment into alternative energies is imperative. Removing subsidies takes us closer to that

scenario.

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I concur, everything should be priced as it costs and green technology is the way forward for the human

species.

However for a swath of Malaysians unskilled, ill-prepared and under-educated by a system bent on other

objectives, living without state support would be near-impossible in the short run.

While it is all fine and good to argue the need to make the structural adjustments so that things are

tenable, will it be equitable for the weakest segment of our society to soldier through while we remain a

rich country?

In that 1 kilometre stretch from where I sit, which is not far from my workstation, there are no working

payphones. Dilapidated buses struggle along jammed streets and private hospitals surround the city

hospital. There are examples after examples of things not functioning, services missing and planning

absent for poorer Malaysians.

While it will be not a walk in the park for the middle-class, basic life protections are slipping away from

the working class.

Which is why I cannot support the reduction of subsidies even though the economic arguments for

economic rationalisations are sound.

Losing game

I said this is a rich country, so that would beg the question, why does a rich country have a large

population of people indisposed to compete for economic gain fairly?

Powerful unions and political instability offer social mobility windows to the poorest.

Unions use collective bargaining to gain better wage for the bulk of workers. Here they are powerless,

therefore workers rely on benevolent leaders and government leaders for wage rates to rise.

When there is no political monopoly, many will be seeking votes and a few would have experience in

government because power is passed back and forth cyclically. Everyone jostles for the working class

vote, causing policy focus on the working class for they are a vote basin. Competitors are constantly

trying to offer a better vision in exchange for votes.

Since our unions are weak and only one party runs the country, the working class has no intended or

accidental champion.

The government of the day is frightened by the middle-class. There was almost a power shift in May

because almost all of the middle-class turned on the Barisan Nasional, but enough support in the working

class avoided a first transfer of power for the country.

With an election so far away, the fate of the working class now is in the hands of the middle-class. The

present government is set on keeping the poor needy so that occasional handouts are prized. Efforts to

improve the lives of the poor structurally are seen as unnecessary as evidenced by the near collapse of the

national public schools system.

Soul of the nation

As Ive said again, I cannot construct a compelling argument to insist the burgeoning middle-class has an

obligation to advocate for the working class.

The need is apparent but Im not suggesting some social burden, real or imaginary.

I can say this, for the past few months the country has looked soulless. The glum Merdeka and now

build-up to Malaysia Day is proving that it is not exciting being Malaysian or being in Malaysia these


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days. All of us seem to be going through the motions as a country even if our personal lives are filled with

roses and dance scenes.

As I said earlier, I only have more clarity in understanding my conundrum, not a plan to resolve it.

But I do wish that those better off start to think of the problems of the working class as real Malaysian

problems and not distractions disallowing a regime change which they would have preferred.

That just puts a wedge between the classes. That only helps those trying to keep a way of life displeasingto all Malaysians outside the power circle.

As it stands, the working class are slipping off into the obscurity of Malaysian life by design. I worry for

my country.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

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obscure future for malaysia’s working class

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