20 September 2007
Dewi Anggraeni, Melbourne
The brutal assault on Indonesian karate instructor Donald Luther Colopita by Malaysian police last month has not only evoked patriotic anger among many Indonesians, it has also brought to public attention an array of stories of unpleasant (some downright awful) incidents experienced by Indonesians in Malaysia.
These have been exchanged in private gatherings as well as through various electronic mailing lists.
It is hard to miss the recurring theme of Indonesian tourists being mistaken for illegal domestic helpers, if they are women, and illegal construction or other types of manual workers if they are men. A number of tourists have allegedly been subjected to public humiliation, even rough manhandling while being accused of being illegal migrants from Indonesia.
This situation is extremely distressing for all affected.
For Malaysia, it may undermine its tourism industry, to say the least, because, after all, Malaysia is a favorite holiday destination for Indonesians, Malaysians being, in their minds, their ethnic and cultural kin. Now that stories of mistreatment have spread far and wide, electronic communication being unapologetically efficient, other Indonesians and their friends who may be planning a Malaysian visit may think twice.
For Indonesia, the situation is even more serious.
You don't have to have a degree in psychology to know that people who are subjected to bullying are usually those regarded as weak and powerless. Is that how Indonesia's image is in Malaysia, its neighbor and cultural sibling?
There are finer points here. It is not Indonesia, as such, whose image has been tainted, but rather Indonesians. And it did not happen overnight. The deterioration in the image of Indonesians has been taking place for decades.
We are a long way from the 1960s, where Malaysia actively encouraged migrants from Indonesia. Those who came then were professional or quasi-professional people, such as doctors, teachers and nurses, and they blended easily into the Malay community.
The 1980s, however, brought continuous streams of manual workers from Indonesia. The men mostly work in construction and plantations, and the women as domestics. In an ideal world, this should not be a drawback for the Indonesians, provided they all do an honest day's work. However, economic, social and cultural aspects come into play here.
In today's relatively affluent Malaysia, most Malaysians shun manual work, especially in the construction and plantation sectors, so the Indonesians who work in these areas are not in a natural environment to mingle with the locals, and tend to stand out. Domestic work, in which the majority of the Indonesian women are employed, has always been regarded as a lowly occupation so that the female migrants are also shut out of social intercourse with local Malay women.
Even this should not lead bullying. Filipino workers, for example, receive respect for what they do, be they involved in professional or manual work. So why are Indonesians singled out?
Let me relate a conversation I had with Meera Samanther, president of the Women's Aid Organization in Malaysia, during my research for the book Dreamseekers: Indonesian Women as Domestic Workers in Asia, where Samanther remarked that Indonesian women were very easy to bully. "I don't know why that is. When they're yelled at, they tend to cower instead of standing up for themselves, which Filipino women tend to do."
Having spoken to a number of Indonesian women working as domestic helpers, I discovered why many of these women did not dare answer back when verbally abused.
Deep down they knew they could not win. They were in Malaysia, either illegally or legally, but normally seriously underskilled, because they used dubious agents who were able to obtain travel documents for them by equally dubious means -- by colluding with corrupt officials in Indonesia. They were constantly scared of being reported, detained, extorted by local petty officials and then being sent back home without a cent.
I have come across Indonesian domestic helpers who enjoyed favorable working situations because they were properly and adequately trained, and placed by good and reliable agencies.
Unfortunately, only those who are abused receive public attention, human nature being the way it is.
The men may be in similar circumstances. Many are on the run from the authorities. And, understandably, when they are on the run, they are sometimes forced to turn to crime in order to survival. And their crimes are generally been reported with the "Indonesian illegal worker" epithet.
Is there any wonder that over the years these negative pictures have stuck in the minds of Malaysians, and eventually become a collective image?
Indonesia could address this distressing situation on two fronts. First, by diplomatic but rational dialogue with Malaysia, thus showing the neighbor that it cares about its citizens and is not pleased about them being mistreated. The fact that these workers are often abused in their own country is not lost on Malaysians.
Second, by getting its own house in order, thus ensuring that workers who go to Malaysia, or any country for that matter, have sufficient self-confidence to stand up for their own rights as they are properly and adequately trained, transparently processed, and provided with legal protection.
This is an urgent issue that deserves to be made a top national priority.
I once read a story about an 18th century Russian duchess who had to stop and shelter in a peasant's hut in a bitterly cold winter because one of the wheels of the carriage in which she was traveling was broken and had to be repaired. The peasant family welcomed her into the warmest room available, yet despite her fur coat, she was still miserably cold.
On inquiring why there was no fire anywhere in the hut, she was informed that the family were unable to afford firewood. When she finally returned home to her castle, she ordered one of her servants to prepare a big box of firewood, then proceeded to warm herself at the fireplace.
Half an hour later, the servant came in and said, "The box of firewood is ready, my lady. What would you like us to do with it?" The duchess turned around and said, "Put it back. The weather is becoming warmer now." No firewood was sent to the peasant family.
The energy from the anger has to be put to work immediately or the migrant situation will become worse, and the collective image of Indonesians in the receiving countries will continue to deteriorate.
The writer is the author of Dreamseekers; Indonesian Women as Domestic Workers in Asia, jointly published by Equinox Publishing and the International Labor Organization.
