WHY NOT?
By WONG SAI WAN
Bigotry will always rear its ugly head every time an economy falls into a crisis – citizens and governments start looking for scapegoats to blame, or an excuse to unload the foreign labour that they now see as a burden.
THEY are found everywhere, from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles and from Hong Kong to London. And even in Beijing and Moscow.
During good times, they are considered the driving force of a country’s economy, but in bad times they are said to be a drag on the economy.
Who are these people?
They are the imported workers who do the jobs that locals shun; and they are also the cause locals the world over point to for all their woes.
But each time a country gets into economic problems, its citizens and government start looking for scapegoats to blame, or an excuse to unload the foreign labour that they now see as a burden.
Politicians will claim that the country can no longer afford these workers, while the people will point fingers at them for social problems like crime and runaway daughters.
In an economic boom, these same politicians go round the world inviting foreign workers to their country, while the overworked locals swear they cannot do without migrant labour.
Some may excuse such views as being driven by economic fear but the truth is that such racist attitudes are very deep-seated, yet can easily rise to the surface on the slightest excuse.
It is not surprising then that as the world faces a recession, shedding foreign labour has become a priority for every government.
Even here in Malaysia, the Government plans to send back foreign workers, legal or otherwise, claiming that they are responsible for a loss of more than RM1bil in foreign exchange yearly through the money they remit back to their country.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam has outlined the Government’s programme to give jobs to locals at the expense of the 2.5 million foreign workers currently here in the country.
In short, we intend to send back all the “un-needed” Bangladeshis, Indonesians and other Asean workers.
Singapore has also announced a similar move – and this affects some 300,000 Malaysians.
US President-elect Barak Obama plans to create some 2.5 million jobs for locals, and you can be sure that it will be at the expense of the millions of migrant workers (mostly illegal) from Latin America.
Similar anti-migrant worker policies can be found in every country and will probably get even worse as the global economic crisis deepens.
I feel ashamed that in countries like Malaysia and Singapore – whose economic growth over the past 100 years had been built on the backs of millions of migrant workers – the governments are resorting to such measures.
I also feel that such short-term measures are just that – short-term, and short-sighted.
Countries the world over have adopted a fiscal policy to spend their way out of the present crisis brought about by a lack of actual money entering the actual economy.
Over US$3,000,000,000,000,000 (count the zeros, and that is a lot of money) is being spent by these governments.
It is now obvious that this recession is going to be painful, but it should be over in the next 12 months. Governments must now plan for an economic expansion come 2010.
There is no way any country will be able to catch the tide at the re-start of the global economy without its workforce in place.
All the tough and dirty jobs are now being done by foreigners, and they have learnt to be good at the job. I, for one, would not trust any local to build my house, because we have trained a very capable Indonesian construction workforce.
If we get rid of the Indonesian workers now, who will build our houses in 12 months’ time? There is no way we can train enough locals to do it.
Our Government should acknowledge this, as should all our employers. They must get ready for the upswing, and not still ponder over the recession.
Why not?
They must now think about how best to take advantage of the recovery instead of encouraging racism and making things difficult for the hardworking foreign workforce who keep our economy going.
