Legal illegal immigrants ...

The other day we read about the government's wishes to import 45,000 individuals from India legally into Malaysia for the ostensible purpose of resolving the labour problems in the country. Doesn't the government still not realise that some 30,000 odd Indians that came to visit Malaysia as tourists are still not accounted for - their entries have been recorded but their exits from Malaysia have not. Their presence here would only aggravate the social problems - never mind the political- as if we are not already mired in social problem created by the presence of illegal immigrants from Indonesia, Philipines, Burma and the like already numbering in excess of 2 millions - never mind the so-called 2 million legal migrants that are already in the country.

I presume the 45,000 Indians are to be employed in the mamak restaurants (the 30,000 Indians that are not accounted for are already in the mamak and other restaurants), in the estates, in the construction industries and in other various labour-intensive industries. The thinking is that these migrant labourers are cheap compared to if the labourers had been Malaysians. The thinking is that if the Malaysians do not want to be employed at dirt-cheap wages, then, that is the fault of the Malaysians, not the authorities, if young Malaysians decide to become Mat Rempits rather be respectably employed as labourers. This is exactly the thinking of the British in those days when they decided to bring in droves and droves of illegal immigrants into this country. It wasn't their fault when the Malays decided to live in their kampungs rather than work in the tin mine and in the rubber plantations. The present government is apparently thinking of the same situation.