Domestic workers rescued by Tenaganita have told us how agents will cut their hair short, tell them that they cannot wear any earrings or accessories, and that they shouldn’t spend more than five minutes on themselves; the identity must be stripped, and it is reinforced that their sole duty is to serve their employer.
– Irene Fernandez

COMMENT | We donate money to news organisations. We donate money to politicians. We donate money to political parties. Aegile Fernandez’s letter published in Malaysiakini is stark reminder why certain NGOs, especially those dealing with the most marginalised groups, deserve our attention but more importantly, the funds to pursue their agenda.

Back in the day when “false” news was the “fake” news of its day, Irene Fernandez was hounded by the state for publishing information on the deaths of Semenyih camp detainees provided by Steven Gan when he worked for The Sun, which had refused to carry out his team’s investigative piece out of fear of state reprisals.

I am sure this is no small part that led to the creation of Malaysiakini that one former prime minister labelled as “traitors”. The state, of course, labelled such reporting as "false news".

While I do not possess the ability to write impassioned pleas on behalf of marginalised groups, I do think I have a responsibility as someone who has a public platform to advocate on behalf of those who speak truth to power. In other words, using my platform to highlight those who actually do the hard thankless work of holding the political elites in this country accountable for their mismanagement in the guise of public policy.

When Fernandez asks, “when will we get rid of corruption”, I am pretty sure the “we” does not include the political elites who will always be mired in corruption scandals and infighting, to even consider resolving the issue groups like Tenaganita raise. No, instead they will whip their supporters into a partisan frenzy over issues which have little to do with what is actually destroying this country.

This, of course, is dangerous. Corruption does not merely involve the looting of public or private coffers. It involves issues of national security. Public comments by Tenaganita’s Glorene Das, for instance, points to the breakdown of the system when it comes to why Malaysia is a major transit point for human trafficking.

Writing of the Wang Kelian cover up I reiterated this point, which is the concern of many security analysts in the region - “Add to this, the complicated reality of security apparatus personnel navigating the petty fiefdoms and the allegiances of said fiefdoms to Umno warlords and potentates and the fact that Malaysia is a nexus for human trafficking, with the complicity - well-documented - of the security apparatus. This last part is extremely important because the unsanctioned flow of illicit human cargo is the conduit for Islamic extremists to leave and enter the country.”

If you read Fernandez' letter, you will understand that she does not let the Malaysian public off the hook by merely (predictably) pointing at the system. She makes it clear that the Malaysian public is part of the system. The murder of (another) domestic worker not only points to the dysfunction of the system but to the entire neighbourhood where this happened...