Abu Ghaib - the Malaysian version
Before you read on, I just want to say that I really hate it when people call pembantu rumah "orang gaji" or "servant". Please stop it! There's a negative social connotation associated with the latter terms. In case reminding is needed, this is the 21st century. Whichever halal job one takes on, one deserves some respect and dignity. In fact, we should show greatest respect for people who are willing to do such less appealing jobs (other eg street cleaners, dishwashers, construction labourers). Dahla marginalised and ridiculously underpaid kan kat Malaysia?!Excerpts from MalaysiaKini
Martin Jalleh wrote;
"The abuse and torture of Nirmala Bonet is no storm in the teacup. One has only to browse through the daily papers to be convinced that the social fabric of this nation is in tatters. Our social values have gone to the dogs ... but even dogs are treated better than Nirmala.
Murders, rapes, corruption, robberies, violence, all kinds of crimes are reported each day. In our mad and reckless chase for development and success something has gone terribly wrong.
Bolehland needs some serious soul-searching. Could it be that the very forces that supposedly lead us to so-called success, in reality de-humanise us further and leaves us devoid of any respect for the dignity of another human soul?"
Z Sunday wrote;
"Broadly speaking (and I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush), what we see here is a self-centred yuppie generation raising a next generation of spoilt brats in the care of maids. What values will the children learn from looking at their parents who treat maids with such a scarcity of respect? How will these Little Maharajahs behave and interact with others when they're older?
Maid abuse has its roots in attitude problem. Nearly as reprehensible as actual assault is the mindset that figures for a measly RM300 a month, the imported maid has signed over body and soul to her employers. That she is to be at their beck and call seven days a week, without rest.
Bringing on more legislation will not deter abuse, just as the proposed death penalty, if implemented, will not stem the number of rapes. Cronesia is a tremendously over-legislated country with a proportionate under-enforcement of the countless laws already in place.
Same with domestic violence, hitting a maid represents an ego trip. In our class-riven society that kowtows to wealth and power and where the elite lack no hubris, maids are unfortunately viewed as of a 'lower order'.
In the developed countries, jobs like house-cleaning and babysitting are at least paid far more generously than the below-subsistence wages the workers in these areas here are given. Neither is the exploitation of cheap labour as rampant in developed societies; thus we don't hear of an influx of Indonesian maids to the Scandinavian countries.
Ask ourselves this: Do we as a society condone the outlook that maids are to be worked to the bone so that employers can get their money's worth? Do we censure the bosses who task their maids with a seemingly inexhaustible list of chores from dawn to dusk?
Therefore is the case of Nirmala's ill-treatment an extreme manifestation of the ills of our class-powered, materialism-driven social dynamics?
Unless and until we are willing to accord more dignity to lowly-paid manual labour, Nirmala will just be a seven-day wonder in our national consciousness. Without a shift in our mindset, we will - after the outcry dies down - still have to live with ourselves as a less than enlightened community … made in Cronesia."
P.s. Seen the before and after pictures? Tear-jerking. Not giving away the url but if you just google it, you'll find it on somebody's blog.
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