Living next door to vice

Reading this column, >> Living next door to vice gave me a huge dose of deja vu  and a heightened feeling of hopelessness that our country is veering towards lawlessness, where its own citizens now live in fear of their own lives, as clusters of ethnic immigrants increase in numbers and viciousness.

I have been writing in my blog that we have too many foreigners staying in Malaysia, and also frequently in the media, { Concern over littering by foreign workers , foreign workers staying in slums, paying the price for cheap foreign labour, Malaysia a haven for illegal workers, and sex ring bust only addressing the symptoms } but all these portentous comments seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

While I have previously addressed mainly the issues of foreign 'workers', PGolingai has highlighted a new element in our 'love affair' with foreigners, that is, our uninhibited admission of foreign 'students' who use the opportunity to study in a foreign country to escape the drudgery of their own lives in their motherland.

Uncontrolled admission of  foreign students will have the same effect of continuous influx of foreign workers and I would like to repeat here,  that unless the Government seriously address the issue of our increasing dependence on cheap and often illegal foreign labour, and our love of foreign students, we are just introducing our country to all the negative and undesirable consequences of unrestrained and sub standard population. As the number of foreign workers and students with limited skills and no experience increase and converge inside our country, they inevitably form cliques, recklessly occupying previously peaceful residential areas, and exerting their influences forcefully and abusively, as can be seen by reports of foreigners fighting to evade arrest and eviction. We know now there are numerous enclaves in KL and all over the countryside, where suddenly a foreign (non citizen) group has become a majority in the area, depriving the locals of living space, clean water and houses, and even business opportunities.

While culturally, it may offer Malaysia an excellent opportunity to claim that it's "Truly Asia {and maybe partially Africa}", the social and environmental effects of such a large number (and still multiplying) of very low skilled foreigners ferried into our country and muscling our denizens out of their living space and work opportunities can only be deleterious in the long term.

Additionally, with Malaysia insisting on paying 'slave like' wages to those who clamour to work here, we cannot deny that we are just a part of the larger human trafficking system that is exploiting the poor and the down trodden of the world.

It's right; the worse is yet to come, not only for the residents of Venice Hill Condo, but for all the peace loving citizens of Malaysia.
Problems we don't need....