It's about poverty, it's about power

While I support the right to peaceful protest, I'm not in support of the demands of Hindraf.

It is problematic to ask for rights *as Indians*. This falls into the trap of believing that there is a difference between the Indian poor and marginalised, the Chinese, Orang Asli or Malay poor and marginalised and that plays into the hands of the elite.

It strengthens the ruling coalition. The Merdeka Centre reports that UMNO's support is rising. Is it because they have successfully portrayed themselves, again, as defenders of the Malays? If so, isn't a racialised demonstration only going to show the 'Malays' that they need to be defended?

I've been asked if this means I was against the fight for Black rights. The fight for Black rights was important, but as part of human rights - and remembering that although the system systematically discriminated against blacks, that the discrimination against blacks was still a way of ensuring the complicity of poor whites as well. Poor whites are allowed to feel that they have someone to oppress - it's the same with women, with supervisors on a factory floor etc. They are distracted into complicity with a ruling system that keeps them oppressed....

And this is the situation in Malaysia - if not more so. Malaysia has not just systematic discrimination, it also has race-based parties as its parties of Government. The official discourse is one of protecting one race against another - and it is this discourse that has kept BN in power for such a long time.

It isn't because the rights of Indians are not important. There *is* discrimination of Indians as Indians, particularly obvious when looking at deaths in police custody. But the Black rights movement shows how limited a race-based approach is - the more overt means of discrimination are no longer in place, and yet the Blacks still languish in prison in disproportionate numbers, same in poverty etc etc.

The only way to really address the problems faced by poor Indians (Samy, Ananda Krishnan and Tony Fernandes aren't worried about discrimination!), is to encourage them to look at their problems in a holistic manner - it isn't a race problem, it's a class and poverty problem. Estate workers suffer from poor wages - but look at the problems faced by Malay tobacco farmers especially since the ASEAN FTA introduction. We need to be overcoming the racial barriers, not giving the rich, powerful, multi-ethnic politicians and elite a reason to draw the poor to their 'racial' cause. It leads to the argument that only Malays can protect Malay interests, because those interests are threatened, not by the rich and powerful who negotiated ASEAN FTAs, but by the Indians and Chinese. And likewise for Indians, and Chinese.

The problem of poor Indians is not that they are Indians. Ananda Krishnan is an Indian. I don't think he suffers from discrimination. The problem is that they are poor. We are continually *told* that the reason is because they are Indian, whether it is from the point of view of being Indian (the Malays and Chinese do this to the Indian community) or from the point of view of a non-Indian (Indians are lazy, stupid, whatever).

But it really isn't. It's because they are poor. And as long as we see this as an Indian problem it will persist - it will persist after the dismantling of racial legislation. Because the problem is the system that discriminates, regardless of race, in favour of the rich. Again, ask the tobacco farmers of Kelantan, the fisherfolk of Penang, the rice farmers of KEdah. Of the supposed 'three' races in Malaysia today, the group with the LARGEST gap between rich and poor is the Malays.

The people who marched have real grievances. But they are playing into the hands of the elites by putting their grievances forward as race-based, not poverty-based. The Brits put into place the strategy of divide and rule, and this plays directly into that. It is not, ultimately, empowering. And it turns potential allies (poor Malays, Chinese) into enemies.

(Taken from correspondence with a colleague)