As I write now, there are cops all over the major h/ways leading to KL. Their objective is to weed out those who are going to allegedly illiegally demonstrate (or whatever the hell they will call it) in front of the British High Commission on Sunday. The group leading this is the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf). Their purpose is to send a petition supposedly signed by 100,000 Indians to Queen Elizabeth II to appoint a Queen’s Counsel to represent the Indian community in a class action suit against the British government for bringing Indians as labourers here and exploiting them. An estimated 20,000 people are estimated to take part and are said that they will be wearing orange. They are demanding USD1MM for every Indian in Malaysia and that apparently came to about USD4 Trillion in total!
With this new development from my race of people, I am sure like me, you are besotted by three very crucial questions that will shake the very foundation of our country's morality and cultural fibre. One, how do you spell besotted? Two, why does culture have fibre? And three, isn't the British High Comm closed on Sunday? Who are they going to give it to, the security guard at the gates? the police is going through all this trouble for this? The police did say that Hindraf will plan riots and fights. Needless to say, the police didn't say how they found that out. But if fights were planned, between who? Oscar Del La Hoya and Evander Holyfield? Maybe we could sell tickets to the spectacle.
One things for sure, there will be jams all over to spoil our weekend lives. In all seriousness, I am a little ignorant but maybe more confused. What precedented event triggered this lawsuit from Hindraf? What are their chances of winning and what are they really hoping to achieve out of this? Being half Indian, do I qualify for at least half or can I fight for full compensation since my IC says I am Indian? What about those Indians whose forefathers didn't come as labourers but as merchants, chettiars (these are Indian Ah Longs called Samy(s)) and others occupations? Are they eligible to this compensation as well?
Like I said, my views may be very myopic or blissfully ignorant. I have googled Hindraf and they have been getting their views heard more vocally than other groups about a lot of issues regarding the Indian and Hindu community. Like the demolishing of a Hindu temple. Maybe the Indian community needs to be more vocal to be heard since we seem to be overwhelmed by other issues. But maybe we need to be find better ways to be heard and respected at the same time.
Whatever it is, rest assured I will be filling out my list of things to do when I get my million of which one of the things is to donate some back to Hindraf. It will at least help to pay for their phone calls to high comm so that they can find out if it is open on Sundays. Also I am burning all my orange shirts.
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