Yeah sick isnt it monsterball. Just plain sick. And wot is worse. They are not bothered. “Leave. Pls leave. Leave for all we care” – going by their attitude we can only observe that they are in fact saying so in response. Lost of talents and brains. Nah. Umnoputras are better. The rest can go. They can find replacement easily. Look around us. Look at the large, no very very large, number of bumiputras-to-be about. If Pakatan does not bring down the umno gobermen in GE13 (which incidentally I believe is an achievable objective) I would surely work towards moving my young kids and wife out of the country. Sick. And sad. And it would make umno and perkasa happy.

Now why would anyone expect that the ratio of people admitted as permanent residents and citizens be excluded from this common, general and sancrosanct criteria of dominance applicable to all other areas measured by numbers/ratios?

When has other criteria like humanitarian concerns eg “key care givers and providers to their Malaysian families” been of greater importance or for that matter even qualifications of applicants for PR/citizenship and their socio-economic contribution to the country by virtue of these qualifications?

If qualifications and contributions to country have been of importance the race specific NEP would not have been perpetuated for half a century even if it represents the main factor behind our compromising of educational standards and our brain drain.

They are only interested in smoothing the way for the illegal immigrants from Indonesia, Philippines, Bangla, Myanmar etc. We urgently need them.

2. Your MP is still hale and hearty. Wait for another buy-election and maybe, just maybe, the Minister might give out a few freebies. Then pray that you are on the list.

3. Consider brown or green envelopes if you are very, very desperate.

4. Consider changing religion and all your problems might be solved pronto.

5. Your application is in the ‘final’ stage of approval, since 1985, so wait for it. Its coming soon, very soon, so don’t ‘rush’ them. Else they might get high blood pressure.

6. The Minister, his two or three Deputies, the SG, the civil servants etc etc are very busy with lots of politicking to do, meetings to attend, arranging pestas etc daily. Give them a break la. They need yet another tea break.

7. What is a waiting period of 18 years? Remember the Chinese woman who waited 50 years in Hulu Selangor who gave Hishamuddin a hug for finally approving her citizenship? And that Indian fellow who was granted citizenship two weeks after he died?

8. Your application does not fall under “People First, Performance Now” category. Tough.

9. Your file has been ‘misplaced’. They don’t know anything about it. Start all over again.

This time apply from Sabah or Sarawak. They have very ‘helpful’ people there who can speed things up for you (wink, wink).

“Berkhidmat Untuk Negara”.

Do we have non Malays working in home affairs citizenship department? If you find one, please let me know, i shall give you RM100 each for every non Malay officers there.

Another racist policy to reduce the number on other races. Sorry for the malaysian Chinese who married foreigner.

This kind of issue of foreign spouses and their problems involves rightness or wrongness of (1) policy and (2) implementation.

(1) At policy level, they will change for the better only if foreign spouses as a group are significantly large to impact on votes as they affect their position. [Did giving liberally Mykads to Filipino immigrants in Sabah in exchange for votes, if reports were true, pose any problem?] Otherwise than political benefit, policy makers are unlikely to be moved by other humanitarian considerations of foreign spouses being “key care givers and providers to their Malaysian families” and the fate of their offsprings! The party that should best take up the issue would be the various women NGOs that should leverage on their delivery of women votes to fight first for position of foreign wives and their children. If you talking of taking into consideration what is equitable and fair, would we be discussing the many issues in this blog, many of them recurrent or recycled over the same common themes of lack of justice and fairness?

(2) At implementation level (even if, assuming, some rucks in policy were straightened), we’re dealing with the bureaucracy, especially one that is dominated by one race and doubly especially one like Immigration (or even land offices), vested inordinately large discretionary powers based on their belief that they are law unto themselves on matters like PR & citizenship, viewed as a privilege not a right in relation to the applicant!

It was not like previous to 40 years ago where at least the Civil Service/bureaucracy mirrored multiracial,religious,cultural representation. Then – because of the work milieu and presence of various races working together- the likelihood was less of an officer taking a xenophobic approach in the exercise of bureaucratic discretion. A multiracial & cultural working environment tended to moderate, by check and balance, extremist views. Today if (hypothetically) an officer (wrongly) looks at extraneous considerations of religion, race or creed as relevant factors to expedite PR approvals for Indonesian, Acehnese, Palestinian, Bosnian, Thai and Philippine Muslims wives (filling up all quota) and hence give others a “run around”, who amongst his colleaques having shared outlook is going to tell him he is wrong much less take him to task??? As if the above problems are not enough, there is also another problem of corruption in which certain areas within bureaucracy are considered private fiefdoms to make things difficult for purposes of making money – that even the political bosses cannot intercede.

We sympathise/empathise foreign wive’s predicament but what could we do? The problems of foreign spouses like other problems much faced by rest of us in other areas of national life (including business, education etc) stem from progressive deterioration of governance over 50 years due to institutionalised policies of race/religion. It cannot be that easily fixed. Even the PM could not broach on the subject when his NEM was rejected resoundingly in the Bumiputra Economic Congress.

It seems that it is more difficult for a man married to a Malaysian woman to get PR status.

We need to have rules that are easy to apply rather than the obscure rulings/procedures that can result in people being married to Malaysians for many years with uncertainty about their residence rights.
I suggest the following:
1. PR granted to all foreigners after 3 years of marriage.
2.PR granted to children of all ages of such marriages.
3.Only reason for denying PR is a conviction in a court for any crime punishable by 2 years jail of fine of RM10,000.
I think the current PR rules are based heavily on Ketuanan principle