White flags a symbol of structural failure


DURING my usual rides to buy food from hawkers during the pre-covid-19 period around Ipoh, I used to notice young, poor children pleading to the people who are buying food there to also buy them something. These are usually in the areas where there are flats nearby.

My wife and I had several such encounters and I used to wonder whether the children and their parents had their names registered with the local government, which could provide aid to the families concerned, besides providing them the help needed for their economic upliftment.

There were no white flags around then, because aid is left to charity groups, or the people have some kind of informal work that enables them to meet their basic needs coupled with the aid given monthly by the government agencies.

Due to the lockdown, however, this so-called informal work is no longer there, and this has brought severe hardship to many families who cannot depend on welfare aid, especially with the current inflation. This is why white flags have been placed in several houses nationwide.

While welfare aid does help to a certain extent, it does not address the comprehensive nature of poverty in these families.

Local governments, being unelected entities, are structurally not empowered to address poverty issues. There is also a lethargic bureaucracy that is not fully motivated to addressing them as they are not directly accountable to the people through elections.

Even if there are meetings between the local government officials and the groups on issues such as housing and land, follow up becomes an uphill battle and is delayed, or there’s a need to refer to other government agencies.

There is also local politics at play; a councillor who is from one political party may not want to help in areas where an opponent party holds the parliamentary seat.

These are the realities on the ground and the current white flag symbol for needing help is not merely about basic necessities per-se, but should be seen from a wider perspective as the failure of the current centralised structure of government, which has made local governments toothless, bureaucratic and ineffective when it comes to the real situation in relation to poverty and health care.

Today we find white flags flown at homes, hotels and even by those who are jobless through social media like LinkedIn, because the government has failed to take a broader structural perspective in addressing these issues in the context of Covid 19, where real solutions are local solutions and not so-called nationwide solutions.

The Covid -19 crisis has shown that the centralised governing structure has failed in addressing high Covid -19 numbers, besides creating a devastating impact on the economy.

*Ronald Benjamin is Association for Community and Dialogue secretary.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.


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