MALAYSIA has only two options to choose from: kick out all the stateless people from the country or give them a new lease on life and allow them to contribute towards the economic development of the country. 

Some of them have parents who may come from Thailand, Indonesia or the Philippines, but having grown up in Malaysia, their parents’ motherland is just as alien to them as an Earthling landing on Mars. 

 Sabah people often begrudge the infiltration of Filipinos into their state, but can anyone tell me who exactly is to blame if our borders are so porous? 

We are to blame.

Is it because of corruption? If yes, what has the government done all these years to arrest the problem? 

Didn’t we have the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) and most of us know about Project IC, but no one has been criminalised for it, why? 

After the RCI, people are lukewarm and quiet, instead of suggesting the government do anything about it. 

Even if a few people pick up their pens to speak, would their voices be loud enough for the government to take the suggestions seriously? 

Malaysians have themselves to blame for the problem of statelessness, whether through human trafficking or our porous borders. 

Think about their future

Some young people are less fortunate as their parents did not have the means to obtain citizenship, either through the legal or illegal channels. 

Some of these children born in the country are raised here their entire lives. Without citizenship, what will become of them? Without an education, will they instead turn into thugs? 

Please think of the future of these young people who will still be living in our midst. Think of them as your own children, if some day you have to flee the country with your children. 

We are all sons and daughters of Adam, from the three main stocks of the human race. Whether “Caucasoid”, “Negroid”, or “Mongoloid,” our blood types are basically A, B, AB and O groups. It is red, not green or yellow. 

Therefore, I appeal to all Malaysians, especially the unity government under the leadership of Anwar Ibrahim, to just give stateless people, especially the younger generation, their blue identity cards, let them enjoy having a future, and contribute towards the development of the country’s economic growth. 

A word to Law and Institutional Reform Minister Azalina Othman Said: the stateless issue does not only affect children who were born overseas to Malaysian mothers, but also young and old alike born and raised in Malaysia without citizenship. 

All MPs should start looking at the Hansard dated 30 January 1962, and study how this amendment to the Federal Constitution has brought much pain to the stateless people. 

It is time to embrace the plurality of our social fabric and build a rainbow nation like South Africa after its dismantling of an apartheid regime. We are already three decades behind the nation Nelson Mandela rebuilt based on reconciliation. 

As fellow Malaysians, we can capitalise on each other’s strengths to compete with the rest of the world and become the next Malaysian Tiger, altered from its original moniker after a brother from Sarawak told me why Sarawak people feel they are left out in this country they are part of. – January 5, 2023.

* Stephen Ng Eng Joo reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.