…and I’ll say it again.

Generalizing all Malaysians who move overseas as money-hungry traitors is just wrong, to say the least.

Monsieur Azmi Anshar had this to say about skilled professional Malaysian expats in comparison to expats from working and agrarian classes – I took the liberty of putting his full article below just so you can see the tone, choice of words and pompousness of it all…

More foreigners barging into Malaysia for salvation then there are resentful Malaysians

Nov 20, 2008

Malaysia is a foreigner’s paradise, a deep-rooted sanctuary for expatriates of all stripes fleeing economic doldrums, political despotism, never-ending fights-to-the-death between tribes, infectious disease and general mayhem of their motherland. The political talking heads and prating Malaysians who have long taken their country for granted will decry seethingly that their country is going to the dogs – politically (March 8 tsunami and all that jazz), economically (succumbing hard to global recession) and financially (FDIs being sucked out by the billions).

Well, has anybody told these foreigners about the so-called nasty situation? If so, why are they still arriving in Malaysia by the millions, legally and illegally? It must be our benevolent standard of living where we hold on to continuous efforts to ensure expectations and standards remain high. The foreigners, at least the scrambling working and agrarian classes, will be grateful for rice, mackerel and brinjal on the table, non-leaky roofs on their heads, nobody banging on their doors with AK-47s slinging from their shoulders, absence of religio-tribal wars deploying suicide murderers and easy money to remit home by the billions of ringgit annually.

That is why they enter Malaysia, parents and children in one generation after another, and that is why 30 per cent of the 251,908 visas-on-arrival (VOAs) issued between September 2006 and September 2008 to foreign holders misused the document by overstaying.

Deputy Home minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung told the Dewan Rakyat today that 75,465 VOAs were misused by foreigners from 11 countries, namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Replying to Dr Mohd Hayati Othman (Pas-Pendang), Chor said his ministry had stopped issuing VOAs to countries like India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to punish the belligerents, the length of stay have been slashed from 30 days to 14. The authorities also force VOA applicants to include the name and contact details of local sponsors who can guarantee their exit after their visa expires.

But ask the foreigners from Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, certain African states and China why they still love hopping over to Malaysia and stay on almost permanently and the responses are eclectic. The bottomline: these people arrive in the millions to Malaysia with a simple mission – to make their living or, in the case of the roguish types, to make their thieving.

The pull factor is very spectacularly attractive – foreigners earn a far better income in a month than they would in a year back home, the only bad weather they experience is the occasional thunderstorm and flash floods as opposed to the typhoons, cyclones and great floods.

They make a decent living earning on the sturdier ringgit and if you, the Malaysian, happen to seek medical care in our general hospitals instead of your usual private hospital, you would be startled to observe a swarm of grateful foreigners capitalising on our affordable health care, thanks to a massive Government subsidy, where the visitors pay practically less than the price of a pirated DVD movie for each medical visit.

Compared to the despotism of their authorities back home, they see Malaysia’s political climate as temperate and enjoyable, they get to retain their religious freedom, gawk at our women, and build mini-cities of their origins in our midst, first deep in the jungles away from prying eyes but when the authorities have stopped looking, they build them right under our noses to become part of our suburban experience and ambience.

Foreign gangsters, they with the remorseless killer instincts, super amulets and intimidating tattoos, have found our banks, our streets and our homes such mindlessly easy prey for the quick and easy mugging and killing. Then they find that we are so gullible that we can fall for sleight of hand tricks that promise multiplication of cash before our very eyes. If that doesn’t cut it, then our kindness that thinks little about giving away a couple of ringgit to begging indigents of all persuasions, sizes, age and gender is exploited, only to discover later that they were an elaborate façade to trick us by cloyingly massaging our compassion and generosity.

Reflect that to Malaysians who constantly argue, prattle, moan and whine about negative political expediency, toll collection, fuel prices, food prices and just about anything that’s wroth a frivolous expression of discontent. Yes, such are the high standards that we come to expect and assume all the time. But we sometimes forget that we are a country that can be easily taken, had and screwed for our commiseration, accommodation, wealth and munificence.

Of course, there are the scores of Malaysians who think exactly like these foreigners, jumping ship at the first sign of political, economic and financial trouble – they thumb their noses at the state of our education system by packing off their kids to expensive foreign schools, they drain their cash hoard and dump it on our neighbours or a Swiss or offshore account, they embrace wholeheartedly foreign analysts’ dire warnings that are aimed at destabilising trading, and they enthusiastically swoon at the international outfits’ regimented but dubious prognosis of the state of our nation. Then these flaky, irresolute Malaysians run away to their foreign masters if they don’t get their way.

Granted that our education system – from crayons to supercomputers – needs a sea change from rote toting to independent thinking brains, our political system needs a reform away from racial polarisation and bung giving and taking, our social structure needs to learn respect and harmony of all caste and divisions, and our country needs a giant defibrillator to jolt us out of our ennui, complacency and addictive dependence on rags-to-riches handouts. We are still a work in progress but its forward progress is what we should focus on, not backpedalling to fit socio-political contrivance.

So, small, forgiving mercies then that there are probably more foreigners who come barging into our shores and across our borders for salvation than there are Malaysians abandoning their homeland out of fear, loathing, resentment and snobbery.

Please bear with the use of big, flashy words which are hardly objective is what is supposed to be a newspaper article. =.=

Hm…so I abandoned my homeland for fear, loathing, resentment and snobbery? It’s quite funny because the last I checked, I still have a Malaysian passport, I still have money stored away in Malaysian banks, I still have family and ties to Malaysia, I still want to vote (but the government won’t let me), I would like my child to hold a Malaysian citizenship (again, the government won’t let that happen because I’m a woman), I promote Malaysia as a holiday destination (in fact, just from my wedding alone, I had about 20 to 30 French folks, half of which who never stepped out of France before in their life come and spend money in Malaysia), I still buy things in Malaysia and send it to Switzerland…so in what sense have I abandoned my country?

Fear, loathing, resentment and snobbery are words that Monsieur Azmi has obviously plucked out of thin air because the last time I checked, A LOT of Malaysians overseas left because of courage, instinct, diligence and above all, love. They have never stopped missing home, never stopped loving their country, never stopped feeling proud whenever they see the Jalur Gemilang flying high. The only difference between them and someone like Monsieur Azmi is that they are doing it from the space of another country.

What we know to be love for the family, courage for starting anew, instinct to survive, diligence in building a new future and thriving is what Monsieur Azmi sees to be fear, loathing, resentment and snobbery. It is people like him who drive homesick Malaysians away from the idea of ever returning. It is people like him who spread not wisdom but ignorance and discrimination. It is people like him who will stop Malaysia from reaching her full potential.