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Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol. 40 Number 4. March 21 1977

Letters

page 19

Letters

Comedy or Culture?

Dear Editor,

Five people standing around a dining table

On the "International evening", WMSA put forward a sketch which claimed to depict the "typical scence" of Malaysian's hawkers' life. I think this sketch have misled our Kiwi friends and other overseas students. Certainly the performance did not reflect the "typical" and true hawkers' life in [unclear: M'sia] objectively.

What is the "typical scene" of hawkers? The detenorating economic situations (together with rampant inflation) had caused the hawkers' life even more miserable. That is why the hawkers had to toil day and night but their income and standard of living still had not improved at all. They earn a living in insecurity and suffered constant harassment from the random checking from the police and gansters. All these constituted the real life which the sketch didn't even bother to give a thought on it. As a Malaysian, I think we should love and respect our people, and try to understand their grievances, because we come here at the expense of them instead the sketch made a mockery of them. I was really hurt after seeing the sketch.

We Malaysians come from a place which has abundant natural resources, but our hawkers still have to toil like hell in order to survive. Where has our wealth gone to?

60% of our country's economy is controlled by foreign investors. For instance, British alone each year siphoned 220 million pounds from our country. This constituted the root cause of our people's poverty and that is why our hawkers had to compete for customers. (The Sketch had shown it in a very exapperated manner).

Apart from this, I was completely lost by the last act in which the hawkers called for 'berjaya...etc' which I think was completely irrelevant to the scene. May the producer of the sketch please explain what was it all about.'

Lastly, WMSA as a representative body for M'sian students in Wellington and in NZ general ought to think twice when representing an event in such a big occasion as the 'International evening'. My stray criticism about this sketch was that it gave an totally false picture of the common people and their culture in M'sia.

Malaysian Student.

P.S. Announcer for the WMSA please try to learn to announce better before coming out for such an occasion.

Dear Editor,

After watching the M'sian Sketch' on International night, we feel both sad and angry that some of our students could degrade our own people, namely the hawkers in this case, and made a laughing stock of them for the sake of entertainment.

The sketch was introduced as a typical M'sian scene, this is not true. We do not deny that rare incidents like that do occur but it is not typical for our hawkers to try to assault tourists and to double or treble their prices. The whole thing was grossly exaggerated.

We think the sketch is in bad taste and the MSA members who were involved should realise this and try to come up with something more meaningful next time.

Malaysian students.

Dear Editor,

I am very disappointed with the Malaysian Sketch' put up by WMSA. As a Malaysian I feel duty-bound to express my strong protest to the promoter of this highly distorted 'typical scene' of hawkers life. At the same time, I sincerely hope all my fellow patriotic Malysians/Singaporeans will register with Salient their discontent over the humuliation of our fellow country men. Tell me, honestly my fellow mates; don't you get hurt when a kiwi friend tell this to you; "We have too many idiot overseas students here. Look at the Malaysian Sketch, how can they come to universities with that civilization".

Regarding the 'Sketch' I can only sum up the following points.

1.It has been a deliberate attempt to [unclear: portrav] a highly distorted and exaggerated picture of the hawkers life at home. It reveals not the true life of the hawkers but the snobbish attitude of some intellectuals who always despise the underprivileged.
2.Everyone knows the hawker's life in Malaysian has been hard and strenouous. To make a good laughing stock out of them is an insult not only to them but to all Malaysians/Singaporeans, and that includes you, my ingenious sketch promoter.
3.By presenting the 'typical scene' without explaining the grievances under which they earn their negligible income in doing a terrible injustice to the hawkers. We the 'lucky ones' are able to come overseas. Come under the expense of our country men the hawkers, the workers, the farmers etc. As a sensible Malaysian, we should sympathise with them instead of stabbing their backs.
4.Cutting the tourists' throat by charging excessively and using force to threaten the tourists are never the practice of the majority of the hawkers. As a matter of fact tourist always finds it incredibly cheaper to eat off the street than at the high-class restaurants.

In view of this bad impression and distorted picture portrayed to oar kiwi friends, I would, together with all other fellow mates demand a public apology from those MSA sketch promoters. In addition they should assure no more of this sort of stupidity is repeated.

A Malaysian hawker's son

Dear Sir,

I wish to comment on the recent sketch put up by WMSA on International Night. I am really disgusted by the distorted view painted of our poor hardworking Malaysian hawkers and working men. Are these people (the majority of our population) really such a group of exploiting cut-throats ready to seize on the so-called rich tourists? Mind you I must explain that we are not a country of cut-throats as those who haven't heard or have been to our country might now seem to think so.

These poor but hardworking hawkers lead very humble lives and I can say they lead an Honest but hard life earning a meagre living. I have to point out that those so-called 'educated cream of the society' got the chance to gain a higher education because those people like the hawkers through their sweat and labour enable us to gain it.

So wake up WMSA! Don't give such a distorted view of our ordinary working people and especially on a night so important as this. I would say that a better view of our Malaysian people and its culture is called for.

A very disgusted Malaysian

Trots reply to Robinson

Dear Ed.

Drawing of a person wearing a sombrero with the sun in the background

Bruce Robinson's latest letter, as well as his article in an earlier issue, must have left everyone in total confusion regarding the debate in the Anti-Apartheid movement over the slogans to be used on the March 18th demonstration. The purpose of this letter, then, is to clarify the position of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Action League and to explain why we look this position and hold to it.

The main point of contention in the argument over the slogans to be used was over whether the word 'Black' should appear. The YS and SAL supported the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Blacks Decide' against the slogan 'Majority Rule/Let the Oppressed People Decide because the demonstration is in solidarity with the struggle presently going on in South Africa, and this is a struggle against Racism.

When the uprisings began in Soweto last year, it became the first priority of the Anti-Apartheid movement in New Zealand to give the best possible support to this struggle. In order to do this, it is necessary to know the nature of the struggle and the way it is being advanced. This was explained in an editorial in "Socialist Action", March 11, 1977.

"What is the idea that unites and inspires the Black people of Southern Africa today, especially of South Africa itself? It is the idea that Black people are human beings too. The racist oppressors are saying every day, in deed if not in word, that Blacks are not human beings. Black Africans know that if they want to win their rights as human beings, the first thing they have to do is win their rights as Black human beings. They know that they have to find their identity as Black people, and join hands as Black people, in order to win liberation. In South Africa, the driving force of the current struggle is a broad movement which the Black people themselves call the 'Black Consciousness Movement'".

Of course, this struggle brings them into direct collision with the interests of South African capitalism and European and American imperialism. It was, as Robinson rightly says, to serve these interests that the system of Apartheid was created. But that does not change the fact that it is specifically the Racist nature of the capitalist oppression that is being fought. To ignore this, as the slogan that Robinson supports does, is to seriously misrepresent the struggle.

The danger of this demand ('Majority Rule') is that it is a concession to white racism. Why? Because it bends to the idea that to have Blacks ruling themselves means bloodshed, horror, etc. - the kind of racism we see in the daily papers when they deal with 'Big Daddy' Amin, which implies that Black self-determination will always produce a 'Black Hilter'. It tries to hide the fact that majority rule in South Africa would be rule by Black people.

Robinson's assertion that the main point of contention was 'Let the Oppressed People Decide' as opposed to 'Let the Oppressed People Decide' is quite wrong. The compromise slogan proposed 'Black Majority Rule/Left the Oppressed People Decide' would have been acceptable to us. We argued against it and in favour of the 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Blacks Decide' slogan only because that version makes it even clearer that the struggle is against racism. But as the compromise slogan includes the word 'Black' it also labels the struggle as one opposing racism, and so is entirely acceptable.

The fact that the later meeting of the Overseas Students supported the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/Let the Oppressed People Decide' therefore in no way undermines our position. On the contrary, it further supports it.

To say that the slogans we support could appear to support the Bantustans policy is ridiculous—did the Blacks decide the Bantustans policy, a system of laws which forcibly uproots 'non-productive' blacks and condemns them to live at starvation standards in the overpopulated and unproductive Bantustans? Of course not—the White minority government did.

To say that we support 'Black rule not Majority rule' is absurd, when the slogan we support is 'Black Majority Rule'. This dearly distinguishes the type of rule we advocate from neo-colonialism. What neo-colonial rule is rule by the majority?

We hope that our position is clear. When we demonstrate on Friday (after having done our share of the 'hard work') it will be in solidarity with the Black people fighting Apartheid. We will be marching in support of a struggle going on—a struggle that, when it is won, will lead to Black Majority rule. And so we will be marching under the slogan 'Black Majority Rule/South Africa, let the Blacks Decide'.

James Robb

VUW Young Socialists

Worries over Bursary

Dear David,

I want to give my views about the lack of information given on the payment of Standard Tertiary Bursary. Although some students have received notice that they will be getting S.T.B., that's about all they've received. Others (mainly first-years) who haven't received even this news are consequently running around like scared rabbits for fear that something's gone wrong with their S.T.B. application and they're not going to get all (?) that lovely money which is so essential to their continued health and wellbeing.

That aside, there's the fact that no information has been published as to when the first payments will be received. This can be found out roughly by going to the Bursaries office and asking, but even then you won't be told a definite date and I feel it shouldn't be necessary to ask the Bursaries people. They should broadcast this information themselves and in such a way that all students concerned will get it.

Then there's the question of the actual payments ie the fact that a bulk amount is given 3 or 4 times yearly. A lot of students would be a lot happier if payments were made on a fortnightly basis as done at Polytech. So why aren't they? The University authorities tell us that it would cost too much to make fortnightly payments - what they're not so quick to tell us is that if they were to do it this way, they'd also lose all the interest which they're receiving at present on our money.

Then, forgetting about payment arrangements, there's the fact that S.T.B. is just not enough. At the very least we need a cost of living increase but the way things are going it doesn't look like we'll be getting it.

Something needs to be done fast about the whole S.T.B. question. At present there are just too many things wrong with it.

Yours,

Lamorna Rogers

Henderson's Comeback

Dear David or ilk.

You seem to have made an effort at sweeping, judging by the change in masthead of your inevitable publication. Ah, such a pity that the broom is so old and hairless—bald, in fact. It is my considered opinion (and the opinion of many with whom I have deigned to speak) that this newspaper (and after so many years writing for it I am afraid I cannot bring it upon myself to call it a rag) is altogether too serious. Even more serious than its predeccessors. Maybe it is because this is the first time I have entered these hallowed offices this year.

On the other hand, maybe I have nothing to do with it at all. Who will ever know? Is this one of the questions that mankind is destined never to find out? Is it fated to become the major stumbling block in attempts to reconcile the conflict between the National Government and the Cooks and Stewards Union? Who will ever know whether it was this problem unsolvable that caused Rob Muldoon to call his wife by the wrong name in the height of marital splendour last night? Who will ever know?

These are questions which should beset the mind of every bent-thinking person living on the odd side of Hill St today and prompt a reincarnation of the Thorndon Apathy League of yore.

I certainly hope so.

All I need is the air that I breathe and a four-finger deal in my pocket.

Then I will, finally, be happy, content in the knowledge that the man standing on his head in the middle of Kelburn parade is in fact yourself, dear editor, posing for the cover of your first solo album.

Yours from the rarified air and stoned glory of the Mars Hotel.

James Valency Watson.

And Again

Dear Sir,

This is disgusting. Tell Thrush to resign.

Students! At your peril! Read the Studass noticeboard. The wolf is at the door etc.

John Henderson

Money to Burn?

Dear Sir,

Man writing at typewriter in candlelight

The recent handout from SRC entitled "Money to burn, and give away...?' I thought most appropriate. What more fitting title to put on a piece of paper which was less than half-filled? Surely the Ad-man with the Student Council could have saved half the cost by printing these few pearls on smaller paper? To waste so much seems to be a criminal act especially at a time when so many people are economy conscious. If the SRC are so keen to use up their paper stocks perhaps they might like to put it all in a pile outside the library and let the students have what doesn't blow away.

Your

Ebeneezer Scrooge.