JULY 10 — Walk through any palm oil plantation in Johor or rubber estate in Selangor, and you will witness a quiet miracle of economic transformation. Hevea brasiliensis, clutching its Amazonian origins, drips latex into cups that have built schools and highways. Elaeis guineensis, a wayfarer from the humid forests of West Africa, bears fruit that greases the wheels of global trade. These are migrants — spectacularly successful ones. Without them, Malaysia would not be the economic tiger it is today.

And yet, the same logic that welcomes the African oil palm reviles the Bangladeshi plantation worker. The same history that celebrates the European settlers of the Americas spits at the Syrian family knocking at a German door. We have learned to love the migrant seed, but we have forgotten how to love the migrant soul. Why the rising objection? Why this global hardening of hearts against the very human current that made nations?

The first reason is the illusion of indigeneity. Nations tell themselves creation myths: that the soil, the people, and the flag have always been one. The United States speaks of “founding fathers”, not “recent British immigrants”. Australia celebrates the Anzac spirit while airbrushing out the convict ships. Brazil glorifies its cordialidade but marginalises the Nordestinos who flee drought for Sāo Paulo. Every country eventually anoints its latecomers as natives — and then slams the gate behind them. The oil palm, having arrived in 1910, is now “Malaysian”. The human being who arrived in 2010 is not.

Second, economics transforms into identity politics. When rubber and palm oil cross borders, they bring GDP growth. When people cross borders, they bring accents, mosques, temples, and different-coloured skin. The migrant tree is invisible as an identity; it does not ask for a day off for Eid or a halal cafeteria. The migrant human is hyper-visible. In an age of stagnant wages and precarious housing — problems often created by domestic policy, not migration — the stranger becomes the perfect scapegoat. “They” take jobs, “they” lower wages, “they” change our neighbourhoods. Never mind that studies routinely show that long-term migration grows the economic pie; the fear of cultural dilution burns hotter than spreadsheets.

Third, speed and scale. The Amazonian rubber seed travelled slowly, by colonial steamship and botanical garden. The African oil palm arrived over decades, studied by agronomists, planted by managers. Human migration today happens in real time. A dinghy in the Mediterranean, a caravan at the Rio Grande, a work permit queue in Kuala Lumpur — these images flood our screens raw and uncontextualised. We see the wave crashing, not the drought, war, or poverty that pushed it. A seed germinates quietly; a family arriving at midnight looks like an invasion.

But here is the uncomfortable truth that the anti-immigrant politician will never tell you: every single country that now detests immigrants owes its existence to them. The USA’s transcontinental railroad was built by Irish and Chinese labour. Australia’s post-war prosperity was fuelled by Greek, Italian, and Vietnamese refugees. Brazil’s coffee boom rode on the backs of Japanese and Lebanese migrants. Malaysia’s rubber and palm oil industries today rely heavily on workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Nepal — without whom the plantations would stall, the mills would fall silent, and the foreign exchange would wither.

So where is the gratitude? Buried under the weight of demagoguery. It is easier to fear the undocumented cleaner. It is more cathartic to build a wall than to admit that the nation is not a bloodline but a conversation — noisy, messy, and ever-renewing.

The objection to migrants is not an economic necessity; it is a moral failure. We have mastered the botany of acceptance — we can see that a transplanted palm thrives, that a rubber tree weeps for its adopted home. We simply refuse to apply that same botany to the human being. The seed does not threaten our identity. The person does.

But consider this: the oil palm in Malaysia no longer remembers Africa. The rubber tree does not dream of the Amazon. After two or three generations, the migrant becomes the native. The only question is whether we will let that happen peacefully now, or after rivers of suffering and mountains of wasted human potential.

We owe our prosperity to migrants — some who arrived in chains, some in steerage, some in rickety boats. The rising objection is a fever. It will pass. But what we do while it rages will determine whether future generations look back at us as wise gardeners of human talent — or as petty nativists who loved trees more than people. The seed knows its worth. It is time we remembered ours.

* Professor Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. He can be reached at ahmadibrahim@ucsiuniversity.edu.my.  

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.