AUG 28 — The astonishing occupancy ban on Africans by owners of a condominium in Sunway has thrown up a regrettable case of selective bias.
It has stuck a dagger into the heart of human rights and amplified discrimination.
It takes African bashing here to new depths of shame and reeks of colossal arrogance.
Could it be a sign of a disunited Malaysia struggling to seek reconciliation among the various local and foreign communities?
Clearly, the demeanour of the owners of Ridzuan Condominium in Bandar Sri Subang is one of gruff agitation and destructive to togetherness. By voting against renting their units to Africans and giving the existing ones three months to move out, the condominium owners have expressed narrow-mindedness.
They chose to drive out the African community instead of forging friendship. It was a rude reminder of how Malaysia’s aspirations for international respectability could be undone by its citizens’ behaviour.
The racist gaffe took me back two years when this column highlighted a newspaper classified advertisement for the rental of a high-end condominium in Kuala Lumpur that appallingly asserted NO INDIANS.
It was the first time in local English newspapers that I had come across a downright racist advertisement that steered prospective Indian tenants away.
The apartment owner’s problem with Indians: curry! She would not have her tenant cooking up a ‘toxic’ cloud of curry fumes that permeated the entire 1,500 sq ft suite. As if Indians are the only ones who cook and enjoy curry.
It reminded me of a backpacker hostel in Kuala Lumpur that constantly makes news for refusing to accept African, Middle Eastern and Indian guests — not even to patronise their food outlet.
In the case of Ridzuan Condominium in Bandar Sri Subang, the Africans may be accused of being a nuisance, but the manner in which the owners stamped on the African continent is a crude form of racism.
Equally stupefying are claims that the presence of Africans in a neighbourhood had caused the property value of the condominium to decrease.
Housing discrimination is unlawful and unacceptable. Such bias rolls into racial steering and is insensitive, guilty of staggeringly bad judgment and ethical dim-wittedness.
The practice of profiling is provocative and bears serious social ramifications. The scope of the problem is overwhelming and sprawled across a wide and densely crowded area.
To evaluate owner-sentiment toward African and Indian tenants, a Being Frank inquiry was launched yesterday with visits to three high-end apartment suites in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya.
I was the prospective ‘tenant’, and in all cases, was accompanied by my lady ‘companion’, Senegalese Monique James.
The owners found me, an Indian — sometimes mistaken for an African — and Monique a liability. Their contention, according to the agent: Indians and Africans are messy, too loud and do not give a housing complex a good image.
One told the agent who accompanied us that Indians and Africans make too much noise and create a mess. When I offered him RM1,000 extra a month for the monthly apartment rental of RM9,000, he said he would revert.
He never did.
Another said Indians and Africans were a quarrelsome lot, and that women and children were intimidated by them.
The owner of the third apartment I was scheduled to see told their agents not to show the units to those from Africa, India and the Middle East.
To be sure, fair and equal access to housing is not a cornerstone of our society. Equal access to housing in Malaysia is a fundamental right and this nation should not tolerate discrimination in housing.
Few things are more fundamental to success and happiness than having a safe place to live.
The people should actively pursue these concerns with the goal of fairness and equity for all.
Admittedly, there are differences in our culture and social practices, but blatant profiling of any ethnicity is destructive to society.
It’s just pure pomposity — conceit that causes human relationships to be lost, self-righteousness — that causes the trust to be lost too.
There may be good reasons for excluding certain troublesome types or undesirables, but whole scale social exclusion is divisive and is the thin end of a more sinister mind set.
Let us treat this responsibility as an opportunity. A chance to take stock, to ask ourselves: how did it come to this?
Is it a material, genetic or self-inflicted deficiency that has led one to ignore co-existing in harmony.
It is deeply offensive when unity in neighbourhoods is at stake. It’s not the Malaysia that is about to celebrate its 56th year of independence?
The first step to rehabilitation is to recognise you have a problem. Try walking in the shoes of those you discriminate.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
