Irene Fernandez’s legacy to Malaysian Muslims

Like many Malaysians, I never knew the late Irene Fernandez in person.

But this much I do know about her, that she was someone who spoke on behalf of the voiceless, at a time Malaysian society frowned upon anyone defending the invisible community of migrant “Banglas” and “Indons”.

It is sad that Irene’s death last week did not prompt even a short official message of condolence from the government of Malaysia, despite her huge sacrifices in championing the course of what is arguably the country’s most important engine of growth, the migrant community, the bulk of whom is made up of Bangladeshi and Indonesian labourers.

The other prominent Fernandez (with a slightly different spelling) that most Malaysians are familiar with may have flown in millions of migrant workers into Malaysia on cheap, no-frills (and no-meals) journeys from their countries.

This Fernandez, on the other hand, had been on the ground for more than two decades, speaking out against their slave-like exploitation and how they were left to rot in squalid conditions, all because of the absence of a man-made piece of paper that would earn them recognition as human beings on God’s vast earth.

Irene went against the general Malaysian psyche of treating non-Caucasian (and increasingly, in the current parlance, non-Middle Eastern) foreigners as second-class citizens.

In 1995, Irene exposed a shocking tale of torture and the dehumanised conditions of migrant workers at the Semenyih immigration detention camp, triggering the usual kind of childish reactions that Malaysians have now grown used to from our paper-shuffling bureaucrats.

And in the usual manner, instead of investigating and taking action on the camp, she was taken to court for publishing false news, in what was to become the country’s longest-running court battle.

As a result of her conviction, she could not stand for elections a few years later. Had she stood and won, she would have made it in the half-a-page-or-so list of principled and sincere Malaysian elected representatives.

Neither was she the stereotypical female NGO activist, the smoking, conference-attending pseudo-feminist quoting the UN Charter during the day, and tweeting anger at silly ustads during the night.

Irene definitely didn’t give two hoots about how she appeared in public, and one is convinced she hardly spent few seconds doing her hair or choosing her dress, sticking instead to her aunty-style sari.

She was like any other ordinary woman of her age, married and motherly.

Irene stood for the rights of migrants long before it became fashionable in Malaysia to talk about migrant rights.

In this, she transcended racial, religious and national boundaries, and no sight better illustrates this than that of the Muslim Bangladeshi worker who wailed at her coffin, eternally grateful to this Christian stranger who had come to his rescue when he was at the mercy of his Muslim brothers. How sad.

Sad, because Islam is a religion saved by the act of migration, and pioneered by refugees.

Its most important historical time mark is the Hijrah, or migration, when early Muslims persecuted in Mecca left their homeland for Medina, some 400km away, then reachable after about a month’s travel in either scorching heat or freezing winter.

In this story, the locals in Medina were known as the Ansar (Helpers), for the immense help extended to the Muhajirun (Emigrants). This help did not stop at food and shelter, but the locals even went to the extent of giving away their daughters in marriage (and in some cases, even divorcing their wives for this purpose!), which is the height of kindness in pre-Islamic Arabia long before any systematic regulation of marriage came into place.

Even before this mass migration or Hijrah, which was later to form the basis of the Islamic calendar, a group of 15 Muslims from Mecca had fled to Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) , whose Christian king, upon hearing that they were persecuted for religious reasons, immediately gave them refugee status.

Despite this important time mark of Islamic history, Muslims generally do not bother about the rights of the migrants and refugees. Nowhere is the apathy more pronounced, indeed institutionalised, than in oil-rich Gulf countries, ruled by dictators and emirs whose pretension to Islamic credentials is marked by their imposition of capital punishment, with the heads of many poor workers from the Philippines or Indonesia ending on the chopping block.

The absence of sympathy for migrants becomes stranger given the fact that Muslims form the bulk of refugees and migrants around the world.

This is not to say that other societies treat migrants kindly, although they live under laws guaranteeing the best standards of human rights to refugees and migrants.

While Muslim governments like Turkey and Malaysia trumpet about helping refugees by sending aid to oppressed people of Rohingya, their own attitude on refugees at their doorstep, is appalling.

Consider, for example, the statement by Anifah Aman, the foreign affairs minister, who said in 2012 that Malaysia refused to ratify the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees because “there’s a conflict treating our own people and treating those refugees”!

Every year, Muslims in Malaysia mark the anniversary of the Hijrah (or Maal Hijrah), as the start of the Islamic lunar calendar, with state- and national-level celebrations, as well as awards given to outstanding personalities.

Lost in these ceremonies is the core message for the contemporary Muslims, that is, the importance of recognising the rights of the migrants, an act which once saved their religion from obliteration.

Over the years, many personalities, Muslim and non-Muslim, have been awarded the Maal Hijrah award, to highlight their achievements and motivate others.

Perhaps the coming Maal Hijrah award should be given, posthumously of course, solely to the memory of Irene Fernandez.

It would be most apt to the theme and concept of Hijrah in Islam.

More importantly, it would go a long way in enlightening Muslims in Malaysia about the rights of the migrant community, something which all our chart-topping celebrity preachers have ignored in their countless speeches, which seem to centre on the same tired subject of rituals, physical purification, and yes, marriage and the nights after.

Rest in peace, Irene. "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un" – surely we belong to God, and to Him shall we return. – April 5, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.