The Mayday

Labourers. They thrive, drive, spurs and stirs the economy. Their brute strength and service is compensated with wages. Which will eventually be spend and spread to the different branches of the economy.

Looking back at the Sejarah Tingkatan5 textbook, you’ll notice that the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States is more than a show-off of advanced weaponry or spy versus spy duel. It was more likely a war of ideology. It begun during a kitchen exposition in Moscow when the Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev bravely pointed his finger “we will bury you” (My vas pokhoronim!) towards the capitalist-based western world, particularly the United States. Nations which practices socialism and communism formed a coalition so-called the communist-bloc. The 1957 Malaysian Independence was partly due to the swift wind of anti-colonialism brought along with communism. The British feared it would consume and win the-hearts-and-mind of Malaya citizen. Even, the opportunistic Lee Kwan Yew realized the threat of communism towards his political career, party and Singapore when he proposed the nation-state count into the formation of Malaysia. In the textbook, we were made known that communism is bad since it never allowed its patron to practice religion. Mind you, Iran and Egypt sided with the communist bloc/eastern-bloc. Personally, communism was not that bad at all. The holiday declared on 1^st of May is a legacy left by communism itself.

Diving back further into history, when France was declared as a republic, there are groups of people which declared themselves as the ‘bourgeois’ in the heavily structured social fabric. In Malaysia, the bourgeois class person would be equivalence to the middle-upper class who cari makan through their connection with people of higher places. This class of people disgust the absolute power of royal monarchy and collectively supplanted them. They positioned themselves as people with influence and capable of pointing fingers towards a desired direction where the nation should leads. They maintain close relationship with the ruling/high class. They assume themselves as the crème-de-la-crème and have some sort of bargaining power with the ruler in term of taxes and fine. Burgoise people owns guilts,factories, smelters and plants which employ the proletariats.

Standing below the bourgeois class, are the proletariats. These people are also known as the working-class. They worked in the factories, smelters and plants owned by the bourgeoisies. They are the one who demanded the increase of pay, better allowances and a higher pay for their labor. Hence putting the relationship into a dilemma since the bourgeois are concerned in putting their cost as low as possible and pushing the workers to the extreme limits. With working hours spanning from daybreak till sundown. Women were forced to work under harsh circumstances and children as early as 8years old doing labor are rampant. The bourgeoisies were nothing but filthy rich people putting ruling government on leash made of money.

Karl Marx regarded the bourgeois as people who exploit the proletariats. In our terms would be making money atas angin (out of other work). The bourgeois would be paying a small/minimal sum of money as wages for the proletariats’ labour and sell it for a higher price. This gives them extra income which would be divided into two major portion; first, as for private profit taking and the other part for buying raw materials in order for their work and production to continue. Karl Marx lambasted this idea of socio-economic arrangement as a promotion of master and slave cum exploitation situation. He lauded that the working class are more eligible to determine their wealth distribution.

Communities were preferred rather than selected few, thus the commune lend the origin word for ‘communism’. The hammer and sickle was a sign of power which belongs to the working class.

The proletariats are not uneducated bunch of plebs. They are capable of getting organized created a uniform partisan that reject the bourgeois class. When the proletariats upraised, socialism is effectively in action. Thus, when the bourgeois don’t exist who would own and runs the factories, plants and production facilities? They all become the property of the state. This means the proletariats earned their living straight from the state government. That is why in communist country, celebrity businessman like Donald Trump virtually don’t exist. These countries qualify ‘socialism’. The nation which pretty much opposes the communism-bloc was distraught by this awakening thus making rooms for creation of labor unions and extra provisions in labor rights. Socialism was as strong as a male goose, and all of the capitalist nation could do is allowing the emasculated/downgraded form of socialism fused with democracy in their political scenario. For instance, the current ruling Labour Party of UK headed by Gordon Brown.

Some people said that you cannot drive without looking at the rear view provided by the side mirror or the rear-view mirror. History has taught us that any country in this god green earth could never function with an income gap that is tremendously visible. On the current situation where Malay special right are highly debated and youngsters being hummed to the music of ‘equal opportunities’ and playing-on-the-same-field, they should be made known that the consequences of high differential income among citizens are real and dangerous.

Government interventions in implementing ‘affirmative actions’ to ensure Malays were not lagging in economy should be looked in positive light as a mechanism to close up the income gap/margin. A study conducted reveals that for every RM1 the Malays earned, the Chinese earns RM1.25. Although this income gap is considerably harmless and relatively small, it may take another 100over year to reach income parity between these two races. Yet , the effort to speedily narrow down the income margin would be futile if the mechanism employed were being abused to feed the already fat and rich ‘select-boirgeois-Malay’ whose sons and daughters zooms through the LDP on full pedal while donning their expensive overgrown DKNY/Gucci/Bvlgari/Ray-ban overgrown shades and regards the fuel price increase as a mozzie bite.

The Second International meeting was held in 1910 where representatives of labour and socialist met in Paris; apparently the place where the word ‘bourgeois’ originated. They have declared 1st of May as the official labour day and the legacy continues till today. Personally, I'am neither a proponent of communism nor opponent of capitalism. Both has its pros and cons. Yet,both can never escape the wrath of corruption. But communism made it clear that it is not about restriction on religion freedom ugly face which we see in textbooks, but rather to equality of wealth and balanced social fabric it has offered. Still much had to be learned. I’m just plain glad to usher May with a holiday!