LETTER | White flag has structural connotation

LETTER | During my usual rides to buy food from hawkers during the pre-covid 19 periods around Ipoh, I usually notice young, poor children pleading to the people who are buying foodstuff there to also buy them food as well. These are usually in areas where there are low-cost flats nearby.

My wife and I had several encounters of such situations and I use to wonder whether the children and their parents have their names registered with the local government who could provide such aid to the family besides providing them with the necessary help for their economic upliftment.

There were no white flags splashing around at that time because aid is left to NGOs, or people have some kind of informal work to meet certain basic needs and besides they are given a kind of welfare aid monthly through government agencies.

Due to the lockdown currently, even the so-called informal work arrangement is no more there and this has brought severe hardships to many families who could not merely depend on welfare aid what more with the current food-related inflation. This is why white flags have been placed at households nationwide.

While welfare aid does help to a certain extent, it does not address the comprehensive nature of poverty in these families.

Local governments, being unelected entities, are structurally not empowered to address poverty issues with solutions what with a lethargic bureaucracy that is not fully motivated to address issues since they are not directly accountable to the people through elections.

Even if there are meetings between the local government officials and NGOs on given issues such as housing and land, follow-ups become an uphill battle with interminable delays or there is a need to refer to other government agencies. 

There are also local politics at play where a councillor who is from a different political party would not want to help in areas where an opposing party holds the parliamentary seat.

These are the realities on the ground and the current white flag symbol of needing help is not merely about the need for basic necessities per se but should be seen from a wider failure of a current centralised structure of government that has made the local governments toothless, bureaucratic and ineffective when it comes to the real situation of poverty and healthcare.

Today we find white flags demonstrated in homes, hotels and even by those who are jobless through social media like LinkedIn because the government has failed to take a broader structural perspective in addressing governing issues in the context of Covid-19 where real solutions are local solutions and not so-called nationwide solutions.

The Covid -19 crisis has shown that a centralized governing structure has failed in addressing the high Covid-19 numbers besides creating a devastating impact on the economy.

The writer is secretary, Association for Community and Dialogue.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.