Stateless people are the Elephant in the Room
By Stephen Ng I WISH to thank both Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and especially Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail as well as his former political secretary, Johari Kassim who have worked diligently to solve the problem of stateless people. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Yet, people are more precious in the eyes of the Almighty. The unity government has undertaken a task that no other governments in the past wanted to look into – the plight of over a hundred thousand stateless people in the country. Background This problem, which resulted from the amendment to the federal constitution from jus soli to jus sanguinis , has robbed these stateless people of a good future. As we look bac...