Immigrants have been a dependable supply of technical expertise and affordable labour, particularly in the plantation, construction and services industries, as well as, whether we admit it or not, the night entertainment scene.
Unfortunately, on the flip side, immigrants have also been easy prey, dragged into human trafficking and slave labour for as long as they began entering Malaysia illegally.
This week, a top Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission official wryly characterised the exploitation as a "goldmine" for crooked law enforcement officers to extract and extort bribes. The "goldmine" is cavernous: it explains how illegal immigrants flourish in instant mini-cities and jungle settlements, while dominating trade in wet markets and in peddling food or wares — all in plain sight.
The MACC official outlined 17 ways rogue law enforcement officers obtain bribes. The methods are depressingly versatile. A common thread in this bribery "manual" is the immigrants' obvious vulnerability, fodder for low-rent capitalisation, even if the foreigners are short-term legal residents.
The MACC didn't even have to whistleblow the identities of the bent: too established and too infamous for too many deceitful crimes, in uniform or not. It goes back to the architecture of graft: staggering and despairing in the way the dubious exchange manipulates the enforcement eco-structure.
What's more, the uniforms compete with the civilians — politicians and senior civil servants — for how much they can squeeze out of the wretched. From the highest office to the frontlines, corruption has denigrated Malaysia into a double-dealing cesspool where progress is determined by the grudging resignation to pay the cost of doing, ironically, legitimate business.
Let this sear in your mind: for some major parts of our 40-year industrialised economy, kickbacks, contentious direct negotiations and sweetheart crony and self-dealing contracts ran parallel with licit enterprises as indispensable cogs.
All right, enough with demoralising hard truths. The tired but urgent question for the ages is, how do you kill the debasement that's mostly tribal and sectarian? Troublingly, this venality lies at the heart of the socio-cultural obeisance and religious ignorance or decrees, two of the toughest mind-sets to crack.
Regrettably, it's proven that law and order had failed to snap the mesmerising grip of corruption: no amount of demotions, transfers, firings, fines, indictments, convictions and imprisonments will do. Awareness should start as soon as kids enter kindergarten, stepped up in primary and secondary school and reinforced upon college graduation.
For now, codifying a civic anti-corruption ethos in the education system can be a work in progress or forever a fantasy. Alas, our political will is struggling for most parts: subservience and liabilities to kingmakers, warlords and corporate lobbies can do that.