By Mohd Ariff Sabri bin Hj. Abdul Aziz.

In the late 1970’s I read a book written by a Michael Harrington- The Other America. Many of you may have read the book too. It’s a book about poverty in America which is rarely seen. I don’t think the book is in print anymore.

It was a book exposing the existence of another America- one which is represented by the poor, the homeless and the forgotten. The existence of the book was alerted to me by a socialist politician of the old school- the late Hasnul Hadi. I had met Hasnul Hadi when as a student; I was an ardent follower of PSRM then. At that time it was led by comrade Kassim, who nowadays prefers to be a constant irritant to the mentally lazy Muslim clerics.

I reproduce here some passages in the book.

In the 1950s this America worried about itself, yet even its anxieties were products of abundance. The title of a brilliant book was widely misinterpreted, and the familiar America began to call itself the affluent society. There was introspection about Madison Avenue and tail fins; there was discussion of the emotional suffering taking place in the suburbs. In all this, there was an implicit assumption that the basic grinding economic problems had been solved in the United States.

In this theory the nation’s problems were no longer a matter of basic human needs, of food, shelter, and clothing. Now they were seen as qualitative, a question of learning to live decently amid luxury.
While this discussion was carried on, there existed another America. In it dwelt somewhere between 40,000,000 and 50,000,000 citizens of this land. They were poor. They still are.

To be sure, the other America is not impoverished in the same sense as those poor nations where millions cling to hunger as a defense against starvation. This country has escaped such extremes. That does not change the fact that tens of millions of Americans are, at this very moment, maimed in body and spirit, existing at levels beneath those necessary for human decency. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger, for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care.

The Government has documented what this means to the bodies of the poor . . . . But even more basic, this poverty twists and deforms the spirit. The American poor are pessimistic and defeated, and they are victimized by mental suffering to a degree unknown in Suburbia . . . .

The millions who are poor in the United States tend to become increasingly invisible. Here is a great mass of people, yet it takes an effort of the intellect and will even to see them.

Adenan Manzur and his supporters are doing what America did as narrated by Harrington. The government is trying to make the other Malaysia invisible. Sure, we are told by Adenan Manzur, that he has given out bags of rice to the needy. I am sure that he has retained some empathy with the poor and the needy- after all in his past, he carried gas canisters for a living, sold carpets and all that. But the difference between what the kitchen soup operators do now and what Adenan Manzur did, is the former live out poverty as an experience. Adenan Manzur delegates his empathy for the poor through intermediaries.

This is the problem with the government. The poor, needy, the homeless vagabonds, the urban destitute all exist in the form of statistics. Recipients of foodstuffs, hampers, even money are bussed into halls and dewan serbaguna to meet up with BN leaders. Those are the able bodied chosen and selected by a network of village heads. The other Malaysia however remains invisible and continues remaining as footnotes to statistics. How they live, strived for sustenance, maimed in body and spirit, exist outside the experience of detached leaders.

So today, I thought I wanted to write a bit on the other Raub. It is a world made up of the very poor, the people that UMNO choose to forget and maybe wants to hide from pesky prying eyes of the soup kitchen operators.

These are the people who lived on welfare of RM 300-400 a month. They are made up of the infirmed, the ones left behind, and the ones who do not interest publicity seeking UMNO politicians. These are probably the people whom Adenan Manzur does not wish to be seen around, lest they trouble the sensitivities of the denizens of the citadels of luxury and fine living in the Golden Triangle of Kuala Lumpur.