Political economist Andrew Aeria has sent in this comment, which I think reveals how out of touch Najib is with the hard reality facing low-income families in the country:
First, petrol price increase. He said: Change your lifestyle.
Then, crime: Change your perception.
Now, laundry drying: Change your habit by buying a dryer or dry your laundry downstairs.
This guy has no inkling of the life of ordinary people. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he has never known privation or hunger. So, when he talks, his ideas and suggestions are all in tune with his privileged world-view of his own creature comforts. Does he think everyone living in a high-rise can afford a laundry dryer?
He obviously knows nothing about the life situation of poor and less fortunate people. And this is the person who is going to be our PM? Najib is completely out of touch with Malaysian realities. He lives on the moon. He should just do us all Malaysians a favour and (spend more time abroad) in a first-world country like USA or Switzerland where he can indulge in his fantasy “life of luxury” world. We shall certainly not miss him or his ridiculous ideas.
One real solution would be to ask developers to put in more space for airing laundry when building low-cost homes. And get employers to pay our workers more (so they won’t have to live in such crammed high-rise flats) by setting a minimum wage.
Actually, drying clothes under the sun makes full use of the abundant solar energy that we have and it is thus more environmentally than dryers, which consume large amounts of electricity.
Check out this report from Malaysian Insider/South China Morning Post:
Housewives angered at ban against airing laundry in public
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Fuming housewives and ruling party politicians are at war over a new ruling that bans laundry from being hung out from windows and on balconies of high-rise flats in the capital.
The ruling takes effect from Jan 1 and was announced by Prime Minister-designate Datuk Seri Najib Razak, a blue-blooded Anglophile who has an eye for finery, on Tuesday.
Najib said punishment for breaching the rules would be introduced later if persuasion fails. A City Hall spokesman said at present offenders usually would be fined from RM50 to RM150.
Najib, however, wants housewives to dry clothes in designated areas on the ground, inside their homes or use driers to be provided by developers of existing or future units.
He said the haphazard way of drying laundry was adversely affecting the country’s image.
“We need to dry clothes [away] from public view,” he told Bernama, the official news agency.
City Hall estimates nearly 65 per cent of the capital’s 1.9 million people live in high-rises and most of them hang out their clothes from windows and on balconies. The situation is made worse by an additional 1 million foreign migrant workers who live in crammed one-room flats and also hang out their clothes to dry.
Tourists and better-off locals applaud the ban, but housewives are angry, saying the rule is a burden.
“We have to go up and down with our laundry and it is a burden,” said Kamariah Busut, community head at the crammed high-rise Sri Sentosa flats south of the capital.
“This is just another one of the rules the bosses have thought up without consulting us,” she said, adding a meeting would be held soon with opposition lawmakers to protest against the rule.
“These millionaires have many servants to do all their chores. They don’t know how poor people live,” she said.
“I cannot comply even if I want to,” said Thamarai Soosaipillai, 69, another Sri Sentosa resident. “I am old and can’t carry [much]. The lifts also break down frequently.”
Opposition lawmaker Tian Chua said the rule should not be hastily enforced without proper consultation. — South China Morning Post
No related posts.
Before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, when told that her people were starving because of a bread shortage, was purported to have replied “Then let them eat cake”.
She lost her head in the ensuing revolution.
Can we hope for history to repeat itself?
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Wanted to list out the disadvantages of having a dryer in a sunny countries like ours, but i find myself repeating what most of the people have already said.
Guess the only thing left is, God Help Us!
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
>>In many other aspects Malaysians are quick to point out the practices in other developed countries that we should follow. But when something is adopted that requires a more responsible behaviour, we become very defensive.
Remember, change begins with you……<<
Nice. And I thought that changes in the law would actually begin with consultation of the affected parties. First World remember? But hey, it seems that tourism is our second biggest forex earner, so out top people have to listen to them and ignore the difficulties of the rakyat. (Wait a minute, that sounds like what a tin pot third world government would do!)
How on earth is that UMNO did not explain to that contractor building the units that they will need a drying space for the laundry? Or did the contractor kau tim oredi – no need space, just pocket the profit. Let’s just burden the people some more.
First world mentality? Think again. It starts from the top. First World would mean the best are given the opportunity to serve. Here s*** rises to the top. They are given every opportunity to stink.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Me think he can do the laundry for all high rise building owners. He really can think ‘out of the box’! He thought everyone like him staying on landed properties, and can engage the services of housemaids. He will keep on making really stupid suggestions until the cows come home.
He thinks buying a clothes-drier no need money-meh? How to be PM when he can’t even know how to run family laundry! Real stupid mentality. For once, as him to do his laundry in a high rise building – yes, wash it 24 stories high up, down 24 stories down (with or without lift) to get his laundries dried downstairs on landed ground. Collect it after got dried. Good weather, okay! But you ever think of rainy weather? where got enough covered area downstairs to hang our laundries. Every-time raining, definitely you will fight and argue with your neighbors for hanging out own laundries just to find a suitable spot for hang our laundries on very limited covered area (if any).
Talk is easy, but did he pause to think further the consequences and the troublesome aspects of this stupid suggestion of his? He should try doing his own laundries and to hang it up 24 stories up!
Real stupid!!!!! What sort of third world mentality he have. Yes, STUPID!
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Government logic states that if you have the money to live in a high-rise building, you must also have the funds to purchase a dryer. Playing the devil’s advocate, it might be able to see where Najib is coming from, even though I don’t entirely agree with his views. As the article states, our deputy prime minister’s reasoning may be that:
a) it is an eyesore. –> “Tourists and better-off locals applaud the ban…”
b) families or individuals may construct makeshift clotheslines to dry their clothes. Because of this, some may drop to the ground, and from high-rises, this may prove to be a hazard. –> “The situation is made worse by an additional 1 million foreign migrant workers who live in crammed one-room flats and also hang out their clothes to dry.”
Whatever his motivation behind the ban (although I suspect it is more likely the first reason), the DPM offer three solutions to escaping the proposed fines, which would make use of (i) designated areas on the ground, (ii) inside their homes, and lastly (iii) driers that would be provided by developers of existing or future units.
Solution (i) would work for small communities, in apartments not higher than three stories, where there would be ample space for residents to dry their washed linen, and not worry about having to fight or wait for space, unless of course there are more than enough grounded clotheslines for housewives to hang their clothes, for a flat that reaches into the tens of floors. The second solution is the residents’ own apartment space, although this may cramp their living areas further if they had to resort to outside hanging in the first place.
Najib’s final advice is for households to resort to driers, and note the term ‘would‘ in the article. This indicates that existing high-rises may not already have driers (and from what I’ve seen in most apartments throughout Malaysia, these machines are available only in laundromats, dhobis, if you will). He states that developers will have to tend to attend to these amendments, and for this suggestion to take effect (if it isn’t really a hint for households to purchase them), multiple driers would have to be allocated per floor for a given apartment block in order to accommodate residents’ needs. Depending on the severity of the enforcement, it may be so that developers would be forced to buy these machines en masse, if they would bother to at all, having to take into account current space issues, electricity consumption and the fact that the service wouldn’t be free.
In other words, the ban would hit low-income households the hardest, and the elderly, if the new driers, or designated areas would be located on the ground, so it is of little wonder that the reaction to the proposed ban was acerbic, although tourists and presumably the middle-class are happier, even if they have nothing to worry about, considering their temporary living arrangements or their larger living spaces & budgets respectively.
Now the ban would have made some sense in countries where climates tend to be colder, and are subject to long winters, and if the framework already existed in developed countries such as Australia, where driers are prevalent in almost every household, and that they’re a necessary evil at times. As it stands, the government would probably have a idea in trying to change the image of the country, but as usual, they miss the point and make yet another knee-jerk decision wihtout consultation or discussion with their citizens.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Makes me wonder how out of touch he is on other substantive issues…
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Even in developed countries where they tried to ban and fined folks from drying their laundry in their backyards have recognized that it was a mistake. The negative environmental impact from such a decision far outweighs the perceived aesthetics of neat looking residential building.
Eh~ Datuk Najib, suruh orang ramai hantar baju ke drycleaner saja lah, macam tu buat, Datuk tak payah tengok rumah bangunan orang miskin masa kereta Tok lalu nak ke kelab golf. Kalau Datuk subsidi orang ramai hantar baju ke dhobi, kami semua pun gembira tak payah dengar bunyi bising mesin=mesin basuh baju di akhir minggu.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Talking about changing perception, don’t you think it is cheaper for Najib to close his eyes rather than asking the poor to buy dryers for their laundry.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Singapore Government already announced pay cut for their Hi-Level civil servants and Ministers from Jan 2009 onwards, what is our lame government is going to share the burden of the poor rakyat!!!!!Every thing/action taken is so slow. Even though I am not a supporter of lower fuel price (discourage the use of car rather than public transport), but, do we need a prime minister to announce fuel price change everytime there is an adjustment? Just let the respective ministry/minister to do it, I believe PM has more pressing matters to do right! Just can’t believe it, this is trully Malaysia Boleh. Sigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Sunshine and the ultra violet rays are the best drying tools for the people living in this country.
It is not only environmental friendly, but also acts as a disinfectant and it is free. The people can also save a big chunk of electricity bill from operating dryers.
Take care of your own people’s well being first, remember,…
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
a stupid man, a stupid mouth, a stupid brain… what can we expect in Bolehland but a stupid PM, only in Bolehland!
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
this is the kind of PM from BN?
buying helicopters, arms etc at inflated prices….
with that kind of money and his silver-spoon background and opulent lifestyle, you expect him to be in touch with the ordinary masses?
face the reality, people. he is there not to serve.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
The “issue” of drying laundry in public always makes me laugh. Drying laundry in the open air is a cheap and environmentally-friendly way to dry clothes. Using an electric dryer is a waste of energy, both electricity and gas.
Personally, I just put my clothes on a hanger and turn the ceiling fan on – it works pretty well in our warm climate.
My real concern is that the Deputy PM and PM-in-waiting actually sees the need to comment on an issue like this. Shouldnt the top leader of a country have slightly larger and greater concerns than the “image” of the country in the eyes of the “tourists and better-off locals”…such as maintaining the economy, reducing the crime rate, increasing the value of the labour force, to name a few.
That Najib has the time and feels the need to comment on this area of interest makes me wonder – who is taking care of the big issues?
Moaz
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
When he become PM, he would tell Malaysians that can not afford to pay for food to stop eating instead of changing life style or changing perception, it is umnoputra’s style of governance and state of mind, get used to it, my fellow Malaysians!!!
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
First, to make tourist happy, there are thousand and one things BOLEHland needs to do. Not just a laundry.
Tourists need cleanliness, transportations convenience, safety (security forces and lightings / cctv), plenty of information, different language signage, etc etc as we were also tourists in other countries.
Laundary is just a 5% of all the problem.
Solving laundary problem is rakyat problem.
Imposing rules and regulations by the Government on laundary issue shows laziness of the government in my opinion. This is because no help was offered.
To the poors, I feel sorry. It means a lot of money. How many people drop tears for fellow Msians? If people here wish to support this laundary issue, can donate 5% of yearly income to help?
I am staying in a landed house, I feel God given us the natural resources, and with the idea of greener environment, it is good to go green and dry them on the open area.
Hanging on balcony pose hazard? Yes…
The Government should imposed on the Management of that apartment to monitor. Just like police monitor the Mat Rempit. The Management knows what is hazard and what is not hazard. Any accident happens, look for the Management.
To suffice the tourists, I hope we should improve on the other 95% tourist complaints, let the 5% remain as unresolved.
Complain about this comment
Like or Dislike:
0 
0