The nation's media space and airwaves are saturated with news and views about the dubious treatment of Chinese nationals in Malaysia these days. This unfortunate business about strip-searching a Chinese woman - who was also subject to ear-squatting - has pushed public attention to a frenzied pitch.

Frankly, I cannot recall another issue that has generated as much public interest as this one in a very long time. Under the previous prime minister, the matter would not have been let loose to this extent.

The events unfolded amidst a gathering torrent of news about the Chinese in the press.

(Here I am compelled to make this apparently redundant clarification that we are talking, not about Malaysian citizens of Chinese descent, but about citizens of the People's Republic of China, which includes Hong Kong and Macau, but excludes Taiwan. To the many racially tinted eyes in our country, all Chinese may look the same. There must be the odd ones who may even say, in the privacy of their skull, that a good Chinese is a dead Chinese. But to the myriad shades and persuasions of Chinese people in Malaysia and throughout the world, the clarification can mean a world of difference. That even this distinction needs to be made indicates the intricacy of Malaysian politics. Whew!)

First of all, for quite sometime now, we read in the press weekly and sometimes daily - reports of Chinese ladies of dubious repute being arrested by the police at various vice dens. Figures released by the police recently reveal that such ladies from China top the number of foreign ladies who have come to Malaysia to cari makan . They constitute one third of those involved in vice. There has even been the occasional outcry from local wives that these ladies from the PRC have broken up Malaysian Chinese homes.

Then some official or another claimed that 50,000 Chinese visitors to our country have gone missing. The tacit insinuation is clear as daylight: tens of thousands of Chinese citizens have come to Malaysia on their tourist visa, but have since gone underground in our land of milk and honey, to seek their fortune like the millions of other illegal immigrants.

Benefit of doubt

Doubts have been cast over this interpretation of such official figures from our Immigration Department records, but the damage must have been done, perhaps long before that even.

We may give the benefit of the doubt to the top political leaders of the country, when they proclaim that the government has no profiling against the Chinese from the PRC, and least of all against Chinese ladies.

Nevertheless, we do live and work in a country where the national ideology is very much premised on the ideology of race. Race is perhaps the number one priority in many citizens' concept of self-identity, perhaps overriding even their Malaysian identity.

Given also that ours is a conservative tradition-bound society where all things connected with the idea of sex evoke the most extraordinary emotions, gender sensitivity has taken on a perverse meaning.

In short, the government needs no specific official profiling in the execution of public policies on the ground. The most important public policies are erected upon the bedrock of ethnic and other forms of profiling. Public officials like police personnel and immigration officers, being Malaysians, can hardly be free from prejudices to which they have been subject since birth. They are human for heaven's sake!

Exactly how much respect and trust is enjoyed by the police force among the middle-class urban population at large is a matter of speculation. We need a credible opinion poll for this purpose. Unfortunately, scientific credible opinion polls have never been conducted much in Malaysia. Speculation and rumours are all we have.

Perhaps, for the top cops and the politicians answerable for them, it does not matter whether the people respect and trust the police. The most important thing is that the police must be feared. The individual police constables are not fearsome, being lowly paid, not so well educated, and frankly, quite ill-equipped to cope with new situations in a fast changing world.

Relations with China

Nevertheless, the police are fearsome, what with so much power entrusted in their hands through the many security laws, and the nation's early history of fighting an armed emergency. Having been misused to repress opposition political parties, and thereby getting involved in the political process as a vested interest, some police people may even see themselves as the real guardians of law and order, above the politicians even, much like the Guardians in Plato's Republic! It is conceivable that they may see all this business of human rights and civil liberties as a minor irritation, and no more.

In any case, the collective culture of arrogance of power must have permeated through the rank and file of the entire police force. Try to reason with a humble constable on the roadside, and he will threaten to arrest you for obstructing the police from carrying out their duty. With such awesome power in their hands, police officers and men do not really have to be courteous, friendly and nice.

As I have said, police recruits may not be the most educated, or the most intelligent people around, or at least that is probably the public perception of the quality of our guardians of law and order anyway. One can hardly expect the constables, the corporals, the sergeants and even the inspectors to follow the complicated development of government policies in response to rapidly changing international relations.

Malaysian relation to China is a case in point. China has emerged from the backward status that it was in the era of the Cultural Revolution, to become the fastest economy of the world. The China of to-day enjoys such economic, diplomatic, and military clout, as to threaten the US monopoly of the international scene. If the 20th century was the century of the Americans, the 21st century could very well be one for the Chinese.

China is still very much a developing country, with great risks wrought on by her numerous internal contradictions. That may be so. Yet, the reality of international politics cannot be ignored. For the purpose of trade, and for other reasons of geo-political considerations, Malaysia cannot afford to sour the usually cordial relationship between the two countries.

Already, the number of Chinese tourists arriving at our shores is dropping at an alarming rate, because of many factors pertaining to their treatment at the hands of less than scrupulous people involved in the tourist trade. Already, news of shameful treatment of Chinese nationals in Malaysia is circulating widely in Hong Kong and China. Being mostly communicated in the Chinese language, it is unlikely that the Malaysian top cops and the constables will have the slightest inkling of what is afoot overseas.

Grave invasion

There are good reasons why such news grabs attention. Sex and violence, albeit of the more subtle kind, are involved in such cases of ill treatment.

After all, all adults, especially ladies, do not bare their bodies except in front of their spouse and their doctor. Even baring all in front of another person of the same sex, without consent, is a grave invasion of a woman's privacy and personal dignity. Strip-searching, without probable and proper cause, without authorisation from a court of law and being conducted by medical personnel, is a violation of a woman's self-worth and her delicate sense of decency. It should make her feel as if her soul has been soiled beyond repair, leaving psychological scar for life. My mother or my wife will certainly feel so. Yours would too.

Is it any wonder that the world is scandalised by the police defence, that such strip-searching of a woman's body, upon mere suspicion, to be done by constables, is a "normal" procedure? Can you blame Malaysians for feeling angrier by the day, as the drama unfolds in the press, and in Parliament?

Obviously, the police procedure, as well as the corporate culture of the entire police department, is horrendously out of sync with the changing times.

Of course, Malaysians may feel cheated in that it takes foreign nationals to call attention to police inadequacy, when numerous complaints from Malaysians themselves in the past have not reached public attention. But that is one good thing about globalisation. Changing international relation will have impact upon the domestic policies and practices of any one country, and the iron walls sovereignty have to give somewhat. No nation can be a cocooned banana republic forever.

There are always those who call this sort of criticism against the police as 'police-bashing". Are the police such a holy cow, that their misdeeds cannot be "bashed" in public? Put it this way. If the police is given the job of guarding the nation and her people, who is going to guard the people against the police?

Of course, as some former top cop has observed, our police force has done a good job in many areas. In my experience in some neighbouring countries, our police personnel are certainly better then their counterparts elsewhere. That is why we must watch them, criticise them and remind them that they are paid to serve the people, not the other way round. If the odd policemen or policewomen do not like it, they can always quit the force.

Teach us not to fear the police, but to respect them, so that we can be proud of them. Above all, teach the police to respect all human beings, and remind them of the horrible ethical burden placed on their shoulders by the lopsided laws in Malaysia.

Clean up the force now!