Don't ignore Penang's middle working class! - A response to Al Jazeera’s article on Penang South Reclamation.

Al Jazeera’s recent article about Penang South Reclamation adds to the list of lopsided coverage about the project.

It is as if the future of the fishermen is all that matters in Penang. Such coverage completely ignores the huge middle working class in manufacturing and services sector in Penang. 

These sectors are the actual economic and social driver of the State, accounting for more than 94 percent of Penang’s GDP in 2017.

It is as if the severe deficit of 75,000 high-skilled jobs to cater to 174,000 Malaysians who graduate every year is irrelevant to the future of the next generation and their parents who worked tirelessly to pay for their children’s education. Should these unemployed graduates end up as fishermen?

It is as if the fact that Penang, as the second smallest state in Malaysia, produces 8 percent of the global back-end semiconductor output is not significant enough to convince media such as Al Jazeera that it is economically strategic and socially responsible for the State Government to leverage on what it does best to survive in an economically turbulent world.

When some of these media talk about the reclamation project, their celebrity are the fishermen. The total registered fishermen in Penang is less than 3,000, according to the data from Department of Fisheries. The fishermen who actually live around the reclamation site number at 912. And one rough estimate of the annual economic value of that area is RM136 million.

Penang’s electrical and electronic manufacturing sector alone contributes at least 300,000 jobs and more than RM18 billion in wages annually.

However, the fishermen get the limelight. They were collectively portrayed as “threatened” by the reclamation, side-lining those fishermen who support the project.

Not only the fishermen who support the reclamation are side-lined, the huge middle class in the manufacturing and services sector – the most vulnerable to the ongoing trade war and very likely to be out of job due to the imminent industrial revolution 4.0 and the emergence of artificial intelligence and automation, amounting to 800 million job loss worldwide by 2030 – is conveniently ignored.

The reclamation initiative by the State Government to expand the industrial zone to attract investors to create high-value job in order to sustain the majority of the population, amounts to 94 percent of the State's economy, is portrayed as a “threat” to the fishermen.

It seems that the 912 fishermen matter more to Al Jazeera. So, the State Government should just ignore the future of the huge middle working class and focus only on the fishermen?

It is not that the welfare of the affected fishermen is not important. The setting up of not one but two engagement centres (“Pusat Perkhidmatan Setempat Nelayan”) along the coastline of the reclamation site shows that the State Government is looking into their welfare. These centres have been collecting names of residents in the area for job replacement, providing practical help to the fisherman community. This effort is likewise side-lined by the Al Jazeera’s report.

Penang has moved on from being a backward fishermen village since the 1960s. It’s about time for Al Jazeera to catch up with the present Penang.