It is indeed a multicultural and multinational world we live in.
But we are all homo sapiens so appreciate it for the short remaining time we have left.

Non-racial apartheid. I don't think it morally acceptable for a country to engage a large foreign low wage workforce without the offer of citizenship. There needs to be an international standard to stop exploitation of this type.

Fester,

Well, straight-out racial Apartheid. The bumiputra system, like any social system that privileges and preferences people from one group and forever penalises or demeans people from other groups, is Apartheid by another name.

Joe

I don't know Joe, I used to feel a bit embarrassed about the amount of money I earned doing a contract job in PNG, & what the locals working for me were paid. However they must have found working for the wages on offer more desirable than staying in the village.

I once found that one of the "boys" working under me on a project was actually the king, or crown prince of the duke Of York islands, just off New Britain. His income from plantations & other sources was many times mine. When asked he explained that as the leader of his clan he needed to know how the town & business worked, & working in it was the best way he could learn.

I worked with plantation labour on atolls & remote high islands when building jetties. They were very low paid workers, but none of them wanted to go home. With all found they did not need much, & sent a fair bit of their low wages home, or saved it. Most planned to go home sometime, a long way off. Plantation life was much more pleasant than the Sepik or Fly river areas they mostly came from.

Thank you, Joe. I stand corrected.

Cheers