Ahhhhh,......the ever familiar scent of a bi-election. Newspapers are full of stories, websites and blogs are abuzz. Coffee table analysts are speculating. And Zahid forms another party. Just an average day/month in the life of us Malaysians. Oh, my deepest sincerest apologies as I should have started this post with "Salam 1 Malaysia" What a crock of !@$%....
Not so long ago when I was attending primary school (ok it was very long ago), there was no such concept. Why was there no such concept? Because there was no need for such a concept. This is a rather touchy subject so I'll have to walk this line carefully. But one is not able to walk this line carefully because this is about racial unity, or the lack of it. How can one talk about this subject with pissing (pardon my french) somebody off? Well, either you talk about it or your don't. I'm sure I will get multiple reactions but so what...I only have like 3 followers LOL.
1Malaysia was created to address....well....I don't need to write about why it was created. It was created, so be it. OK, well, it was created to bring the people of Malaysia closer together. But I ask you, why do we have to bring the people of Malaysia closer together? We were already very close when I was in primary school. At least this is my believe. Schools were like a mini United Nations. You can look in any class and find a good mix of malays, chinese, indians and even perhaps a few sikhs. Again, this is what I remember it to be. Today when I look in side the class of my daughters, the mix is strangely missing. Why is this so? Well why else? Create alternative schools in the form of islamic schools, chinese schools and indian schools. Now what do you think will happen when these types of schools are created? Do you need three guesses? I am not saying these schools should not have been created or allowed to flourish but.....I mean.......come on man, what do you think will happen? Do I sound like a broken record? Perhaps, but seriously, the creation of these types of schools will lead to the unintended segregation of students by races. Now was that very difficult? I am sure there are many reasons behind this but whatever the reasons, it had happened and now gone are the days that you will find a "united nations" type mix in classes. So where did we go wrong?
I myself am not entirely sure where we went wrong. But we did. And today, as much as I hate to say it, the best teachers and the highest paid teachers, are in these schools. Why? because most of them are privately run. Why? because most of these are or will be changed into International Schools. So, sorry to say, who are left? Well...walk into most government run schools or sekolah kebangsaan, and you will see. My wife and I are products of these normal schools. Not private schools, not chinese schools, not Indian schools, not islamic schools. Did we turn out ok? I would like to think so. But today I cannot seem to find the same mix and environment in schools. And being old school, no pun intended, I cannot bring myself to send my children to private or international schools. If it was good enough for us, it's good enough for our children. Unfortunately I am beginning to think it may not be true for all of us. I had my children in a particular school. Now I have them in another school. Why? the school that I transferred my children to had better teachers; as in more experience. They have better results than most schools in the country. They have a better balance between co-curriculum and education. But the "united nations" mix is still not there.
Take a walk on the streets nowadays. Take a walk in schools nowadays. Take a walk in universities and colleges nowadays. Take a walk around a mall or food court nowadays. You will most likely see groups of students from the same race running in the same pack. I would not be exaggerating to say out of 10, you will be hard pressed to find 1 having a good racial mix. This is why I am concerned. I am not generalizing. This is what I see. This is what I observe. This is not how I grew up. I did not need 1Malaysia when I grew up. We were already 1Malaysia. Why is there a need to create 1Malaysia? because somewhere along the way, somethings changed. Somethings were encouraged to flourish. Somethings were not put to a halt. Somethings were not governed. Is there someone to blame? Not really. There are a collection of people to blame. In some civilized countries, these collection of people are known as the government. Both the ruling parties and the opposition parties. Am I blaming everyone? No, I am blaming the government. Am I blaming any particular government? No, because the government has changed quite a few times since I was in primary school. But this has been allowed to manifest and now it has reached the stage where 1Malaysia absolutely HAD to be introduced. I don't think it needs to be introduced to my generation or the one before me. I don't know. Perhaps I ma being naive. Perhaps I am being unfair to blame the government. But the entire education system is governed by the government....so even if I wanted to lay blame on some other entity, I am not able. I cannot. Is the entire government bad? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Just the one, two or several branch that looks at this particular segment.
1Malaysia is the first. The second is our education's system absolute stupidity in glorifying students who get 20 As. What is God's great earth is going on here? Ok, I promise to write about this in my next post. But for now, back to 1Malaysia.
Would you agree that 1Malaysia is one way of admitting that "Hang on, we have a problem" ? I would. I am not against the whole idea of 1Malaysia. I just think that had we played our cards right, had we played our cards differently, we may not have to resort to 1Malaysia. Now that we have 1Malaysia, it is up to us to ensure it's success. But we alone will find it difficult without the intervention of the powers that be. They have to take one step back and ask themselves what can we do to make this work?
At the end of the day, we need to be responsible and take things into our own hands. We are after all (or will be) parents. We will be the first teachers that our children meet. We will be the ones our children look to for education, for guidance, to be a role model, to be a friend, to be a mentor. And guess what, all of this will happen before they to go a proper School. I hate to sound cliched but the children are our future.
Tagore once said, "To build a nation first build a school"
