Tag Archives: Race

MIC’s Take On One School System

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Oh dear, after all these years, they still clueless on why they took a hit in 2008?

(In the picture – MIC on the wrong side of the Tamil schools. No doubt Tamil schools have been the key factor when it comes to MIC and its claim that it is fighting for the community and yes, that they have helped out the schools in the past with financial assistances and others allocations but are they playing the crucial role in the next evolution of the education system in the country by looking at quality instead of quantity? Image source)

From theSun:-

Question: Why are Tamil schools so important to MIC? You yourself come from a national school and the majority of Indians are in national schools.

Answer: Tamil schools are part and parcel of Indian culture – they go to Tamil schools not only to learn Tamil, but also to learn culture and religion. If Tamil schools go away, then tradition and culture will also go.

Question: Why are young professionals shying away from MIC?

Answer: They don’t see MIC as a fun party – the president has plans to rejuvenate the party with younger representation – we have also Putra MIC for the youths. The young must be patient – MIC has only four parliamentary seats and seven state seats.

Question: Is the concept of catering to only one race not attractive?

Answer: Yes and no. But only in MIC one can write, speak and talk in Tamil – but even for non-Tamil speakers, they are not left out as some of the meetings are conducted in English and Bahasa.

Question: How has MIC been preparing for the next general election (GE), especially after the bitter defeat in 2008?

Answer: MIC has stressed that we must win back what we lost and retain those we won. We are doing everything that we can to get the numbers we had in 2004, we know it is difficult, it may not be possible. Compared with his predecessor (Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu), MIC president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel is not much in the news. You cannot compare the two leaders. It is not easy to take up the leadership at this time especially after the bad showing in the 2008 election. His style of working is different. We are reported in the Tamil papers. Yes, it is not enough, and we have also put MIC TV available on YouTube and are also communicating with urban Tamils.

I could have just ignored the interview but there was one thing he said that made me stop in my thoughts and wonder.

I am referring to Kamalanathan’s “reason” on why we still need Tamil schools in this country. Kamalanathan is saying that without Tamil schools in this country, the tradition and culture will also go. No doubt Kamalanathan is looking from his point of view as one of the MIC’s leaders but there must be reality check somewhere there. It is important  to understand the role of the school these days. Is it to encourage and propagate tradition and culture? Or is it another means to get good education with a different language as the main base (due to students’ background and mastery of language)?

I think we need to get the priorities right – education & discipline should be confined to schools and tradition & culture (and religion) confined to temples and cultural centers (like the Temple of Fine Arts). The moment you start to mix the both, you going to get in trouble and leave room for abuse and misdirection – certainly not with young innocent minds. It is downright unfair too – what about other races who does not share the same tradition and culture, are we going to built separate schools for them? Surely they want to preserve their traditions and culture as well.

And why we are continuing to break-up the schools into various sectors and race when it is crucial to have one school, one language for all? If the concern is losing the hold of the tradition & culture, then we should relook into how we can fuse tradition and culture in our temples (we seems have too many of them) or cultural centres (and perhaps with more tradition & cultural segments on public media like TV and newspapers). There are alternatives on how we can continue to maintain the tradition and culture without going through the schools. But please, let’s keep the race, tradition, culture and religion crap out of schools.

The reason for it is rather simple – it defeats the progress to greater unity as reasoned below:-

Historically, the British built separate vernacular schools to maintain racial divide and prejudice to lord over us. It is indeed expedient and shrewd and one of the things that should have been kicked out right after Malaysia gained independence from the British if our leaders truly want to see a united Malaysia turn up without jeopardising our national language, our official religion, our monarchy and our Rukun Negara.

Vernacular schools impede national unity at the primordial stage; there is no room for vernacular school in a multi-racial society.

(Source)

And if the concern is losing the hold of the Tamil language (still remember the controversy on the extra language SPM papers?), this is because not enough attempts made to provide alternative language classes at national schools – all we need is the classes & qualified teachers in national schools (MIC can play a strong role here) and not a whole school with different emphasis, language, structure and funding. At this juncture, I must recap what OutSyed the Box said on the need to have common language (hence different schools in the same country) – it makes more sense than what Kamalanathan is trying to say:-

The time has also come where we must seriously consider merging the school system into just one school system i.e. based on Bahasa Malaysia and English only. We need to abolish the Chinese and Tamil language school system. The Chinese and Tamil language heroes say that if Chinese and Tamil schools are abolished, their language and culture will also disappear. Wrong.

There are 1.5 billion Chinese in China who will make sure that the Chinese language, culture and the Chinese people will never disappear from the face of the earth. The same argument applies for the 1.0 billion Indians in India. This however is Malaysia. It is not and cannot be China or India.

When Chinese, Indians and anyone else migrate to Australia they learn to speak English in a jiffy. No one asks for Tamil or Mandarin to be made national languages in Australia. No one sings the Waltzing Matilda in Tamil or Mandarin in Australia.

The same logic applies to Malaysia. It is high time non Malays in Malaysia learn to speak Malay like a native Malay. Getting straight As for Bahasa Malaysia in the SPM does not mean anything if you still say ‘saya api kereta naik mari’ or ‘saya naik keleta api mali sini.”

It is not cute anymore. Actually it is quite embarrassing. Please, let’s speak the language the way it should be spoken.

Now, coming back to the need for Tamil school – it is not an issue of losing tradition and culture if the Tamil schools are closed down that we need to fear of (yes, there will be some impact but not to the point where the future generations would be clueless on tradition and culture). Just look at the Indians in US and UK who are doing well in maintaining their tradition and culture despite going to a non-Indian language based schools.

There is a greater concern when a politician from a race based political party insists on preserving the Tamil schools – we fear that attempts to breakdown this segregation and forcing everyone to go to the same school and speak the language will be derailed or sabotaged by race based policies and race based political party who hold them as the trump cards to be still relevant. And this is what is happening in our education system – it has been screwed up to a point we are still having different schools in the country.

Surely there will be specific issues that will face certain communities more than others from time to time but we need to consider which one is more critical. If it is on education and national unity, let’s fight for the good of the country and not just for each others communities. Do that and you will earn our confidence and our votes in the next general elections.

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Dr M and Racial Based Politics

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(Countdown – 326 days to “doomsday”)

Read These First

(Race based policies are as just as bad and cruel as open segregation of society and citizens based on the color of their skin seen here in an early 1930s photo. Image source: http://www.old-picture.com)

Now read this:-

It is better to slow down development than to scrap race-based policies and risk ethnic clashes in the country, Tun Dr Mahathir has said.

The former prime minister, in making the case for the continuation of such policies, wrote in a blog posting here that taking away racial consideration when doing business would not necessarily guarantee development.

Writing once in an earlier blog posting in 2010, Dr Mahathir had said: “I may be labelled a racist but fear of the label will not stop me from working for what I think is good for the country.

“Nothing will be gained by dividing the people of Malaysia into poor Bumis and rich non-Bumis. The time is not right for disregarding the disparities between the races in the interest of equity and merit.”

The country’s longest-serving former prime minister, who still wields influence in the ruling Umno, continued to stress this point in his latest posting.

“It is true that if the problem of race does not haunt Malaysia, development would speed up.

“But when the distribution of wealth is so wide between the races, there is a large possibility hostilities would occur between the rich and the poor,” he said.

(Source)

As much as we highly respect the 86 years old politician for “some” of the good things that he have done for the country, certainly after 55 years of Independence when people from different racial background and culture called themselves as Malaysians, it is high time we revisit the need for racial based policies. Race based policies have never been good to anyone – still remember Germany’s Aryan misadventures by the Nazis, South Africa’s Apartheid and once upon time, the white-black segregation in the deep south of America?

Dr M may have valid points – after all it will not be easy to scrap race based policies overnight – not when we have been governed by it for almost 43 years. But that does not mean we should harp on the very unfair policies for another 43 years. It has to go away one day and the sooner we do it, it is better in the long run (and we seem to have the first step of breaking down race based policies in 2008 by voting for more multi-race based political parties and sent at least one known race based political party into the wilderness). And in making his case for race based policies, Dr M embarks on 2 arguments. One – it will risk ethnic clashes and Two – all Bumis are poor and all non-Bumis are rich.

Sounds familiar? It is the same old argument (or variations of it) heaped on fellow Malaysians by the same race based political party politicians to keep themselves in power. Even if we were to take the 86 years old man’s words as the gospel truth, the question is what does we intend to do about it? After all, here is an ex-PM telling others that he rather throws national development down the drain for an unspecific period than to scrap race based policies that many have deemed unfair, flawed and open for abuse. The 2 arguments put forward by Dr M may be flawed as well.

Flawed because firstly it is not taking into consideration of changes that have happened locally and globally in recent times. It is no longer 1969 all over again. America for example has a President who in 1930s – 1960s would have been asked, sorry, told to buzz off from white only areas. The Apartheid in South Africa has long gone and buried and in Malaysia, we are no longer seeing prevailing race based industries or sectors – there is still perhaps in sub-sectors but it is not too obvious in main sectors.

These days, generally you can find all races in all sectors – something that did not happen back in a prevailing basis in 1960s. And there seems to be an even more effort put forward by Najib’s administration to liberate economy sectors. So at the point of such liberation taking place, not only in Malaysia and in the economic sector, one need to take a couple steps back and wonder if harping on race based policies is wise.

Secondly, it must be affirmed that poverty is a global issue and affects all races – both Bumis and Non Bumis. You will find both the rich and the poor at both sides of the spectrum. It is a fact that must be taken into consideration if one is to keep saying that race based policies is best for the country. If we were do that, then unfairness creeps in – you may end up leaving a section of society who are poor but at the same time is unable to find the needed relief under the provisions made by their Government. Think about it for a second.

National policies that work on eradication of poverty should never be made on the basis of the colour of the skin or ethnic background but rather must always be based on class of personal wealth. It is fair thing to do anyway. If we are to take the race based policies by it’s’ horn, will it at end of the day risk ethnic clashes? To answer this, we should look back at the basis of Dr M’s contention that it will – the so-called 1969 ethnic riots – an incident from which saw the birth of race based policies such as New Economy Policy.

That was 43 years ago – didn’t the NEP balanced the so-called imbalance wealth to some extent over those years (even with the glaring shortcomings)? One can crunch the numbers from the many sources available on the internet. There seems to be more than enough wealth to be shared and improve the standings of fellow Bumi Malaysians (read this excellent open letter on the issue). But what is not enough is the will-power and punitive actions to severely punish those who abuse the wealth in form of corruption and conflict of interest. And there seems to be an affirmation of abuse of tax-payers money when it comes to national projects or contracts especially after 43 years of the race based policies you still read this:-

The DAP has blasted the Najib administration for awarding a lucrative RM7 billion highway deal, to be tolled for a record 60 years, to a company known principally for making and selling granular and powder-activated carbon.

(Source)

Or this:-

In comparison Petronas has paid RM 3,307 psf of pedestrian walkway – almost SIX times the psf price of a six star condominium in Mont Kiara.

I don’t think it is paved with 916 gold either. And there are no Jacuzzis provided in case the ever increasing number of KL’s vagrants who do populate some of the other walkways at nite, want to take a bath or have a water massage.

Petronas paid RM100.0 million or RM3,307 psf for a 30,285 sq. ft. pedestrian walkway. If you ask me, this type of costing is worse than the lembu condo. Someone had a very early Christmas.

(Source)

And despite Government and the Government linked companies blowing millions of the national wealth instead of pumping it for the benefit of Malaysians living in poverty and to make the industries, workforce and individual income more resilient, comes along an ex-PM defending the race based policies that will only perpetuates abuse and unfairness. It is only a mystery as to how scrapping of race based policies and speed up the effort on corruption and abuse will risk ethnic clashes – especially when the very fight against corruption and abuse is to return wealth back to those who in need the most – poor Malaysians who the bulk comprised of Bumis.

This is why, despite the misgiving that Pakatan Rakyat seems to be projecting, we should give it a run for the Government – at least to stop the leakages in national wealth and abuse of tax-payers money. The new Government should scrap all race based policies and promote more equitable based policies that will address any shortcomings, any imbalances in wealth and power and that is what as recent as 2012, Pakatan Rakyat strives to achieve in the long run. Not promoting fear of ethnic clashes and further abuse of power and national wealth.

And yes, for the time being, we need to ignore the 80 plus year old politician – age may be catching up with him but then again, at the same time, we should not lose focus of continuing to scrap the existing race based policies (and the aged, senile politicians that is tied to it). It has been in the system for far too long and it is not helping the country in the long run.

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The Chinatown White Knights

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(This is the place where I bought my first true SLR and this is also the place where we used to go for new clothes for Deepavali. Image source: http://www.backpackingmalaysia.com)

If you ask me, it is rather hilarious!…

From theSun’s headline that screamed “Chinatown Saved”:-

About 30 buildings in Chinatown need not make way for development of the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project. However, they will have to be vacated for about six months to facilitate underground work.

MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek announced the news at a press conference today at the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) headquarters after a meeting with its chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, its CEO Mohd Nur Ismal Kamal, representatives from Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd and members of the Jalan Sultan building owners ad-hoc committee.

(Source)

This reminded me of this post by Patrick Teoh titled “Conspiracy Theory 101” where he said:-

But just the other evening a friend told me, “Hiyah! No need to shout so much la. It’s just a show only. It’s part of Umno/BN strategy to regain some Chinese votes ma.” Huh? How? Simple what. You just wait a few weeks and see. This is how it will happen.

The Chinese flers in Petaling Street will continue to get pissed about things. The PR flers will make more statements condemning the Umno/BN government for not being sensitive to this, that and the other. And then…………

Chua Soi Lek and the “knights” of the MCA will ride in and announce that they have petitioned the government, on behalf of the Chinese community, to re-think the MRT and Chinatown acquisition plans. Then, Najib or Nazri or one of those flers who happens to be not on holiday at the time, will say OK! Then CSL will tell the Petaling St. flers, “See? Only MCA can give Chinese flers good representation in Parliament ma. So vote for us lor. By the way, can give more discount on that gold Lolex ah?”

So, it does look like that prediction came true! And if one is looking for the real savior of Chinatown, it has to be this:-

The government had previously insisted on acquiring all the buildings as the Land Acquisition Act stipulates that property must be acquired before any construction work can begin, even for underground railway development as under the law, ownership of a building includes the land below.

However, Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun mooted the idea that the government acquire only the land beneath the buildings and provide the owners with stratum titles to allow the MRT to run below without acquiring the land above.

By the way, MP Fong Kui Lun is from Pakatan Rakyat. Wonder who will end up getting the credit of saving one of the key heritage areas in the city?

Race Based Resolutions

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UPDATE: Here’s one with MCA in the main role

Back to the original post

Seriously we need less of it…

(Tamil schools in Malaysia often suffer from poor image, under funding and poorly equipped infrastructure and despite the improvement of exam results over the years and promised assistance from the Government and political parties, there is doubt why it has not been merged into national schools. Image source: http://www.makkez.com)

MIC may have gotten their 2nd Minister-ship back to entice Indian voters to back BN but here lies the danger of backing a race based political party:-

Housing, jobs, education and socio-economic concerns were among the nine resolutions passed by some 4,000 branch chairman and delegates during MICs 65th general assembly.

However, they sought a fair distribution of benefits under the transformation programs, in particular ensuring that Tamil primary schools are properly equipped with pre-school facilities in line with the 87% target set by the Government for all primary schools to offer pre-school classes. At present, only 17.5% Tamil primary schools offer pre-school classes with MIC seeking to ensure that the remaining schools are fully equipped by this year.

(Source)

Does this means MIC going to be the sole champion of Tamil schools again?

Are they only capable of representing and fighting for the best deals for one particular race? It seems to be case most of the time – MIC for the Indians, MCA for the Chinese and UMNO for the Malays. And at every general assembly, we will hear this year in, year out. Surprisingly during election period, the same blokes who pledge to fight for his race will turn around and tell you that they will do everything they can for the voters who no doubt will not be from one particular race. So, which is which now?

That is why the voters should be more vigilant and reject any race based politics. If there is a true 1Malaysia concept out there, the last it needs is a segregation of Malaysia by the color of the skin and beliefs at primary school level (and if one goes by MIC’s latest resolution, at pre-school level).

Malaysians segregated when still young at primary school level will likely to face problems when they are united back during secondary school level. This is because it will take time for them to interact, understand each other and accept the differences more effectively. Certainly things would be different if we start off early – 6 years before, at primary school level – when the mind is still young and innocent. This is what “one school for all” strives to achieve.

Now MIC is resolute to ensure that Tamil primary schools are properly equipped with pre-school facilities in line with the 87% target set by the Government for all primary schools to offer pre-school classes. But whilst it is good to have pre-school classes at primary level, this is wrong way to go about it. Because this is how the old, corrupt and hard-to-change MIC would be go about it. Besides, some of the existing primary schools are already in bad condition. Wonder how a pre-school classes is going to improve the school as whole?

If indeed MIC has truly changed, it should change its paradigm as well. It should do something unthinkable, something very drastic.

It should think at nation’s level – not at community level alone. First thing it should resolute to do and certainly it will do the community (if it still insist) a great service in the long run, is to ABOLISH all Tamil Schools (or convert them all to national schools) and get all students to be enrolled in one school that unites all – fully subsidized, well equipped National Schools backed by highly qualified teachers.

And if MIC still intends to hold one for the community (for old time sake), it will resolute to ensure that the language Tamil should be part of the syllabus in all national schools and where one can take it as an optional exam papers (after all there is no harm having an option to learn additional language other than English and Bahasa Malaysia – India and China will be the two biggest economy powerhouse in the near future).

Tamil primary school ends at Standard 6 – these students at the end of the day need to be integrated back into the national school environment and the unfortunate part is these students will not be integrated immediately – they will spend another year in “remove classes” before the start of a slow, painful process of being united back with fellow Malaysians.

Can we cut to the chase?