No sex please, we\’re Asian

The NST, in their Sunday Issues column of July 15 surmised that “not teaching kids about sex early enough is the reason for the problems with teenage pregnancies and other related problems.” I disagree.

In the field of policy science, one important subject and process of analysis we teach is problem definition and problem resolution. The serious challenge in any problem definition is that we need to first and foremost differentiate and distinguish between the symptoms and the root causes.

So, for example a symptom is to have a cough; but the root cause of the ailment may come from any number of sources.    

Unless we know the real cause of a problem, we may only treat the symptoms and not identify the root cause and source. Therefore the root problem and its symptoms recur after some time.

Let me give a real life example of how poor problem analysis ended up killing my best friend Mat Tahir Ayob. Tahir passed away about three years ago. He was first diagnosed with “gas in the stomach,” but each local specialist medical centre he visited diagnosed a different problem.

And each time, the family had to pay for professional gastro-enterological care in the two years before he died. Then it was too late; after the so-called professional specialists failed to analyse the root problem, he was eventually diagnosed with colon cancer by UKM Hospital.

As it was a 4th stage cancer, Tahir only survived another four months. With good problem analysis the early symptoms could have accurately diagnosed the root problem.

It is likewise my contention that sex education is only a symptom and not the root cause of the public policy problems related to teenage pregnancies, drug addiction, street children and family breakdowns.

Neither should it be viewed as a problem only for the Education Ministry, or the Family and Community Ministry, or the Social Welfare Ministry. The problem may be related to what Seyyed Hossein Nasr calls“the spiritual crisis of modern man” in his book ‘Man and Nature’.

Bane of modern life

Modern life has allowed for the atomisation of family life. Therefore, extended families of our village communities are no more. And traditional community values are equally no more. Gone are the days when we called our neighbour pak cik or mak cik or uncle or aunt. Today, uncles and aunts are only your blood relatives.

Therefore, when children go to school today they are only known by their ethnic identity and the car or vehicle they come to school in; not anymore by “that is so and so’s son or daughter.”

I remember while waiting for the Form Six results, when I tried to get part time work in my small town Sungai Petani, I could not get a job even as a petrol pump attendant “because I was Pak John’s son,” and employers were afraid my father would not approve of it. Those were days of close family and community relations.

Today, most parents do not care so seriously anymore, as long as the children do not bug them for ‘too much love and care’, translating to poor quality family time. Money however is in plentiful supply today in urban Malaysia and the neighbourhood computer games store keeps many children quite busy; while the much braver ones may even afford to experiment with street living.

Teenage pregnancies are related to a breakdown of traditional family values. Sex education is only a symptomatic solution to a more fundamental problem of the lack of family love and care. That is further compounded by the breakdown of traditional community life, wherein often neighbours and relatives used to stand in for parents with communitarian care. In a modern setting such “care and concern” from others in the community is no more.

Therefore, my views on the subject are: teach the kids and their parents good family life values. Yes, if schools are serious they can take and assume full responsibility for family life education.

Lower secondary children and parents can be invited to come and learn the same content taught by community leaders and elders about what is good quality family life. Learning is a continuous way of life improvements. Within that context these young ones can also be taught about sex matters and also the rules and religious beliefs about the sacredness of life and the dignity of the other person in any relationship. Sexual abstinence must also be proffered as the preferred choice.

Eastern values central to sex education

Sex education as taught in the West today is unfortunately differentiated learning of some parts of the body functions within the context of an artificial and autonomous, independent care-free living philosophy of life.

Eastern virtues and traditional values premise life and living on religious frameworks which put a preamble on the family (and the extended family) as the most fundamental social unit at the level of community life.

If we start with such common social values, then merely providing sex education becomes an unfortunate focus on some organs and some unusual types of sexual activity at the expense of other more important and basic community values. Therefore, family life education as a framework for sexual responsibilities within community life may be a better way forward.