Racism is black or white

There is no room for grey areas on the issue of racism. All Malaysians need to know and clearly understand racism. Like pornography, it cannot suddenly become ‘art’ at the convenience of the artist. Even art is always appreciated only within its context; but never appreciated out of context.

Art can become pornography when out of its context. Likewise, racism must be called only that; it cannot be modified or taken out of its context. Racism is either black or white, not a grey area.

Education and thus learning is the mother of all sciences. Primary and secondary education is the foundational framework for social engineering and nation-building in all newer nation-states. 

For example, on Merdeka Day, the “ Merdeka ” theat Tunku shouted seven times must be understood in context.

I think he meant to say, “thank God we are independent of our colonial masters, and now we are free to define the destiny of our own nation.” These are not his words, but my interpretation of his meaning. 

That was Merdeka only for Malaya but not for Sabah and Sarawak. They were still colonial neighbours.

But what does Merdeka mean to the Sabahans and Sarawakians? Again, the job of educators in primary and secondary schools is to paint these meanings for our younger generations to understand and appreciate the spirit of our forefathers when they welcomed their political independence. 

But is such an independence only for political freedoms, but not for maturity and growth? And is Merdeka only political independence for the peninsula but not for the likes of Sabah and Sarawak? Are we now then merely neo-colonialists towards Sabah and Sarawak? What is the meaning of Malaysia to them and to us? Why then did Najib Abdul Razak declare Sept 16 as a holiday?

Education a social engineering project

Any principal of any school calling any student who is an anak bangsa Malaysia (i.e. born to a Malaysian parent after Sept 16, 1963 and has a legitimate birth certificate) a pendatang is expressing nothing but pure bigotry and racism. This matter is either black or white, and there are no grey areas. Let me explain.

A principal is a federal government employee appointed as a teacher under the Teachers Services Commission. They are transferable to anywhere in Malaysia; East or West. Therefore, all teachers are trained for this portfolio and those with managerial responsibility and only the best of the best are selected to be a principal.

Half-baked teachers who do not know the history and/or geography or the culture of courtesy ( yang tersurat and tersirat ) under the Rukunegara cannot and should not become a principal.

In fact, the Education Ministry spends millions to raise good quality principals, and there is an entire school called Institut Aminuddin Baki, dedicated to teaching teachers the fine art of being a principal.

Administrators and specialist teachers

Like all fields of knowledge, teaching also has a parallel track between administrators and technical content experts. Not all teachers are designed to be administrators. Administrators need to be both task- and people-oriented to do a great job. Not all content experts are good communicators either. The converse is also true. Not all administrators are good teachers.

Therefore, given this parallel system and many screening processes that are applied before a principal is selected, I want to question what, why and how the Education Ministry can even allow those whom I would put in the category of idiocrats to ever become principals? This should never happen.

nstead we get three principals who make national headlines demonstrating uninformed incompetence all within a span of three months? Is this really a sample of the quality of principals we have in our education system?

Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that the majority is like this. Or is it pure chance amid the realities of the Internet age that such abuses of racism and religious bigotry suddenly make the news?

What if I hypothesise that this may be the norm rather than the exception? What if I juxtapose that national ‘sampling by media coverage’ with my family sampling of having raised five children within our school system and suggest that there were only three good exceptions in our 25 years of putting our children through primary and secondary schools?

Good principals

The first exception was at my daughter’s secondary school; and the other two occurred under the same principal of the Yoke Chai Primary School in Taman Megah where my three youngest children underwent Chinese primary education.

Now, three samples of good principals over 25 years of educational experience and three samples of poor idiocratic principals in the last three months. I think I would summarise that poor principals are the norm rather than the exception.

Umno today wants to allow ordinary teachers to be “involved in politics”, and the Nr 1 public servant, the chief secretary, has signed a circular permitting it. Why should this be so? Let me also rationally question this and raise another red flag. 

If the three idiocratic principals are the role models of teachers who qualify to be politicians, we do not want teachers to be involved in politics, because they reflect the mindset of the ‘Melayu first’ Education Minister.

In the good old days when people like our former DPM, the late Abdul Ghafar Baba, was a teacher, they were true blue idealists and fully committed to be teachers. They were and became our fountains at the well of learning. They went into politics to serve the interest of the people; not their own interests.

Today most politically-minded teachers enter Umno to build a supply base of supporters so that they can gain influence and win elections at the division level. 

Today even sloppy bureaucrats can become principals; and they behave worse than the Umnoputra idiocrats. How else can three of them demonstrate that they are both racists and religious bigots all within three months, and two of these during the fasting month? Halal-kah ?