Education outside the communal box
Sim Kwang Yang
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As seasonal as the occasional outbreak of dengue fever that plagues our haze-infested land, the issue of Chinese education has once again stirred up heated debate on nation-building and ethnic relation.
It started innocently enough. Waking up from a political slumber, the MCA made a proposal for more Chinese primary schools to be built in cities and towns under the 9th Malaysian Plan. It is a practical and legitimate problem, one that has troubled Chinese parents and educators for decades. The population in our urban centres has increased many times, and yet the new Chinese primary schools built after independence have been too few and too far between.
All it takes is a nod from the Barisan Nasional government, of which the MCA is a senior partner. It would probably not involve any substantial allocation in public spending, since the generosity of the usually frugal Chinese people is legendary, when it comes to giving donation towards the construction of Chinese schools of all sorts. They regard their financial support for Chinese education as their second taxation in life.
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That the MCA has emerged as the public protagonist in the defense of Chinese education comes as a bit of a surprise. That role is traditionally reserved for the Dong Jiao Zong, that influential confederation of management committees of Chinese schools in Malaysia, together with the union of Chinese school teachers. This powerful civil society group has been instrumental in the preservation and development of Chinese education for well over half a century, despite the MCA.
Perhaps the impending party elections within MCA has something to do with this revival of their political fervour. Perhaps their leading lights are getting fed-up with critics who compare their Life-long Learning Campaign to a flight from the political domain. Whatever their reasons, they have done what is expected of them: to procure the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese community.
A more pragmatic government in a more enlightened country would have no problem with this proposal. As a whole, the Chinese community has borne the tremendous costs of running their vernacular education over the past many decades, to the tunes of perhaps billions of Ringgits nationwide. Any community effort in the education of young Malaysians must surely be welcome. It would certainly relieve the government from the heavy burden of financing and managing all forms of public education, and the money saved could be diverted elsewhere for other important purposes!
PM’s insensitive comment
Unfortunately, we live in Malaysia. The status of Chinese education had been an explosive issue even under the British colonial rule in the post-war years. After independence, the aspiration of the Chinese people to enjoy education for their young in their mother tongue has clashed with the vision of Malay nationalists within Umno and their satellite groups to make Bahasa Malaysia the sole national and official language of the new nation state.
It is perhaps the weight of this historical baggage that compels the PM to shoot from his hip, and proclaim that Chinese schools are not conducive to national unity, or something to that effect. (I could almost hear almost all true blooded Chinese gasp in horror at this sort of insensitive comment.) Despite his two clarifications afterwards, the damage has been done.
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The PM’s response if indeed that was his response was an over-reaction obviously. It is not as if the MCA is asking Mandarin to be installed as another national language, or that the certificates issued by the Chinese secondary schools be recognised by the government, to allow their graduates to get jobs in the civil service. It is a matter of adding a handful to the existing 1,300 or so Chinese primary schools, for crying out loud! Surely a sense of proportion must prevail.
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(I suspect that by now, the PM has discovered he is not as adept as his predecessor in playing the role of a cowboy shooting from the hip. It does not fit his public image anyway. His advisers should really advise him against this indulgence in the future.)
The ensuing debate on malaysiakini and elsewhere goes on to show how the festering sores of historical hurt have so adamantly resisted any healing process, not that there has been much national effort at healing and reconciliation among all quarters in any case.
By now, after more than half a century of my experience as a Malaysian citizen, I have acquainted myself with all the arguments on both sides of the linguistic fence. It is sad to realise at the same time, that rational arguments will not win the case for anyone, and neither will they resolve any differences of opinions. The status quo, which is an impasse, will be dissolved only when there is a radical structural transformation in our political culture. A change of government would probably help somewhat.
Fortunately for us, we have had decades of intensive study on the historical phenomenon of nationalism. The findings of scholars have helped us understand the central role played by language in the political manifestation of the nationalist impulse.
National myth
After all, the idea of a national language is a relatively new thing in history, having its origin in the formation of the modern nation states in Europe some two hundred years ago. Since then, it has evolved into a vehicle for the transmission of the myth of the nation, embodying within it the high culture that makes it possible for the imagining of a nation.
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A national language also serves as a depository for the collective memory of a nation. Obviously, where history is so short as is the case of Malaysia as a projected new nation-state, the collective memory may have to be manufactured in part, and imposed on a polyglot community. The deliberate or subconscious attempt on the part of ‘official nationalism’ in limiting (repressing, stunting and oppressing) the development of so called vernacular languages has to be part and partial of this necessary though arbitrary manufacture of a national myth.
I am quite convinced that this nationalist project will fail, in the form of the nationalist project based on the powers of a national language in the creation of a homogeneous monolingual national community as conceived in nation-states of the developed world.
The world has changed; the historical parameters for nation-formation have shifted. In this, I am in agreement with people like Eric Hobsbawm, who believe that the whole phenomenon of nationalism is merely historically contingent.
This does not mean that I am opposed to the use of Bahasa Malaysia as our national language. It does mean that the meaning of a national language has changed. We still need Bahasa Malaysia, as a lingua franca, to talk to people of other ethnic origins, and to talk to people of our own ethnic community sometimes. We certainly need it to do business with our officials and bureaucrats, and thank God, those occasions need not occupy too much of our lives!
Think outside ethnic box
It also means that the idea of uniting a polyglot and multi-religious population with the imposition of a single national language is suspect. The government has had half a century and tons of money in implementing this Quixotic vision, and racial polarisation is as serious as ever. The project has failed, and should be scrapped. When race-based politics is the root cause of racial polarisation in Malaysia, no amount of social engineering through the school system can ameliorate the hurt felt by Malaysians of all races outside the schools, from the cradle to the grave.
Besides, the purpose, meaning and content of the idea of ‘national unity’ have to be re-thought and reforged. There is no rhyme or reason, and no divine commandments cast in stone, to say that we must be unified as a people with one tongue, one faith and one bloodline. Policy makers, politicians, parents and educators should really think outside the ethnic ‘box’, and begin to explore ways of fashioning and engendering national unity built upon diversity.
The status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language is assured by our constitution, and by voluntary acceptance by Malaysians of all ethnic origins. It is an easy language to learn, and the young especially are pretty good at it in all types of schools where BM is taught.
At the same time, community effort in promoting and developing education in the various mother tongues ought to be accepted by all Malaysians. This would not only include Mandarin and Tamil, but also the other 70 or so natural languages indigenous to the people of Malaysia. Every one of these languages represent a rich cultural heritage for Malaysia as a whole, and should be preserved as the pride of our Malaysian nation.
The question of language and education needs not be settled by a zero-sum game, in which all parties lose out. Enlightened statesmen should start thinking about a win-win solution, in which learning the national language and learning mother tongues are not merely not mutually exclusive, but actually mutually complementary.
