Azly Rahman's Blog, page 3

The Truth about the defenders of the Malay Language

Not a joke to teach English to kampung folks Azly Rahman Published: 6:56 pm  |  Modified: 6:57 pm A+ A- COMMENT | The so-called national laureates, who are opposed to the teaching of Maths and Science in English, think it is a joke that Malays should forever be pushed backwards in mastering the language of science and technology.English is the language of post-industrialism, of Artificial Intelligence (AI) philosophy, of this and that of the advanced hyper-modern society that our nation ought to understand of its underpinnings, if not ride on its wave. Together with the Malay or Islamic youth movement, Malay writers group and the other sentimental-illogical Malay band of opposers of English as a medium of instruction, they are plagued with a sense of vain-gloriousness and idiotic, if not false, sense of pride in defending the Malay language to the detriment of the future of the Malays themselves.These are groups that are quite useless as participants in the dialogue for language advancement, frequently mounting arguments of pro-Malayness that are either stale, invalid and incapacitated in the face of the advent of higher science, or they are just plain ignorant of the needs of today's Malay children who are crying for a future that would not relegate them to becoming Mat and Minah Rempits (illegal motorcycle racers). Those protesting against the extensive use of English can be considered merely troublemakers in the path constructed for the advancement of the Malays who continue to be called "lazy" by their own leaders. Leaders who are in the first place, lazy thinkers, who have failed to insist that the education system be in tune with the rhythm of globalisation.The real joke No, it is not a joke, mind you, to be mandating that the subjects of Maths and Science be taught in English. The real joke, in the long run, will be to see the next generation still wondering what the Multimedia Super Corridor and Tun Razak Exchange is all about, when we know that the English language as a medium of doing business, is what it is about, with these newer architectural structures the country is building to house more advanced systems of laissez-faire.The joke will be when more and more Malay kids, and even graduates of local universities, are unable to make themselves comprehensible in interviews to hopefully gain employment in the private or semi-private sector, and even worse, the joke - the national laureate joke - will be that the interviewers will have to coach the interviewee on how to answer the interview questions they are being asked. What a joke the national ultra-Malay literary laureates and so-called national poets or national Malay-whatever would be then. That joke will be on our children, especially those "kampung boys and girls" whose confidence of mastering English will forever be damaged. What a joke it will be for their future. I hate hypocrisy in education. I hate it when I know that in order for these "national laureates", "Malay-Muslim youth leaders", and other gangs of hypocritical defenders of the Malay language, to get where they are, to have their voice heard in the media, they themselves had to learn English and perhaps master it at a comfortable level. They had to be able to have read great works of literature, canonical works on great ideas that move nations, and even write in English so that they could be a little known in the world outside of their Malay-language-Malay-Muslim-only literary coconut shell. They had to, I am sure.Let us stop joking But why the refusal to advocate for the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and maths especially when we know in this world of post-industrialism, English is far superior and functional than Bahasa Melayu which perhaps can never be at par as a language of science and technology? I repeat: Bahasa Melayu just does not have the cut yet to be a language of scientific progress. Let us not waste our time in useless arguments over Bahasa Melayu as a language of this new nature of progress. It is not a "bahasa ilmu sains dan teknologi baru" (language of knowledge for science and new technology). It is not. It can only be an imitation of a world of high science that is already rooted in English, which is rooted in the Indo-European-Germanic-Latin world of symbolic meaning. Just focus on first, mandating the teaching of Maths and Science, and train our teachers in getting them to the level of competency needed. Make them happy to learn English so that their children too can happily master the lingua franca. Use innovative ways of teaching English to help the teachers prepare themselves as an ongoing professional development agenda, and teach the teachers to stop listening to those fatalistic and defeatist advice on anti-English being given with idiotic pride by some non-sensical this and that literary laureate, and ultimately to move forward with changing times if we still wish to talk about world-class education.It is not a joke that a Malay kampung kid can and ought to master English. I was such a kampung kid. My parents do not speak English. Nor do my grandparents and my Johor kampung folks. But I am glad they did not heed the advice of some Malay national laureate of this and that, of some Malay-Islamist-Salafi youth group spewing this and that Islamic confusion, nor any ultra-Malay nationalist groups who opposed the teaching of Maths and Science in English, yet sending their children to some expensive-elite-Malay-only boarding school so that the latter can take the Cambridge IGCSE or the International Baccalaureate Programme to lure them away from becoming Mat and Minah Rempits.Let us not joke anymore about our children's future. Just have them master English. Because Bahasa Melayu can never be at par with English – as a language of today’s advanced cybernetic world. Don't push the Malay kids further back into the kampungs.

A must read for those interested in contemporary Malaysian politics and Mahathirism

‘From High Hopes To Shattered Dreams: The Second Mahathirist Revolution A Year After’ – Review

by Murray Hunter


Dr. Azly Rahman, born in Singapore and brought up in Johor Baharu has seen Malaysia since early post-independence days to the present. Azly has also experienced the Malaysian education system both as a student and lecturer. He can relate those experiences to the time he has spent as both a learner and educator with a number of other education systems around the world. Being a thinker and writer over a number of years on Malaysian society, education, and politics, Azly is in a unique position to reflect upon Malaysia today, once again clearly under the influence of Mahathirism, and once again within an education tragedy unfolding. This is not my opinion alone, Academic and intellectual activist Dr Sharifah Munirah Alatas recently mentioned Azly in one of her Free Malaysia Today columns as a Malaysian academic who should be listened to much more.
Azly has put together a series of focused musings guided by an ingrained moral and philosophical conscience about what is now sadly happening in contemporary education, society and politics within Malaysia. A national mental derangement as Azly puts it, is suppressing the country’s ability to move forward and take its place in the world. Malaysia’s ingrained racism, religious narrowmindedness, neo-feudalism and institutionalized-cronyism is inhibiting the country’s ability to place itself on the global arena where it matters today. Throughout the book he has woven international issues with what is happening inside Malaysia, making this collection of vital importance to every Malaysian concerned with the fate of the nation. The Pakatan Harapan’s actions on human rights, education, justice, equity and inactions on diverse issues like institutionalized apartheid and global warming are preventing the nation to grow in a balanced and sustainable way with the virtues of truth, justice, equality and equal opportunity that were promised before GE14. We can sense these disappointments in the passion of Azly’s writing. The great betrayal is that Pakatan Rakyat sought office on the narratives of reform and spun hope with the Rakyat for change, only to revert to the old racist and Salafi-Wahabi tendencies that preserved BN rule for the last generation. This is why Azly’s work is titled ‘high hopes, shattered dreams’, as the central focus of this analysis is grand betrayal. 
The continuation of the quota system for Matriculation and the failure to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) were some of the first indications of the emergence of Ketuanan Melayu 2.0, an ideology that will continue to ensure blindness to envisioning a multicultural Malaysia.
Azly begins his collection of essays with a stark warning that Malaysia is not immune from urban terror attacks due to the rampant freedom extremist preachers are given to roam freely to extol their poison to the community. He then presents 43 essays. Part one entitled the Dilemma of Critical Consciousness, focuses on contemporary issues that are skewing Malaysia away from being a sustainable state where the Rakyat is supposed to evolve into critical, creative, ethical and futuristic citizens. I will touch on just some of his messages that I found profoundly important. Azly’s commences part one with an allusion to Plato’s cave, the metaphor of the psychic prison. Through this lens, Azly argues that Malay feudalism is a social construct borne out of historical accident. This has been turned into a source of power by the elite to control the Rakyat. Race, religion and class continues to be used by today’s leaders to divide and conquer, just as the British once did in colonial times. This is the nature of neo-colonialism in post-colonial Malaya, if one sees the development of ideology from the perspective of a continuation of the logic of late colonialism in an Asian despotic state.

In his essay Musings on a nation gone mad, Azly challenges Malays to question authority, albeit intellectually. Royal myth and repressive twists to Islam perpetuated by the power elite is suppressing clear perceptions of the reality of truly free Malaysia. This is going to be a battle of perception and cognition to create a metamorphosis that may truly free the Malay psych. Revolutions and the institutionalization of meaningful change, he believes can only be effective if there is a sustainable transformation of the consciousness. This hypocrisy of using religion as controlling ideology is what Azly points out; a country ruled by Muslim monarchs that one would not find in true Islam and Ketuanan Melayu as a license to rape and plunder Nature and to subjugate the mind of the powerless. 
Islam, feudalism and a narrow view of the world has caused the Rakyat to live under a veil of authoritarianism. Malays have been misrepresented as buffoons, Ali Babas, gangsters and chronically dependent on hand-outs by the ruling class to keep them subservient. The leaders show Malay chauvinism while the Malay youth is caught up with drugs and girls become single mothers. Azly is calling for this moment in history time to restore Malay dignity. Hegemony is the hidden enemy that needs to be unmasked, psychologically. In Long live the Rome statute! Long live idiocy? Azly shows his disappointment along with the Rakyat who put Pakatan in power. Everyone has been sold out. His frustration on the failure of Malaysians to see the importance of the internationally-agreed-upon statute could be read in his tone. Why are there still many of the leaders ignorant of the universal values and proposal for implementation? That was Azly’s anguish on the intellectual poverty of those who failed to understand a simple logic of human rights.
Reformasi cannot happen within a bumi agenda and the hopes of a truly Malaysian agenda are fading. Azly asks where is the difference between the old and the new regime? The ideas and actions of the new regime are exactly the same bankrupt concepts. Azly talks of reform that isn’t on any political platform. That is the reform of the skewed Malaysian institutionalized reality and the recreation of an egalitarian common truth for all. This requires creating a culture of critical consciousness, which can challenge and eventually dissolve all the myths perpetuated by the psychic prisons of intolerance, racism, criminalizing of criticism and an institutionalized version of truth to suit the needs of the elite to cling on to power.
Azly offers a solution. That solution is to restore the truth of a common heritage that the nation is made up of descendants of immigrants, share that memory and move on in diversity. His stand is simple: embrace multiculturalism to the fullest until the essence of humanity and empathy is illuminated. We cannot settle for less in a country that offers the challenges and opportunities of a vibrant concept of nationhood.The essential question is now how to build a Malaysian Malaysia? A Bangsa Malaysia, which requires a common history and common destiny, drawing from the strength of diversity. Indonesians had a rebirth from the Sukarno era. Malaysians need to do the same. Malaysia needs to move to the next level where people do not think of themselves along strict communal lines: not ethnocentrically as Malays, Indians or Chinese but as Malaysians with a pride in their unique personal history.
Under the Pakatan Harapan there is no pursuit of a Malaysian Malaysia. There seems to be no interest to forge that much-needed version of nationhood. There is no political will. It is still about profiting from divisive politics and to ensure that society is reproduced that way through schooling. And therefore, we still have politicians eyeing for the top post speaking with so much confusion of what it means to be Malaysian. The biggest crisis in Malaysia is the crisis of identity and it’s been partially manufactured. This hegemony comes from the education system.In Part Two The Construction of Educational Confusion, Azly looks closely at the education system. His arguments in all of the essays point to one proposal: that there is no soul nor holism nor clear framework guiding change expected out of the new regime. There is only rebranding of projects. There is no exciting innovation that collectively would usher the much needed educational system into newer frontiers, breaking new grounds in the design of a new Malaysia in a globalized world in need of a new understanding and implementation of a new citizenry. His fear is the ever-creeping radical Islamism and the expression of Arabism as Malay culture. Azly takes up the sources of one-dimensionality within the education system.
Institutionalized discrimination through quotas, showtime paradigms like flying cars that have no substance except syok sendiri, inciteful preachers being allowed to pollute the minds of the country’s youth and using schools as medan dakwah to destroy the pride of Malay culture through Arabism has colonized the Malay mind. Indeed, Arabism has been pushed as a substitute for intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, all at the cost of critical thinking, creativity and moral reasoning. The system needs urgent reform.
Azly talks of returning to the year zero in a new education revolution.This revolution must topple the straightjacket of the institutionalized apartheid system which clings onto the idea that only Malay-Bumiputeras have special rights. This false sense of superiority is a Malaysian tragedy, holding back both the individual’s potential and the potential of the nation
as a whole.No longer should the education system be allowed to produce the lowest common denominator good and obedient worker for an industrial system making the elite richer. It should be replaced with one that promotes a critical consciousness, dignity, self-respect and independence.Azly’s vision of Malayism is not Arabism. His vision is about a renaissance of a recreated contemporary Nusantarian culture where Malays perform sembahyang and not solat.
There are three essays making up Part Three. In the first essay, the Third Force After Mahathirism is perhaps the centerpiece of the whole book. There is an air of respect for Mahathir by Azly who sees under the Machiavellian armor a person who wants the same aspirations for Malaysia as himself.
However, there is a paradox here. Mahathir’s pre-occupation with liberating the mind of Malays from the shackles of neo-colonialist domination have led to a guided kleptocracy ruled by one man. In the innerworkings of Pakatan Harapan, this has been a new Malaysian political dilemma. One man wants to still govern in his own way, creating inner confusion.Mahathirism is an ideology in itself, a product of the 80s, based upon institutions which are repressive. This political mantra is now bankrupt. Even if it not entirely so, it has mutated in newer forms. Malaysia’s hope for a healthy and transformative democracy is stunted, bonsai-ed by the legacy of one-man authoritarianism. Herein lies the hope for change and the ruptures that are happening in the new coalition. Azly argues that a Trishakti third force is required to restore Malaysia from the malaise it is in. For this a new leader is important, and this new leader has to be found.In this book Azly reveals himself to us. He goes back to the peace in his early village life. He is an intellectual, a scholar in the classic literature of freedom from repression, a patriot of a new Malaysia, a reformist (if not a romanticist) when it comes to returning to core Malay values, a believer in an inclusive Malaysia and not an exclusive Ketuanan Melayu arrogance.Perhaps Azly’s guiding principle is the quotation he took from Tunku Abdul Rahman’s 1957 Merdeka speech, ‘…. but while we think of the past, we look forward in faith and hope to the future: From henceforth we are masters of our own destiny, and the welfare of this beloved land is our own
responsibility.
LINK TO BOOK : https://www.gerakbudaya.com/from-high-hopes-to-shattered-dreams--the-second-mahathirist-revolution



Murray Hunter

Murray Hunter has been involved in Asia-Pacific business for the last 30 years as an entrepreneur, consultant, academic, and researcher. As an entrepreneur he was involved in numerous start-ups, developing a lot of patented technology, where one of his enterprises was listed in 1992 as the 5th fastest going company on the BRW/Price Waterhouse Fast100 list in Australia. Murray was formerly an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis, spending a lot of time consulting to Asian governments on community development and village biotechnology, both at the strategic level and “on the ground”. He is also a visiting professor at a number of universities and regular speaker at conferences and workshops in the region. Murray is the author of a number of books, numerous research and conceptual papers in referred journals, and commentator on the

Deeper than the deep state this thing is

Deeper than the deep state this thing is Azly Rahman Published: Jan 19th, 2020  |  Modified: Jan 19th, 2020 A+ A- COMMENT | I read a very interesting and important article from the Asia Sentinel (based in Hong Kong) concerning what the former minister of education, Maszlee Malik purportedly tried to do before he was dismissed from his job.It was reported that he tried to position "Islamists", or "Salafis" or "Wahhabis", some of them from the organisation called Ikram (a Muslim professionals group), into key leadership positions in our public universities so that the influence of radical Islam - contrary to Malaysia’s pluralist national philosophy - can continue to take root.The article by respectable correspondent Murray Hunter is very interesting, and I believe all of us should take note, try to understand and do a critical reading of what our former minister was up to. More than that it is a frightening revelation especially for Malaysians who have been angry at the way the government have not been able to curb: something deeper than the deep state.Our nation is at risk I’d say. Here are my thoughts on what’s deeper than what others are seeing regarding what radical Muslims - the Salafis, or Wahhabi-influenced Malays - are doing to destroy our multicultural fabric that we should take pride in and harness through the most progressive approaches to education.
A few days ago, I gave a lecture on Martin Luther King Jr where I spoke of the danger of militarism, capitalism, and racism. I thought of my beloved country. Too bad Malaysia is gradually embracing apartheid and gross intolerance.Look at Mara's Junior Science Colleges's (MRSM) system now, for example. Compare it to the mid and late '70s. Do you see any Salafi difference? Is it endangering the country? The Education Ministry wanted to maintain an Islamist curriculum to prepare for total Salafi control two decades later. Read the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony.Look at what the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) has been doing now. I believe Jakim can be disbanded and the money to fund it can instead be utilised for cross-cultural training of teachers. This is better for the country. What if the combined budget for Jakim and MRSM is instead used to radically improve government schools to give it brand-new life? We will have great schools and the best one-school system we have always wanted that is free from racism as long as it is not run by racist politicians or education ministers. I've thought of another related issue - maybe the decision to build an "Islamic university" in Malaysia then was a huge mistake? I don't know.I worry about the Salafis, Wahhabis or whatever radical Islamic ideologues you want to call them, and how they are destroying our children’s future.In the US and the UK in the early 80s, Iranian-Ikhwanul Salafis infiltrated Malay students through the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim) and PAS. Are we seeing the impact now?From ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) to ketuanan Wahhabi (Wahhabi supremacy), this is the story of Malaysia's revolutionary ideology. Schools such as MRSM are looking like training grounds for Wahhabi leadership. Mara must investigate who has infiltrated the minds and turn the bodies into something else other than true blue globalised Malaysians.When the Education Ministry makes its curriculum ultra-religious, society will be reproduced to be more ridiculous. More Wahhabis will be made. Unresolved is the historical issue of Malays versus the non-Malays which is now exacerbated by the rise of Salafism. This is a big issue.There is a heightened hatred and manufactured animosity towards non-Muslims/Malays these days. Is this a Salafi strategy? The goal of Malaysia's Salafis is to push non-Muslims/Malays out of society. We are seeing this now in rhetoric.Salafis too will play the Machiavellian game. Lies, deceit, that haram-becomes-halal strategy for a power grab. Observe these as we become ethnographers of society. Positioning "Islamists/Salafis" in all sectors, especially in the Education Ministry, is a takeover strategy. It will happen especially in the post-Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad era. Wahhabism will flourish when universities continue to be mono-cultural and reject "Western liberal ideas". An obvious danger to Malaysia.Malaysia's 1980s Islamisation Project during the first Mahathir rule was a sign of Wahhabi institutionalised infiltration. Neo-Ikhwanul Muslims and pro-Iranian revolutionaries in Malaysia, trying to take over? Be afraid. Even the MRSM system looks like it has been infiltrated by the Wahhabi-Salafis. See for yourself. Greater danger rooted?What is deeper than the deep state? Wahhabi/Salafi infiltration of our universities and even schools. Uncover this. Since the '80s. Malaysian education hijacked-prone. Driven by self-centeredness. Either by those promoting bad ideology or family dynasty.Rather than dream of uniting the Muslim world, Malaysia must unite itself with the diversity it uses as conflicts. How can a society live under the moral policing of the Iranian ayatollahs? And Malaysia wants to follow that culture?Malaysian NGOs need to study global issues, Middle Eastern politics, and the basic idea of Islam and world peace before taking sides. Will NGOs protest against Saudi Arabia who is in alliance with the US and Israel? Wasn't the general masterminding the export of the ideas of the Iranian Revolution?Malay-Muslims must learn to stop and think first before rallying for "jihad", which is a basic psychological skill of wisdom. Malaysian-Islamists of today are descendants of followers of Iranian Revolution ideologues and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Nobody knows anymore who's fighting who and for what reason in the Middle East for the "ummah" to be united. Be wise analysing. The ayatollahs are a legacy of the Karbala - with Iran as the modern martyr state. Iran could have developed democratically better with the ayatollahs.Malaysia's alliance with Iran and Turkey in the recent KL Summit could be a big global public relations mistake. Easy for Malay-Muslim politicians to score points supporting Iran. But is that all there is to one's simple-mindedness? Think. Malaysians don't need to rally for Iran before understanding what this is all about. It is not about Islam but black gold (oil). Saudi, Israel, the US will be in alliance against Iran-Iraq-Russia. Understandably. Will Malaysians understand this "ummah" thing?Easy for the "Islamists" in Malaysia to rally behind Iran. But unwise. Middle East politics are too complex for Malays to understand. Difficult for "the Muslim world" to take side with Iran or the US. There is no "unity of the ummah". Never was there an "ummah". The US-Iran War” is not about "jihad versus crusade". It is more complex than this - of political -economy, geopolitics, and genealogy of ideas.The pride of the Malay is not only in Jawi and in songkok. But in brainpower, cultural finesse, and mastery of philosophy.While thinking of writing this piece on the “deep state”, Uriah Heep - a band of the 60s - was playing in the background, on vinyl, on a Sunday evening. Brings me back to the groovy Sixties – without the Salafis – I grew up in as a child. That was when secret schemes of the Education Ministry were unheard of. It was plain hard work to try to make the new multicultural Malaysia work.That Sunday too I watched a YouTube video of Astro Awani's interview on what the Ministry of Education did or failed to do under the short-lived Maszlee-reign, before the outfit was dismantled, perhaps because of the suspected Salafi infiltration. I think I know what the problem partly was. It was one systemic, structural ideological. Herein lie the misinterpretation of Freirian pedagogy. Or better, a misreading yet trumpeting of the idea of a "cognitive revolution of the oppressed". Can the oppressed be conscientised by a ministry led by a leader from a race-based party who will continue to avoid the much-needed radical reform on diversity and total restructuring of society? Reading one book - Freire's - is not enough to understand the broad changes needed to get the country out of neo-colonialism. We need rock music as well. Classic rock preferably. Like Uriah Heep.We must dig deeper into this something deeper than the deep state. We must demolish this thing that has been rearing its ugly head. Since the days of Abim. To today. Of Jakim.

A New Book on Pakatan Harapan -- just published!

What is the meaning of Mahathir Mohamad’s return as Prime Minister of Malaysia? And what does it mean for the future of the country? In From High Hopes to Shattered Dreams? Azly Rahman argues that, as against a more fundamental transformation of Malaysian society, the change of government which took place post-GE14 has continued to reproduce old trends which have long kept Malaysia from the promise of an equal and forward looking nation, from a feudal mentality, to religious exclusivism, racial divisiveness and the continuing ‘bumi agenda’. Diagnosing these issues through the lens of cultural theory, Azly advocates for a more fundamental change which transcends politics and which allows for the development of a truly critical consciousness in the country, one capable of producing future-oriented citizens who understand the true meaning of freedom. In a final section, containing three original essays, he then calls for a Third Force to develop beyond BN and Mahathirism, to help produce a country that is sustainable, politically, socially, economically and environmentally.                                    -- SIRD/Gerakbudaya 2020


AVAILABLE HERE. GET YOUR COPY NOW.


https://www.gerakbudaya.com/from-high-hopes-to-shattered-dreams--the-second-mahathirist-revolution?tag=Azly+Rahman&fbclid=IwAR2FO92f_Bo-pXcLYA4z3T7x2pefbAzJKb8LGRbsX4VjKwHEytTjwvfiWxE

Under Pakatan Harapan, shouldn’t MRSM be for all Malaysians?

OpinionUnder Harapan, shouldn’t MRSM be for all Malaysians? Azly Rahman Published: Jan 6th, 2020  |  Modified: Jan 6th, 2020 A+ A- COMMENT | I read with bigger concern the way we let ethnocentrism prevail through elitist and well-funded schooling that will continue to reproduce society “separate and unequal” especially when the new government has been talking about “Education for All”. The MRSM (Mara Junior Science College) system is one example of what I’d call a “ successful failure ”.  Successful it is in running the school but failing it is in the more important goal of national integration. In fact, it is an example of a system that has both the hidden and open agenda of promoting a newer brand of Ketuanan Melayu, something that needs to be abandoned.Advertisement
Need a special council for MRSMThe MRSM system needs to be taken over by a body that will oversee the restructuring of society ensuring equality, equal opportunity, and social equity be the basis of modern-day Malaysian schooling. It has to be driven by a philosophy of social-reconstructionism to “correct newer racial imbalances” through the MRSM system itself. The original early 1970s idea of MRSM conceived after the formulation of the NEP, through its "Batik Papers" proposal was to “correct racial imbalances”. That was fine then, after May 13, 1969, after Mageran (NOC), after Risda, after early Mara. Today, the notion of imbalances must be re-interpreted so that Mara-MRSM will become more intelligent in playing the role of this massive-monstrous-moneyed machine of social changeable to provide opportunities for children of all races rather than Malays and bumiputera primarily, or perhaps only.My view on MRSM is simple: It is a good system that has helped the “poor Malays”, it has helped made many of them very wealthy and released the cycle of poverty from the samsaric cycle. It has achieved its objective.I believe it is now time to use this best practice and proof of concept to help “poor Malaysians, of all races, religious background, etc.” The MRSM system cannot be kept only as a conveyor belt or human engineering factory to produce one-dimensional mono-cultural beings, but to be used for the better purpose: racial integration and national unity.These days, children of wealthy Malays, children of the privileged, and of MRSM alumni, claim their place in the system - places that are supposed to be reserved for the poorest but the best and the brightest of all races. Let me suggest a new paradigm for MRSM’s modus operandi, to make it smarter and more relevant in this age of AI, Blockchain, Gene-Editing, smart machines and bio-technology that celebrates cultural diversity.Revamping the entire curriculumThe new paradigm should urge the revamping of the entire curriculum to meet the challenges of a global and multicultural world, putting the MRSM school system under the Education Ministry and resources allocated to be used to democratise learning and teaching, and to bring “elitism” to the level of the masses, and most importantly to open up the system to children of poor families from all races.No longer can MRSM be allowed to have 99 percent Malays and let the schooling process be mono-cultural and create future citizens/leaders who will think only about the Malays and let other races be alienated and marginalised.Hence my suggestion that 50 percent of the places in the well-funded MRSM schools be allocated for the children of the now-irrelevantly classified as ‘non-bumiputera’. Wouldn’t this be the right policy to pursue?This is where my proposal to “correct economic imbalances”, “eliminating poverty that cuts across racial lines”, and to “restructure society based on newer economic realities”, will be helpful in order to create a truly nationalistic and inclusive economy that harnesses the power of multiculturalism rather than the one-race-dominant idea of bumiputeraism.This is where MRSM places need to be available to 50 percent of "non-bumiputera" as the next stage of equitable educational evolution so that the dream, albeit sloganised, of a 1Malaysian Truly Asia Strength-in-Diversity Malaysia will be fully realised. Today, the slogan by the former education minister is “Education for All”. Honour this.At an early age of socialisation, MRSM students need to learn to interact productively and progressively with each of the country’s races so that their early set leadership skills will include acquiring those of embracing diversity and improving themselves continuously.Only by restructuring and re-orienteering the inner-workings of schooling systems such as MRSM and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) - the all-Malay-and all-too-Malay university - into a global and multicultural learning spaces and experiences, will we be able to dismantle race-based politics that has become a scourge and a curse to the aspirations of a developed and civil society we Malaysians wish to leave for our children and grandchildren.Revamp MRSM wiselyI have a few questions to end this brief note on ways to make the well-guarded well-funded MRSM system smarter and to function better: Why not use Mara’s and the government’s money to help all Malaysians that are poor? Aren’t we all Malaysian citizens, regardless of race and religion? Isn't this what religion teach us to think about the future of our children - to think beyond race, creed? Who owns this country anyway?Is the MRSM philosophy of education crafted, in the form of a hidden curriculum, to teach people to be excessively ethnocentrist and to perpetuate race-based ideologies useful as “commanding heights” to guide policies to maintain the withering Malay-bumiputera hegemony?For these questions, all Malaysians concerned about a common future, will have to answer.MRSM must be about “Education for All”. Regardless of race, ethnicity, religion. Isn’t this what the Pakatan Harapan government is talking about anyway? I suggest MRSM be taken over and managed wisely by a council of multicultural educationists concern with the issue of equality, social justice, and the slogan by the Education Ministry: “Education for all”.Revolutionise MRSM to be truly marhaen and multicultural. This is my call, as a human-engineered product of the earliest MRSM system.

MALAYSIA'S THIRD FORCE: A DOCUMENT for RADICAL CHANGE (COMING SOON)

A THIRD FORCE DOCUMENT 
and a HAPPY 2020 EVERYBODY 
My 8th. book on Pakatan Harapan Performance Review in Politics, Culture, and Education is coming out in a few days (in bookstores and online. Published by SIRD/GERAKBUDAYA(Malaysia) -WorldWise Books (USA) Here is an EXCERPT: 
 Third Force after Mahathirism? The forty essays in the two preceding sections characterise the current state of the Mahathirist rule. They focus on the complex linkages between politics and education. Those essays are my observations of what has transpired under a new brand of Mahathirism. The one-man-one-ideology-one-determinism-to rule as long as life allows, through the remains of one’s days, not wishing to let go and institute a peaceful transition of power through means most democratic – this is the Malaysian plague of power. But what is Mahathirism, beyond a mere attributing to the man named Dr. Mahathir Mohamad? How will this unique Asian despotic ideology foundation most of times upon the truncated logic of power, of deranged discourse acceptable as “wisdom of the old man” it seems, meet its end? What will Malaysians hope as replacement – so that the meaning of “sustainable politics” could be arrived at? In the following paragraphs, I will discuss Mahathirism and the third force that need to be given birth to. --- Azly Rahman

Pathetic exam question about a problematic, not iconic, person

Opinion0Share to FacebookShare to MorePathetic exam question about a problematic, not iconic, person Azly Rahman Published: Dec 31st, 2019  |  Modified: Dec 31st, 2019 A+ A- COMMENT | The question on the preacher Zakir Naik (above) is simply strange for a test item at a university-level course as foundationally important as “Ethnic Studies”. From my decades of constructing multiple choice and essay questions, from middle school to high school to college level, my question is this: what kind of question is that?If it is a multiple-choice question, this means that the students do not have any choice, but to regurgitate the “facts”. If the facts say that this and that person is “iconic” and preaches the “truest Islam”, then there is no room for subjective and alternative views however absurd, combative, and demeaning the preaching may be. If exam questions are to test students' understanding of what the lecture materials are and what they have been taught, then the lectures are about Zakir Naik being an icon of Islam. How can that be possible when Ethnic Studies is about offering perspectives of what constitutes a person worthy of being called an “icon”?To me, as a Malaysian, P Ramlee is an icon, as one example. Yes, in case the younger generation don’t know who this great Malaysian is, better start finding out. P Ramlee is an icon par excellence, suitable for all Malaysians. Zakir Naik is not iconic, but instead, problematic. The difference between P Ramlee (below) and Zakir Naik is like the distance between Earth and planet Wakanda. My heart goes to the minds of the young Malay-Muslims of my beloved country, constantly at the mercy of ideologues who wish to destroy society.How much longer will the Malays, especially, be stupefied by such an approach to education? The biggest question is: what are they teaching in Ethnic Studies? A newer version of the junk Biro Tata Negara spewed during the BN "glory" years of “anak kecil main api” (the iconic-moronic song of a child playing with fire, and next vaping towards ignorance)? I don’t know. The person who wrote this question need to take a basic course in item construction in Assessment and Evaluation; next learn what testing means; understand the link between what is taught and what is tested; next learn what biases are, and perhaps learn to decide what item to put in a test. We have not yet talked about why the word "icon" is thrown in there and whether the university is okay with putting that Mumbai preacher's name in a test that ought to be about "Malaysian ethnic relations and how to build a good one" rather than to promote this and that ideology. Not forgetting that it is utterly stupid to put this kind of question as multiple choice, as if students are not allowed to decide if Zakir Naik is an "icon" or simply a TV-preacher wanted in his country of origin. Perhaps the lecturers are not ready to handle essay questions concerning iconic man this and that, as well as the rise of Wahabi-ism and how it is a threat to multicultural Malaysia. Safer for those Ethnic Studies teachers to dumb down the students with such a strange, ideologically desperate multiple-choice item that has only ONE right answer to however dumb the question might be. Yes, we are good at producing one-dimensional beings for easy control. And to manipulate. But there is hope if we are serious about teaching sense and sensibility.Why not teach these?New bumiputeraism. Radical multiculturalism. Humanism. Evolving self. Alternative futures. Social reconstructionism. Counter-factual and alternative historicising. People's history. Power and ideology. All these concepts can be taught to our students of this new Malaysia, those young and curious minds that need a new understanding of Malaysian nationalism or "Bangsa Malaysia".How do we teach these concepts?We can involve students in activities that allow them to explore the meanings and mechanisms of culture. We can have them examine the universal and the particular in human motivation, behavior, attitudes, values and beliefs. We must expand their understanding of the dynamic nature of culture and increase their awareness of their own place in global cultures and subcultures. and the challenges and opportunities such situations present in cross-cultural communications.We can get our students to construct alternative futures that draw out the ethical humanistic values into an integrative concept of New Bumiputeraism based on the premise that we are all human beings sharing a living space in a time borrowed, and that the litmus test of it all is how we treat fellow human beings with knowledge, understanding, and wisdom sound enough to make each other see through the lens of race, colour, creed.If we resolve this issue of bumiputera versus non-bumiputera through education for peace, justice, and tolerance, we will see the demise of race-based politics, and the dissolution of political parties that champion this or that race. Ethnic Studies as a vehicle of change for culture and consciousness will do the job successfully if it's in the hands of skilled trainers and professors who are colour-blind.The challenge: do we have colour-blind professors/educators who will profess colour-blind ideology? I hope we have them in all our public universities. After all, their training should allow them to be true to the subjectivity of culture and the sensitivity to race and ethnicity.In fact, if we are sincere in developing our students' intelligence, we should have them revise our Ethnic Studies module from time to time - so that we may not be the "sage on stage", but a "guide on the side".Kings, queens, datuks, datins, slaves, serfs, sultans, subjects, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans - all these are artificial constructs. Through time, space, and place, we create these constructs to enable or disable our understanding of what it means to be human.Let us fight apartheid, bigotry, arrogance, racism, and disabling cultures through education. It might be a long battle, but this is going to be a great victory for our children.But first, start finding our real Malaysian icons - P Ramlee is one of them. Not some strange outsider preaching the strangest version of Islam I have ever heard.

Malaysian education's biggest failure

Opinion02.9KSHARESShare to FacebookShare to MoreMalaysian education's biggest failure Azly Rahman Published: Dec 28th, 2019  |  Modified: Dec 28th, 2019 A+ A- COMMENT | “Gamis: Do not allow repeat of May 13 because of Dong Zong.” This is a troubling headline. These are the kinds of statements we get from those who went through our education system, especially when Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over as Minister of Education, back in the late 70s. It has been 50 years after May 13, 1969, and we’re still reading about Muslim youth invoking that semiotic of racial violence. The word 'Islam' made synonymous with racial violence. These young people were not even born then. I have written about my experience as a child learning about race relations and the bloody episode of our history.I was recently asked by a Facebook commentator of my piece on soulless education: how do we get non-Malays and Malays, Muslims and non-Muslims to respect one another in the process of learning and living. This is in relation to how a teacher can forge an environment of respect, so that learning can happen most effectively.We have failed to forge respect between the major races. We are still ready to fight one another, with the internet making hate speech viral.Advertisement
Respect is earned – through appreciating what each other has to offer, what each one believes, and how dialogue on understanding each other can continually be forged. It also involves understanding each other’s history, culture, needs, and most importantly, to know that we are all living in a limited physical time on this earth, so that we should not only look to avoid conflict, but also see people's anguish and suffering as an opportunity to help.How an education minister should thinkAs an educator for the last 33 years, I see all who sit in my classroom as individuals who can not only teach me about their cultures, but also who can be developed to the fullest potential to become good citizens and workers and spiritual-cultural beings.Teaching in Malaysia, I have had students from all states and all ethnic groups, and I reward hard work and dedication and the passion the student has in the subject he/she is learning. There is no colour of the skin nor race in considering the grades they earn. There is only what I see produced in the process of learning. There is a set of guidelines/rubric that informs my evaluation and assessment.Teaching in the United States, thousands of students have come my way, from all over the world, from Afghanistan to Israel, from Jamaica to Switzerland and Somalia. I see them as cultural resources and organic intelligent beings waiting to be infused with critical, creative and global thinking. There is no bell curve type of grading I administer. You work hard for the grade.Even if you are a star basketball player, or you are of this and that race claiming superiority, you are not judged by your personality nor potential, but by your performance and the artefacts of learning you produce.Every educator must think this wayIt is, therefore, important for a Minister of Education to think as such too, because policies he/she makes will affect not only millions, but also create a future for the child. This kind of thinking requires a deep, broad-based understanding of education, teaching, learning, schooling, human development across cultures, wisdom, political-economy, and the development of nations.Most importantly, he/she must be equipped with a humanistic philosophy, which simply means looking beyond race, religion, colour, creed, class, since these are mere constructs and can be shattered if they prove to be disabling human progressWhat we have now is a minister merely carrying out a political agenda. Understandably, as the party dictates. A party that is interested in rebranding an old ideology. There seems to be no sincerity in respecting and developing our country as a multicultural polity. The votes gained were merely for the sake of winning this nation's political lottery.Why countries failIn the long run, this nation will fail.In my study over the years of failing and successful states, many of those in dire states of development, a.k.a failing states, are the ones that have failed in all aspects of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, countries such as South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, and Venezuela.Racial and religious violence predominate, as the political-economic-social structure collapses. Many of these countries have groups fighting for an “Islamic State”, the destabilising forces aligning themselves with terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, Al Shaabab, and the IS.On the other hand, liberal democratic capitalist-socialist hybrids such as Iceland, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea and even Singapore – those that to some degree practice pragmatism in politics and adhere as close as possible to instruments of UN human rights, gauged by the UN SDGs, and constantly evolve as workable democracies – are successful nation-states.Their outlook is global, their respect for human rights is admirable, and their practice of education sustainable. In other words, they think global.Socrates said: "I am not a citizen of Athens. I am a citizen of the world." Our world within must harmonise with the world outside. In the case of Malaysia, never turn a school into a “medan dakwah.” Because a school is a place where democracy and respect must be taught, by living it as a daily practice of democratic ideals, especially crafted from a homegrown Malaysian multicultural way of knowing, seeing, and doing things. Each child is a cultural and cognitive being to be respected and nurtured.How do we institutionalise such respect in education? How do we not leave any child behind in the educational world of possibilities?Vision 2020 has failed us. Because it is a mere slogan that masked the reality of a total loss of respect between races. And this, unfortunately, will continue. Because that’s what politics is about and how it may continue to be if we do not address it deep-rootedly. Educationally.

Postpone those Jawi lessons

Opinion0Share to FacebookShare to MorePostpone the Jawi lessons Azly Rahman Published: 6:15 pm  |  Modified: 6:15 pm A+ A- COMMENT | The nation will never be ready to accept changes that will make us respect, appreciate, and learn about the beauty of each other’s culture. The political parties do not want to have the people understand the power of multiculturalism, pluralism, and liberal ideas that will bring us to the next level of a national sense of identity.I do not think Dong Jiao Zong is against the Jawi script Jawi. It is looking at it as a molehill sitting on top of a mountain, possibly a volcano of Islamic fundamentalism brewed with a new spirit of “Ketuanan Melayu”. The non-Malays are worried of the future of their children, with the inroads the Ministry of Education is making to cement the ideology of race politics. That’s the fear.Those three pagesI saw the three pages of the exercises on Jawi script. I am worried, from the point of view of an educationist who designs curriculum as well, and who teaches philosophies of education too.I think these pages should be removed, or put in the Appendix, or even brought to the Art department as enrichment exercises.No critical thinking nor creative thinking is infused in these lessons. These are just pages of "what is Jawi". So what? Students are just told that you can find "Jawi" in banknotes, in the national coat of arms, etc. And then what"? Where is the higher-order thinking skills, or the "hots" the Ministry of Education has always been talking about proudly? Our children need more that just the lowest level of learning in the Bloom's Taxonomy. Aren't we dealing with the minds of millennials? The new Generation post-Z? The mind of the Malaysian child that needs more that just mundane, dead-end exercises that do not bring higher values in thinking.Is this how we design our curriculum and use them to guide our lessons and write our textbooks? We have to go beyond what we are seeing in those textbook pages.Long way to multiculturalismIf we want to create a thinking society, we must have thoughtful education that celebrates the beauty of learning and frame knowledge and understanding not based on the paradigm of this or that "Maqasid Shariah" or whatever fancy name you call the society of "Rahmatul Lil Alamin".We must go back to scientific thinking and reasoning to craft a philosophy of education and pedagogy of teaching and learning, so that we will have the society of thinkers and doers we wish to have.Right now, things are not moving toward that direction. So much time is invested in turning schools into medan dakwah (theatre of the absurd of Wahabbi thinking), and medan politik (political theatre) to continue dividing society so that they may make enemies out of one another.I am fortunate to have taught amongst numerous courses, Cultural Studies, Cultural Perspectives, Cultural Management, Philosophy of Religion and World Religions, to be able to appreciate the beauty of cultural philosophies. I have sat in a Hindu puja ceremony, in a Passover session, saw my Hindu friend cremated, visited my dying Catholic friend and eventually went to his wake and funeral, visited countless churches, had my commencement (graduation ceremony) in Cathedral of St. John the Divine by Columbia University, visited a holy site of the Oneida Indian tribe in upstate New York, sent my students to all kinds of temples to appreciate and study religious differences -- to the mosque, synagogue, Sikh temple, Buddhist temple, a Shaolin Temple, and even a Scientology church in New York city -- to see the variety of human spiritual experience.Take out the three pages, I’d say. It might save us from further racial conflict blow out of proportion. In fact, our race relations is getting worse. With the emergence and infiltration of Wahabi-ism. That’s why the non-Malay, non-Muslims are unhappy. It is not about the harmless script called “Jawi.”AZLY RAHMAN is an academician, international columnist and author of seven books available here. He holds a doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies, communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here.

Teaching our teachers

Opinion0
Share to FacebookShare to MoreTeaching our teachers Azly Rahman Published: 10:18 pm  |  Modified: 10:18 pm A+ A- COMMENT | There is this idea of showing recordings of good teachers teaching - the prime minister liked it a lot and wants schools to adopt and implement. I suppose the minister of education would abide by his wish. But I hope I am wrong. This is not to be the solution to improve our education system. If this is so, I believe this is an idea whose time should never come.This could be good as a piecemeal case study of best practices in teacher training, but misses the point entirely of what teaching is all about. Each teacher should come in with a passion for teaching (and learning as well), and be developed right there in the classroom. Being coached, mentored, assessed, and professionally developed as an ongoing effort to develop teaching.
The evolution of passion lies in first seeing teaching as a job, then as a profession, and next as a “calling” and the realization that a teacher has the responsibility, privilege and vision to nurture young minds to become not only good ,but also good thinking citizens.Philosophy of teachingThis is a basic philosophy of teacher empowerment. This has to be the pillar upon which the complex world should rely as we “batch process human beings” through that conveyor belt called “schooling”. An education minister or leader of human capital revolution in any sovereign state must understand this notion of education “from the cradle to the grave”, as the cliché goes.No amount of technology can replace a human being, a teacher, including via that proposal to use video-tapes of “Japanese-style teaching” so that our children can start “looking East”, while our education system is still plagued with major structural issues of race, religion, power, and class. We read about touch and go ideas being "mandated", not understanding the interconnectedness of education, teaching, learning, understanding, and transmission and creative development of knowledge and subject matter. We seem to have those leading education with not enough or none-at-all classroom experience. Unfortunate. For the children of this and future generations.In late September in Chicago, I had the opportunity to visit the home and studio of the great American architect Frank Lloyd-Wright, as well as the home of the Nobel-Laureate and literary giant Ernest Hemingway. I made some notes reflecting on what makes America still a home of innovators and frontier thinkers, and why many students from all over the word, Trumpism aside, still wish to gain places of study in America’s best universities. It is the commitment to good teaching and to the idea of ars liberalis (arts of a free Man), and the Deweyian-Freirian progressive educational-philosophical foundation of education that permeates the corridors of academia, in a nation-state and a republic that separates religion and the state. This framework of schooling, also based upon the idea of Progressivist-Pragmatism rather than purely on an Essentialist-Ideological basis, has helped Americans develop brain-power industries. Of course, the idea of America as a nation state that has developed into a “military-industrial complex”, a postmodern Sparta, is a different matter I can discuss in a different essay. The products of teaching If we produce good teachers, we'll produce good teaching, and good students, and we'll have hope to produce a good generation of those we put on the conveyer belt of education. But it all must start with the philosophy of teaching and how we conceive what the human mind is all about.Therein lie a complex kaleidoscopic understanding of the content, professional knowledge, skills, attitude, and vision a teacher should have. Then there is the "multiplier effect" of what a teacher can do to thousands of young minds in his/her care. A teacher, simply put, can make or break the soul and spirit of a child, of thousands of children. Herein lies the idea of human alienation and despair when good teachers are not produced. Herein lies the answer to why students drop out of school and become a problem to society.That is why we need to have good practitioners as educational leaders, even at the ministerial or the highest national-educational administrative levels. How do we create geniuses, such as Frank Lloyd-Wright, Da Vinci, Nikolai Tesla, Nelson Mandela, or even Steve Jobs, Miles Davis, and Ernest Hemingway, if we do not have inspiring teachers and a transformative education system that will help empower teachers to become geniuses themselves?There is a sense of despair and dread of what is happening in our educational consciousness these days. That we are not moving much further in the way we conceive this mega-structural change called the “new economy” or the wave of the “4.0 industry” that we are now gradually plunging into, as we continue to see the unpreparedness of the workforce, produced by the conveyer belt of human engineering called “schools”.We continue to fail to answer the question: what are schools for in this age and time and how the movable and immovable parts in the system play their role in our preparation