Azly Rahman's Blog, page 7

Malaysia's ideological disease terrorises all the same

Malaysia's ideological disease terrorises all the sameOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 7:06 pm  |  Modified: Today 7:06 pm A+     A- COMMENT | My previous column warning of inciteful preaching , which reached 30,000 readers in three days, was removed from Facebook for "violating community standards."As if there is a contagious ideological disease plaguing those who do not understand what the message of peace looks like. Somebody didn't like my message of peace. Fine. I'll continue writing. I'll continue to wage peace using the internet, still a powerful medium of dialogue.There was some consolation though: Such a beautiful Friday prayer session I saw live from New Zealand. Poignant and filled immensely with the message of peace. Such a beautiful display of respect and love by New Zealanders being there to comfort Muslims who lost their loved ones. In a 2017  study on the "most Islamic country in the world," New Zealand was at the top spot, and Saudi Arabia in comparison, was 47th in the list. This is the meaning of an Islamic state and the Islamicity of it: social justice, human rights, sustainability and personal freedom – the antidote to terrorism, to ideological diseases.Religious aggressionI thought of this question this week: of peace, conflict, and the root cause of terrorism, as well as where the country is going to when it comes to environmental degradation.How shameful America is when it comes to gun control laws, compared to New Zealand's ban on assault rifles. Of course, the issue is complex because it is about rights: to bear arms, and how American are so institutionalised about amendments that protect this and that right. But I do believe that gun control begins with parents banning toy guns in the house – violence need not be a plaything.We are living in a world where a contagious disease of a different kind exists: ideology. Of the link between consciousness, culture, and economic conditions. This manifests in violence that has become more structural or unseen, engulfing the minds of the masses.Consider the advancement of terrorism in our region, as Islamic State moves its operations to Southeast Asia. Poverty and lack of exposure to liberal education are the main causes of the rise of terrorism. Address these, as they contribute to the advancement of this ideological disease.My advice to Muslims: Preach not about Islam if you still have a poor understanding of the wisdom of it. Of the concept of the four branches of knowledge, shariat-tariqat-hakikat-makrifat. Just live a life based on that. If every Muslim preaches to himself/herself and to the family first, we don't need preachers preaching jihad. Private religion. The thousand-year-old Holy War seem to be reenacting globally in newer forms and styles, with the semiotics and semantics of terror. And now, we want to bring back IS fighters, lack the will to prosecute polluters and harbour hate preachers. What's wrong with us?Environmental aggressionConsider the environmental terrorism we are witnessing. Of what happened recently in Pasir Gudang.Malaysians need to know the companies that pollute rivers and dump waste. They need to also know which powerful people own them. The pollution in Pasir Gudang could have killed dozens of schoolchildren and citizens. Which company is responsible?The government should go after companies that pollute and poison the rivers, as well as the ones that destroy our rainforests and mangrove reserves. Name the companies involved in destroying our environment and which powerful and wealthy people own them.The media should be more active in exposing the interlocking directorships of these corporate criminals destroying us. Name the company that dumped poison into Sungai Kim Kim near my hometown. Who owns it? Johoreans want to know!Unless the Pakatan Harapan government doesn't care, it must help citizens fight ecological terrorists – the companies that destroy our environment. States such as Johor seem to be ravaged by mindless industrialists who do not care about environmental impact. Aren't we tired of supporting leaders and government who do not have a clear and comprehensive understanding of sustainability? In Malaysia, we are destroying the environment, as if there is a Planet B we can move to. Parent action groups in Malaysian education and NGOs must help parents and citizens in Pasir Gudang go after those responsible. Our children must be given the right to demand a saner, cleaner, and safer planet.Economic aggressionAs we speak, we are reading more about how gung-ho our economic plans are. Bordering on economic terrorism, a nucleus in this contagious ideological disease.You pour in billions of ringgit into Kedah, for example, and let East Malaysia continue to live in poverty? Is this the new regime's smartest developmentalist ideology? Or the same old system of patronage? I grab power, I design projects, my party members benefit. This ideology of developmentalism is not sustainable if it continues to create haves and have-nots in society. Worse, these projects created and monopolised by politicians are to ensure their children will be well-fed for seven generations. A shrewd Machiavellian will have the different groups fight over crumbs and illusions, while he orchestrates the biggest robbery.Race and religionWhile all these racial and religious issues are being played up, huge businesses dealings are being made by politicians. As usual.We have to teach the masses to see beyond false consciousness, to identify this contagious ideological diseases. In Malaysia, politicians use religious preachers as spiritual trouble makers, to blind the people of real race and class issues. Terrorism can only be eliminated when all religions are seen as equal and practical, and class divisions and poverty ended.The more you give power and your ears to the TV preacher, the more he'll become big headed. All television evangelists wish to make money, whether you call it Peace TV or God's Cable Channel. Big business for the gullible.Today, everybody wants to push their own truth, not knowing that everyone is a truth in itself to be constructed. At my age, the dialogues of religion, spirituality, existentialism happen only within me, bored I am of public forums on truth.All religions need not be defended if the devotees keep their understanding to themselves and enjoy the journey. You bring in a radical preacher into your country, he'll bring his country's violent conflict to mess up your society.Politicians hiding behind the gown of religious fanatics and hate speech champs have no moral direction. Vote them out! Let us continue to support each other in fighting hatred and hate speech. Begin at home. Educate for basic respect for others.Wage peaceWhat is the root cause of terrorism? The manufacturing and creating of deadly crises, so that the global arms industry – of light arms to massive smart bombs – may flourish. Poverty, rock-logic religion, the lack or total rejection of liberal education, and for the inciters, power to influence and the huge appetite to be megalomanic preachers – these are the root cause of the ideological disease.Power given by the ignorant and powerless to worship those who are masters of deception, perception, and religious and ideological militancy – this is what fuels the deadly cells of violence. That contagious ideological disease we’ve been talking about.But today, my heart goes to those in Christchurch massacred after Friday prayers. By a terrorist. By a force growing larger than the IS, in due time: white supremacist terrorists. A global contagious ideological disease finally been diagnosed as how it should be.Wage peace, not war. Contain the ideological diseases spreading like wildfire. This is rent we must pay for living in this increasingly violent world.

In the age of terror, we don’t need inciteful preachers

In the age of terror, we don’t need inciteful preachersOPINION  |  AZLY RAHMANPublished: Today 7:25 pm  |  Modified: Today 7:25 pmA+     A-COMMENT | 'Minister meets 'inspirational' Zakir Naik,' read a news headline. This is a very disappointing message considering the fact that when Mujahid Yusof Rawa becamede facto Islamic affairs minister, he did announce that Zakir’s way of preaching is not suitable for our multicultural society.Why a different message all of a sudden? I am also troubled by the news that we're bringing Malaysian Islamic State fighters back home, too. What are we getting into?Alas, is our minister in charge of religion so shallow in knowledge that he needs the urgent help of a TV evangelist who is wanted in his own country? How does this go well with what the national unity minister wanted, as well as what the education minister would craft for our philosophy of education or social reconstruction and a new Malaysian patriotism?Have we not enough confidence in our own understanding of how to explain the beauty of Islam in a multicultural society? A religion that can co-exist peacefully with other beautiful religions and philosophies? Preach for peace or don't preach at all. Or, do we really need preachers of this kind, such as Zakir Naik?Years of studying (and later teaching) Chinese, Indian, Western, and Islamic philosophies have taught me the meaning of appreciation of diverse traditions and never to belittle any of these "truths". We cannot know the Ultimate Truth, only "perspectives" useful in our lifetime. And these truths come in a variety of languages and concepts. We just need to train our mind and soul to be worldwise.All Muslims are not necessarily brothers. I am not a brother to those who support the Islamic State, nor to those who preach hate, half-truths, and profit from these. Calling "brother" can be a first step in dominating and colonising your minds.Islam does not need to be "defended" nor other religions need to be "attacked" in order for one to profit from religious speeches. Confrontational politics has already done enough damage to Malaysians. We need more and more goodwill dialogue in an age of continuing terror.I am surprised that some new Malaysian government leaders do not have the good sense of judging what is "inspirational" and what is "inciteful" about the Mumbai speaker whose modus operandi is to prove other truths wrong by employing half-baked analyses.Besides, the grand show of converting people to Islam on stage cheapens the religion - reminiscence of Christian preachers who played with rattle snakes or orchestrate a session of “speaking in tongues”. Any religion should not be trivialised a such. Each religion must encourage more deep learning and less marketing in order to teach people to behave in this world.Inspirational? Or inciteful?In the United States, I too have taught Comparative Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Islamic Scriptures in translation, and related courses but find the confrontational style of "fiery and steamy and hot peppery" preachers and dakwah-rists too vile and too repulsive for Malaysians.Preachings that divide and create animosities should not be allowed as long as Malaysia is still struggling to contain race-religious hatred.Malaysia, as a lovely cultural location of religious harmony, does not need any preacher to bring his/her ideology and conflict here.We cannot call a preacher "inspirational" when the work done is divisive - creating animosity among a variety of believers. Isn't Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, too, the leader of the Islamic State, inspirational? TV evangelists and those doing "dakwah-for-huge-profits" prey upon the vulnerability of those who do not read widely, especially about comparative religions and philosophies. We need to educate the public. Malaysia is not a Taliban state of the lesser-educated.Again, as one who has taught Public Speaking for many years and studied speakers and analyse their speeches, I find a high level of toxicity in the style of speaking of TV-evangelists such as Zakir Naik.Religious discussion should be dialogical, not confrontational. Each religion has flaws. A good public speaker does not intimidate/shout at member of the audience. Especially if he, too, has a microphone and the stage. A good preacher doesn't ask if you're Muslim or non-Muslim before answering questions.Zakir Naik came from a hostile environment of an ongoing conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India. He is perhaps used to preaching with hostility - which is not suitable for intelligent Malaysian audience.Maybe, I should go around the country preaching how NOT to preach against other religions? Will I get an island too?Why the special treatment?Yes, what a special treatment: First, they gave him an island. Then a permanent resident status. Then they hug him tight like lovers. Then we allow him to go public in finding flaws and belittling other religions. This is how we show our love to a preacher who is wanted in his own country. Preaching is not about proving one religion is better than others. What if others prove that Islam is not flawless?What is so inspirational about a preacher who lambasts other religions? The Malaysian government seems to be taking it easy on matters of national security. And harbouring radical preachers!Then there is the news that we plan to give only one month of rehabilitation time for returning Islamic State fighters and support staff, people who had pledged allegiance to another state – the terrifying Islamic State.How many years did it take to radicalise them through those Taliban schools? Already, Malaysian schools are fertile grounds for radicalism. Why hold the seeds of destruction in your hands? You bring in former IS fighters and you might open up a new recruitment centre. Beware. It's a business. Recruiters get paid. We are treading on dangerous national security grounds, Malaysia. Don’t we already know that IS is moving into Southeast Asia? And our solution is a gentle reminder and a rehabilitation?Malaysian politicians must realise that the internet can bring about a change of any government, and bring down any politician. It is our post-modern Frankenstein, the voice of the masses. It's not easy to mediate freedom of speech on the internet.In the case of our leaders and Pakatan Harapan government’s fascination for radical and repulsive religious preachers and the plan to bring back ex-IS supporters and fighters, we will see social media activists demanding the next urgent regime change – a government strong enough not to tolerate any nonsense that compromises national unity and national security.And our prayers go to those who perished in the attack on the two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. We have a lot to work for peace. And though we cannot stop terrorist acts, we can at least detain or deport those who inspire others to hate other religions. 

Is Harapan addicted to the 'bumi agenda' too?

Is Harapan addicted to the 'bumi agenda' too?Opinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 5:14 pm  |  Modified: Today 5:14 pm A+     A- COMMENT | Why is Pakatan Harapan talking about "bumi agenda" when it should be "Bumi manusia" (Earth of mankind) as proposed by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in a classic novel of our Nusantara? You lost in Semenyih and you want to speed up bumi agenda? We are all Malaysians. And I thought Harapan is all about principles of anti-discrimination?For once, I suggest, think like a government for all Malaysians and fix the economy accordingly. This talk of another "bumi agenda" is a prelude to the new control of the GLCs, perhaps? Another round of economic cacophony? Another round of the creation of the choir group “Hebatkan Malaysia” (Make Malaysia Great Again) who sang praises for a deposed prime minister?We have not heard any of Harapan politicians championing the rights of all Malaysians. Everyone seems to be comfortably numb, well placed in their seat. This talk of "bumi agenda" is a bankrupt ideological talk. Talk about sustainable politics of diversity now, we should. Inclusive politics is no longer about Malay-Muslim rights only. Justice must serve all. We have seen the divide and what it is doing to our country and how our youth are being used to go after each other’s throat, while the politicians still smile as enemies, waiting for the gravy train to stop by at their constituencies. Enough!From economics to education, Malaysians continue to hear politicians promoting apartheid. We must evolve. Sustainability, human rights, peace and justice - these are the pillars of new Malaysia. Universal goals of our survival. Not another Bumi Agenda. Is the "bumi agenda" battle cry a consequence of the sudden enlargement of Bersatu into a new Umno?The pie in the sky we fight overWhy must politicians still use the metaphor of the one "economic pie" when we can continue to enlarge it for many to eat? This "bumi agenda" propaganda will continue to relegate "non-bumis" to be people with no hope in a land they are born in. Addicted to the drug called "free enterprise without ethics" those in power will divide and conquer to stay in power.The most dangerous part of Malaysia's racial and religious divisions is the schooling for social reproduction. The most urgent issue after Semenyih is not who should win next but how we should all think and act like Malaysians.The urgent issue after Semenyih is to be more mature in campaigning issues - environment, education, cultural appreciation. Semenyih is not about how divided voters are. It's about not knowing which party stands for what morality, anymore. It seems that the biggest winner in any elections is "promises" and the losers are those "promised". It's a promising business.What a shame that an embezzler of billions of ringgit is running free with huge popularity campaigning for a robber-party. And winning too. Instead of tapping the potentials of a multicultural polity, the Harapan government still wants to talk about an agenda for bumiputera only. Why?Malays must understand that "bumi agenda" in the previous regime was an agenda for rich Malays to get richer. Do we want a repeat of that?Merit and needs should govern university entry, for example. Not because you are an athlete, aborigine, or from the B40 group and so you have your passing grade lowered. I teach scholar-athletes, scholar-minorities, and those from poor families. No grade compromises for entry. Not because of the “bumi agenda”.My advice to students has always been this: Find every opportunity to work with people of different races and religions, to learn diversity. You'll grow.There is beauty and strength in diversity. But if politicians still talk about such an agenda, we'll live in pity. Every time a politician shouts "bumi agenda" I wonder if the non-bumi coalition members will stay quiet, swallowing their emotions.Bumi agenda bad for educationAn urgent question: Is PKR a multiracial party promoting "bumi agenda" now? The supporters need to know."Reformasi" cannot happen with more shouts of "bumi agenda". It will be shouts of "Retardasi”! We can't move backwards. All forms of schooling that reproduce racism and religious bigotry must be dismantled. These addictions must stop. There is so much to gain from promoting the "truly Malaysian agenda" in everything, rather than the destructive "bumi agenda"People in education and economic affairs and in all sectors,do not understand the meaning of a multicultural-liberal society. People voted for a Malaysian agenda; what they get after barely a year is another "bumi agenda". “What laaaa…“ as the urban Malaysian would holler.The idea of multiculturalism must be made to permeate our schools and universities. Imperative, for sustainability.National education, a breeding for a “Malaysian agenda”, is not a political game and cannot happen by chance. It is a deliberate act of liberating. It must not be hijacked to feed the greed of those crying for another “bumi agenda” or for this new thing called “ummah”.Bumiputera and non-bumiputera. This has always been a false dichotomy, used for the benefit of the powerful and the wealthy. "Bumi agenda" is a linguistic imprisonment of the mind of those who can't see the true Malaysian reality.Embrace the concept of diversity and you'll see the beauty of appreciating talent in humanity. Racism kills. "Bumi agenda" has created schools and institutions that are successful failures. A contradiction of evolution. The Education Ministry must find ways to deliberately teach multiculturalism and destroy the concept of "bumi agenda".Today's voters are more intelligent. They must help bankrupt the idea of race- and-religious-based politics.In our schools, for example, the teaching of Malaysian history must be based upon questioning of all accounts and creating newer histories. The new history of Bangsa Malaysia must be based on the story of the migration of each and every one of our “peoples”. Education must be the terrain of our great equaliser. Of the ground for a philosophy of multiculturalist social reconstructionism.Privileged and well-funded race-based schools such as the MRSM system have met their objective of the "bumi agenda". Dismantle it before it breeds more professionals who can only think and operate in and from the worldview of the divisive agenda. If you wish to have "national unity", you must dismantle all forms of schooling that create disunity. Simple logic. Schooling in Malaysia today is based on the "lifeboat mentality". Sink or swim together as a race. Absurd!Poverty is and has always been a class issue with tinges of race. Address this through the schools we build. We can't have an education and economic system in which a child born of a different race feels hopeless because of a "bumi agenda".Racism. Capitalism. Militarism. Three big killers of humanity, as the great African-American leader Martin Luther King Jr said.So, why are we still talking about a “bumi agenda” when we voted for a government that promised a “truly Malaysian agenda”?Evolve to saner heights. Or perish as a nation we will. Choose wisely.

The teachers our children deserve

The teachers our children deserveOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 5:40 pm  |  Modified: Today 5:40 pm A+     A- COMMENT | Love, respect, happiness. These are not pillars of learning but adornments of Malaysian education.What are the pillars? Sustainability, human rights, deep-learning. These are the pillars that we need before anything else. How? Why?Talking about making schools happy and respectful is not enough if the pillars of schooling still rest on apartheid-styled, race-based policies in education, and the infiltration of radical Islam. Today, Malaysian leaders from political to the educational seem to have this love affair with preacher Zakir Naik, for god knows what reason.There is now more talk about advanced Islamisation, of the Education Ministry's intention of bringing in the Muhammadiyah University to Johor to provide a greater ground of ideology of Islamism to grow. The Islamisation agenda of the 80s is continuing in its third phase, with new players, new leaders, new nodes and neural networks.We don’t need more Islamic universities such as the Muhammadiyah. We need to infuse philosophy, critical thinking and moral reasoning into our public universities.Do we need all these new forms of mass indoctrination? What is our priority in national development and the forging of a national identity?
We must first have the framework: National Core Curriculum Content and Skills Standards. This assesses what students need to know, why they need to know, and what the cognitive benchmarks of knowing are, aligned with the evolving nature of knowledge itself, across disciplines yet framed in an interdisciplinary manner.Do we have a set produced by the Education Ministry? Teachers must be taught to understand what "teaching" means and the power they possess in "teaching". What constitutes good teaching, a good school and a good vision?What is a good teacher?To teach, first and foremost, means to learn and to mediate the subject-object contradiction. Even the classroom arrangement in the Malaysian school does not reflect the culture of the information age.A good teacher is a master of the models of teaching, understands the nature of the learner, and applies this knowledge appropriately. Many a teacher goes into the classroom ill-prepared, not fuelled by the passion of making a difference in the child's life.A headmaster is merely a coach, mentor, enabler of teacher's creativity. The District Education Office is not a channel of top-down reform. It must become the facilitator of school-based reforms.Why are teachers burned out? Because those above them killed the spark and light of creativity and problem-solving.
 Poor kids! At a very young and creative age assigned to teachers who failed to cultivate creativity. A good teacher is a rebel and a subversive. They rebel against useless conventions and subvert dogma and dead knowledge.Above all, the chief of the tribes of teachers, the education minister in this case, must also have the necessary credentials and disposition. For Malaysia - a nation of people of diverse religions, race, and culture - a good education minister is a pragmatic-transcultural philosopher of education, not a theologian interested in the Islamic state.A master-teacher or educator-philosopher will either be liked by many or thrown into the dungeon, by society. It is the "unschooled" mind that will disrupt society for the better than the ones schooled in mediocrity and wealth.The teaching profession must be reserved for the best and the brightest in society because teaching is not for the faint-hearted. If you think teaching is easy, try staying an hour in a class of kindergarten kids or young ones in the Bronx, New York city.A successful failure?Although we seem to have an elegant design for our national education, glazed with bombastic language borrowed essentially from the American school system, why are Malaysian schools failing? Because we spend so much time still arguing about which race and religion is most superior.We spend time turning the gardens of learning into political football fields. Teachers must first be taught how to interrogate their own racial bias, and cure it before going into the classroom.Our education system should teach children to use science and humanities to revolt against governments that destroy the environment. Schools in Johor and Pahang especially should teach children about the government's planned destruction of the environment!
Sustainability in education is a pillar that will decide how we will culturally flourish as a nation. Human rights in education is a broad spectrum of how we deal with diversity, identity, dignity in our schools. Deep learning in education encompasses core contents from the national level to the neural connections in the child's brain.You can't teach about environmentalism in Pahang if you don't talk about hypocrisy in the bauxite industry. Can children in Johor be learning happily about our beautiful and pristine natural world when even the mangrove forests are being slaughtered and rendered bald to make way for “forest cities” and “Jack-Niklaus-branded golf course?You can't talk either about civics and citizenship studies in Malaysia when our political culture of bulldozing elections is like an addiction. Can you talk about sustainable politics in Malaysia when a leader can be allowed to rule as long as he or she wants?Can you have a "happy" education system when different races are treated differently according to some false sense of superiority? Our education system, properly framed and implemented, could have produced mass protesters against deforestation, bigotry, despotic rulers, big-bad corporations.How can Malaysia have a "happy, loving, respectful" education when something as simple as the UEC certification issue cannot be solved? The race-religious foundational issue is still maintained by the ministry; therefore, we cannot see sustainability being built. Sustainability needs an inclusive policy of schooling - from the kindergarten to graduate school, from the cradle to the grave.The one-school solution“One School, One Vision, One Nation,” in all its diverse appreciation is what we need as a ground-beneath-our feet, in education. If ever this will become a reality, no political party should govern it. That's a challenge! Today's education in Malaysia is governed by Bersatu, the new Umno. What radical changes in multiculturalism can we expect?Every time I go into a classroom, I would scan the terrain, read the students' mind, and plant the seeds of doubt, and let them grow wild before pruning and trimming them as plants. The best classrooms are those without walls and without teachers, and without certitude in the air. 
Global radical paradigm of teaching is needed, since 80 percent of people in the world are living under some form of totalitarianism. We need to infuse thinking skills in all subject matter and across curriculum.Even knowledge is today a product of ideology and politics, disguised as "neutral bodies". Unmask it. Reconstruct. All talk of reform is useless if we do not turn the curricular model upside down and see the true nature of its ugly head, and next renew its promises of prosperity.I conclude this complaint about the pillars of education we mistook, with the question: what then must we do? Perhaps we can begin with an insistence that education should address the "here and now" because we are organic beings "evolving in an ever-changing present". Love and happiness are not smart and measurable goals we urgently need, to make our children want to come to school, to learn to become not only good workers of the Fourth Industrial Age, but also thinking and feeling citizens with deep sense of critical sensibility.

Behind the mirror of our educational vision

Behind the mirror of our educational visionOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 7:08 pm  |  Modified: Today 7:08 pm

A+     A- COMMENT | I was invited to speak about education and progress. The topic given? "Polished Education, Boundless Mentality". Strangely framed, as I read it the first time around. What does "polished Malaysian education" look like? What reality will we see? How does this relate to "boundless mentality"? It will be in Nottingham England, the land of Robin Hood who stole from the rich, to give to the poor. A nice story of today’s economic ideology.Polishing a definitionWhen I hear a word or phrase, I will first think about what it means and next dismantle it entirely, reconstructing it next. If you "polish" Malaysian education, like cleaning a mirror, will you see beauty? Or ugliness? Peace? Violence? I see words and phrases like a Wittgenstein and Chomsky combined, then I'll do the Foucault and Rushdie on them.The Sufi will "polish" the mirror to see the "reality" of the self. To become “the insanul-kamil as Jalaluddin Rumi would say, the human self in all its glory as St Francis Assisi would say, the bodhisattva as the Prince Siddhartha Gautama would say, the jen or gentleman as Master Kung Fu Tze would say, or the android with a true human heart and soul in an age of advanced machines, as post-humanists would say”.How do we evolve at the highest polished level and realise that what we have, the world within is larger than the world outside, and that both worlds must be made to harmonise in order for us not to be enslaved by the forces in society that operate within the strict paradigm of the master-slave narrative, from then, now, till eternity?
But, speaking about “polished and boundlessness, what is our reality as a nation calling ourselves Malaysian? Our education today is a façade, a mirror painted with images of niceties, hiding a violent reality. How do we "Finnish or Nipponise or Singaporise" our education when we have a broken mirror to see ourselves?Behind the mirrorBehind the mirror we try to polish lies the structure of inequality based on race and religious bigotry. We ignore completely that a "polished education" will not make sense when the object we are polishing is built with the rust of racism and class. When all the races continue to call for a better apartheid system, in approach and in funding, we cannot have a polished system.Today's ruling regime has no sense of what it means to educate our children to have "boundless mentality". Race is still the key. The eyes that see education must be the ones not blind to racial discrimination or religious extremism as an ideology. As long as we have the ruling party addicted to race-based policies, we shall not see "boundless mentality". With today's complete morphing of Pakatan Harapan into the new BN, Bersatu into Umno 3.0, what do we expect for educational equality?Still, I am trying to deconstruct the meaning of the topic 'Polished Education, Boundless Mentality'. Can we have it? Without understanding the inextricable link between sustainability, human rights, peace and social justice, how can we proceed?A child is born with "boundless mentality" but schooling for racial inequality will kill his or her dignity. If there is a "Malaysian Dream" for a child, it is to be treated equally - with dignity, with merit, and with empathy. Talks of love, happiness, and respect alone are not enough to heal our educational sickness. We need the right diagnosis and treatment.
We have misdiagnosed the problem and next, we have sent the patient to a bomoh who heals with mantra, puja, and more doa. The patient has been sent by those who speak of education as if it is a happy camp that must be run by the Talibans dressed in three-piece suits, scheming on what ideology to promote in our addiction to a newer form of the New Economic Policy. What promise to make, using elegant rhetoric of educational reform, not grounded in the reality of where we ought to be heading and the multicultural society we are living in.An unpolished educationWe can't have a "polished education" when the system is run by corrupted men designing corrupted machines. Those who are polishing education are not Sufis, Sadhus, Buddhist monks. They are politicians not interested in the true image of Man. Our educational direction is an act of polishing power and wealth and not to promise a sustainable future. Teachers, too, do not quite understand what "education" or from the Latin "educare" means.One can "polish" education using the chemical concoction of a variety of educational missions and visions to give it a different lustre. The traditionalists, the progressives, the socialists, the religionistas, the technologists - these are polishers of education. How can the child in class be turned into a "boundless mentality" when the school is plagued with religious bigots? How can a child learn about cultural understanding when the curriculum promotes a truncated version of nationalism?See, why it is difficult to find a link between "polished education" and "boundless mentality" - this conceptual vagueness? Philosophical thinking is key to understanding phenomena and how words are used to define them. The unpolished Malaysian education system, poorly conceived philosophically, has produced bad politicians and robber-barons are always finding ways to destroy the nation.
Unpolished education has produced more sophisticated race and religious -based parties and newer Umno and BN. Unpolished education has produced rulers and leaders who plunder nature until cities turn into Orange Planets! Unpolished education has produced a blind mass that still supports kings of thieves who stole "boundless and mad money". Unpolished education has made the masses silenced over the most urgent issues plaguing the fate of our planet. Instead of producing people with "boundless mentality", we made leaders with boundless appetite for expensive but useless things.A final questionSo, that's going to be my brief presentation for a longer, and more engaging discussion on the topic of "polished education, boundless mentality". Quite a grim view, I must say. But that is what I am seeing as we polish the mirror - seeing the origin of ideas, implementation of policies, structuring and restructuring of societies, beginning with the work of our first minister of education, and scanning Malaysia’s evolutionary markers of economic and ideological change - perceiving and now, predicting the trajectories of human capital revolution, and national global development.My conclusion: we still cannot see the complexity of the “butterfly effects” of things. We become like blind men and women looking at an elephant. Yes, that elephant in our living room.My final case-study question: How is the campaign in Semenyih an example of "polished education and boundless mentality"? Help me deconstruct this notion of Malaysian education and social change as we enter the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” - not knowing what it means, what it entails, and how we should brace ourselves, as a country still, after more than 60 years of Independence, yet happy with the chains we redesign and put on ourselves. I leave you a quote, from the philosopher of the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains”. What then must we do?

Is our educational philosophy sustainable?

Is our educational philosophy sustainable?OPINION  |   AZLY RAHMAN Published: Today 4:56 pm  |  Modified: Today 4:56 pmA+     A-COMMENT | I recently came across a  recording  of a retired principal, V Chakaravathy, ranting at the reigning tsar of the education regime Maszlee Malik in a dialogue session organised by the Asian Strategy and Learning Institute (Asli) in Subang Jaya.The arguments took me back to my schooldays in Sekolah Temenggong Abdul Rahman I (Star 1) in Johor Bahru, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Listening to the principal having a go at the minister reminded me of Star 1's own principal PV Kulasingam. This no-nonsense educator was much feared. He had a stable of teachers of various cultural backgrounds. I still remember the name of those great educators of my life and times, D Varma, Wong Seng Kuang, Ho Liang Kho, Elizabeth Tan, Cikgu Hasan. I remember the name of the office boy as well, Pakcik Seman.That was the time of tuck shops, sepak yem, bola chopping, and only prefects wearing ties. The 'tablet' was not an iPad, and learning was fun in a school where English was the medium of instruction. I did not remember much homework given to be completed at home under the light of my kerosene lamp, since I could still play soccer to my heart’s content every evening after school.I could still roam around my village after school, playing in the nearby stream to catch fish and grasshoppers, roll old bicycle tyres around the neighbourhood, or walk along the huge water pipes that sent refined water to Singapore, and I could still watch my black-and-white American and Malay TV programmes, the two channels in Malaysia and two more from Singapore. In school were the basics of reading, writing, counting, and speaking taught with not much stress, as I recall. I thank the universe the internet, iPhone and all other kinds of dehumanising and life-distracting gadgets had not been invented yet.I could relate to what Chakaravathy was saying on the topic of how today’s children are experiencing a slow but sure death of creativity and problem-solving. I lamented on the state of our country on Facebook recently: How can this happen? How can
A country even begins to learn about the ethics
Of sustainability,
When the powers that be
Continue to take away people's land
To build golf courses and resorts aplenty,
In a framework of power erected that bulldozes
The wishes of the people entirely,
Of broken promises that were made to be broken
At the start of the game of deceit actually,
Of a game of politics that do not care
About the wishes
Of the people entirely,
Of showcases and drama
Of fighting corruption trumpeted daily yet in the inner world and circles of power
Lies the core of a game unbeknownst to the rakyat entirely,
Of deals behind closed doors to prolong the life of families of dynasties,
Of this and that educational change sung
To the tune of ransom and baits and sticks and carrots way too many,
As if we are all merely pawns to be offered bread and circuses daily,
Ao that the old game of rule of the one too many of one and only
Can become yet another game called hegemony, fed
In a huge beggar's
Banquet
Called
Idiocy.
A darker spring, we foresee …Our point of no return?Have we arrived at a point of no return?The current state of education in Malaysia, after six decades of independence, lacks excellence and the rigour, the political will to recognise equity and equal opportunity, and empathy in looking at the class divisions forming in the process of schooling. It is slow in restructuring society based on the alleviation of poverty regardless of race. It has failed in its commitment to instil the spirit of muhibbah – a concept the current government had asked children to sing to in the early 1970s. It is, in fact, using more sophisticated ways to divide and rule society so that the hegemony of race-based politics will continue to become the status quo.We are at a critical juncture of a point of no return in education. The conveyor belt of our nationalistic-tribalistic education philosophy is going haywire, sending our batch-processed children off-tangent in this Rostowian ideology of progress. What a waste of talent and human capital. Instead of turning them into learners that bloom, we are making them bricks in the wall.But first things first. Let us first commission a brand new study on dropouts, using good qualitative and quantitative data, and find strategies based on the principles of sustainability and human rights to deal with it. Our nation is actually in danger of a major human development crisis, compounded by the current oil, environmental, and food crisis. We have not even talked about the economic and psychological crises, or even the drug scourge.The regime changes of May 9, installing a promising new agenda for developmentalism and ending up a year later of the same old, same old addiction to race and religion, needs a new means to sustain human development and social change. It has the potential for political, cultural, and educational renewal.We Malaysians must rise beyond the current national-political crisis that is imploding and exploding multi-directionally against the backdrop of a world that is perpetually in crisis.Lamenting like the principalWhen crooks and robber barons plan to  destroy mangrove forests  and nobody dares speak up, we have a failed education. We cannot continue to allow religious schools to be heavily funded. Do you know that Islamic State jihadists are now focusing on Southeast Asia?We also cannot keep running to the prime minister and ask "what kind of change do you want, sir?" That's a butler's job. It seems that our educational leaders do want change, but do not know what a changed society should look like.The proposal to  impose fines  for students who do not finish high school is utterly ridiculous. Study the root cause. Parents' frustration is that the world has rapidly changed, but our education system is still mundane. We cannot survive globally.I wish that our educational leaders could not only master diverse educational philosophies, but the art of teaching. Teaching is a subversive act. The ongoing purpose is to question dogma, dictators, and the degeneration of race and religious politics. To live good and free.Malaysian educationists talk about Maria Montessori, John Dewey and Paulo Freire, but the evidence of the praxis of these is nowhere to be seen. To make children love learning, create conditions for them not to hate schools. Create teachers who respect their job and calling.Change can be painful, even in education. Yet we love the status quo and love our comfort zone that favours race and religion. We prefer band-aids to stop the pain. Leaders go abroad to learn from 'models of good schooling.' And after a three-week visit, they try to implement what they see lock, stock and barrel.There is so much that can be done to cultivate a culture of a 'thinking classroom,' yet there is no will power to see teaching as a gentle yet glorious enterprise that can move human spirits and make students soar to greater heights. The Malaysian curriculum is still an extension and expansion of the old and decaying Industrial Age. It is not for the future inventors, writers, orators, and the movers and shakers in amongst our children. It is designed to dictate and to dumb-down the human mind to be servants to political and traditional masters.Moral and religious values can be taught at home. Time in class should be for doing projects and taking pride in one's creations. Race-based politics still govern the Education Ministry, not the celebration of intelligence of each child of any race.Skilful leaders must be able to understand not only megatrends in the educational world, but also the psycholinguistics of learning.Sustainable education in Malaysia is not ad hoc and reactionary work. It is not a political game of pleasing the master, either. If one has never been in the trenches of teaching and fighting for the hearts and minds of easy and difficult learners, one cannot possibly lead with idealism, pragmatism, and harsh realism.Rhetoric and big words rule education; lip-syncing the language of reform is what we have seen mastered. Today's chaos in the new regime, of newer racist parties, are a product of our failed education for national-global citizenship.Educational leaders lack the philosophical grasp to doctor education, to nurse our children to create a society of thinker-doers. A total revamp of our education system, one-school, one-nation, one-vision is what we need. And we shall not need political appointees to run it.Pour more money into religious, parochial, race-based elite schools and you will have entrenched new brand of racism. This is the danger of mindless resource allocation that does not understand the butterfly effect of things.Schooling in the 1970s was less stressful. We didn't have to suffer the 1980s Islamisation agenda and teachers were more diverse. Today? Educational leaders from race-religious-based parties cannot easily abandon party ideology in crafting sustainable education.Early childhood is a crucial time to harness gifts and talent within. Are we killing creativity that early? A sustainable education system is what we need to survive through chaos and complexity. We need articulation of this philosophy.Racial conflict. Religious extremism. Massive deforestation. Unemployment. Corruption. These are the symptoms of a failed education system. We need to find our solution in education, fast.A noble 'principal'Yesterday, I lectured on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. I quoted one on education:"By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development."To those in the Education Ministry, I ask: are we close to even having this mission and vision in our sustainable education agenda?

Fake degrees in the age of post-truth

Fake degrees in the age of post-truthOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 5:40 pm  |  Modified: Today 5:40 pm A+     A- COMMENT | We've read enough of the same old story of politicians and their alleged fake diplomas. And so too of fake promises and fake parties. We are still waiting for the ruling party to make things 'un-fake' and weed out leaders who cannot even present the truth of their own academic accomplishments. Yet, there are apologists among party members who seem to miss the point entirely, perhaps because power and sitting in the comfort of their own evolving fakeness makes them rationalise the act of dishonesty. Isn’t this why we have cases of corruption with fake 'datuk' issuing fake contracts and living fake lives, whilst people suffer through policies designed out of fake intentions?How do we 'un-fake' society in this age of viral post-truth?Fake degrees, fake partiesAcademic honesty goes a long way. It starts with helping students speak and write the truth and shun plagiarism. But what do we have in Malaysia? Fake degrees, fake datukships, fake news, fake leaders, and fake election promises.We punish students for plagiarism. Why be apologetic for those with fake diplomas, or who buy their theses and dissertations? Companies hire people based on their CVs to maintain their integrity. Why not demand that politicians do the same (especially since the government is a business these days).Accountability should be a basic requirement of an elected representative because it affects people and policies. We seem to have a mismatched cabinet. Shouldn’t a foreign minister, for example, have a degree in international studies? And an education minister an advanced degree in education? Appoint as leaders those with accredited degrees, to avoid complication in credibility. Unless you find the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.These days, barely a year after regime change, I ask: do we have faith in the current government to make the changes they promised? It is too messed up, directionless. There is fighting amongst party and coalition members. Sixty percent of Malays are said to have lost faith in the government, because of the filth produced by race- and religious-based leaders. Promises remain unfulfilled.In the case of fake degrees, one must know that accreditation is key to setting the standard of excellence and integrity in any university. It is a long process. Any American university offering a Bachelor's degree with customisable 45-credit requirements online is most likely a scam.And then there is the case of fake Islamic parties. Will "PAS kantoi (You've been found out, PAS)" be the next election slogan? All religions produce leaders who love bling, fast cars and 'gangsta' trappings. Gullible followers – souls for sale – seeking salvation through these religio-capitalists keep getting conned, big time. I’d say this: If you must have a religion to soothe your soul, have one that's given for free, not one that promises to pray for you for a fee to make some chieftains wealthy.Next time you're asked to donate for religion, ask if it's for a mullah's court case or cars with diamond bling. The same goes for preachers of megachurches who must have private jets to do God’s work in style.As for politics, I’d say that foremost as a politician is to be honest and deliver, not be close to power and wealth and make others suffer. At the very least, have a real college degree, if that is important to you to add glitz to your dignity.Fake power, fake promisesWhen power is already won and consolidated, election promises will not be honoured happily, as they are made as lip service, and a game of this and that, yes and no, and maybe. Promises are bait, manifestos launching pads for power; the oppressive ways of the old regime will be wheeled out again, only masked.The 'Malay-Muslim' narrative constructed and nourished by political parties since the ultranationalist agenda took root is collapsing. It can no longer – by virtue of it being a fragile ideology of post-colonial idiocy – be used to hold the 'Malay-Muslims' together for long. The inbuilt contradictions have imploded, spewing out the pus of hypocrisy, corruption, and lies with the post-1MDB revelations about PAS. Malays, thinking ones especially, are tired of this game of cards, in which the players shuffle packs of lies. That is what they do to draw out the queen of diamonds and the king of spades to annihilate each other, while the people continue to swallow broken promises, choking themselves to a slow death – as if trapped in the surrealism of Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus.We cry the slogan of 'multicultural Malaysia', but we have a fake educational philosophy that cannot handle the truth about the nature of society. The noble goal of multiculturalism in a plural-liberal society requires the commitment of the Education Ministry to make sure teaching, learning, tools, techniques, teachers, and the body of knowledge to be in a state of diversity. We cannot wait. Must each generation be consigned to reproduce hate? Or fakeness in our race relations?But the ministry continues to promote and finance the concept and ideology of 'divide and rule', channelling millions into enhancing 'successful failures', instead of revamping the system and levelling the playing field of culture and class. Money is used to entrench the institutionalised system of apartheid so that race and religious divisions can continue to be reproduced. What is missing is the paradigm of change that is supposed to move us towards a true multicultural society. The government has never been serious about building a nation on peace; it only enhances the foundations of structural violence. We have to plow deeper into this phenomenon of educational philosophising if indeed we are to redistribute justice and allow peace and security to evolve.The truth about fakenessWhere do we go from here? How do we hope and act as a critical mass of people hungry for an honest government to serve us, and ensure that fakeness is not a national policy? Do we not hear the apologists say that having fake degrees is not as bad as violent crimes, and that it’s only about papers and qualifications? If we do not have honest leaders making national decision affecting millions, how do we expect corruption not to take root? To educate future generations of the importance of ethics and intellectual sustainability?Before we become a failed state, we must not become a fake society ruled by a regime producing fake promises in a fake economic system of misguided priorities.

When hell freezes over, Malaysia will not be spared

When hell freezes over, Malaysia will not be sparedOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 5:42 pm  |  Modified: Today 5:42 pm A+     A- COMMENT | The United States has been hit by the Polar Vortex, a phenomenon of extreme cold, with fatal winds blowing from the Arctic and spreading into the Western Hemisphere. In the last few days, the 'Windy City' of Chicago felt like Siberia. There were numerous deaths, with the temperature falling to as low as -31°C. 'Polar Vortex' sounds beautiful. Ice cold, classy. Yet deadly. As if beauty is a fatal wound. For two days, it was a frozen hell.I thought of my beloved country, Malaysia and what it is doing in the discussion on sustainability that we are currently plagued with. I thought of the polls in Cameron Highlands and what we need to do urgently. Here are my musings, as I wait for the sun to shine brightly again next week.We are so busy judging people religiously, we cannot see environmental issues developing and our surroundings crumbling rapidly. Is our educational philosophy founded upon sustainability, human rights, peace and justice? Or is there no vision for humanity?Politicians must start promising to clean up rivers, plant more trees, promote green technologies. Be mature in campaigning. Haven't we had enough pollution and congestion to not want to produce a third national car, which is probably going to be fossil fuel-based? I call upon rulers, politicians, and corporations to start crafting sustainable policies rather than decide who gets to control GLCs. Greed will kill us all.Enough talk of who stole how much money. Get to work on comprehensive sustainable policies. But do we even know what that is?Our future shockWe are living on borrowed time, on a borrowed Earth, yet we want to bring everything beyond the grave. We have to be reborn with radicalism. Any country that does not have a sustainability policy will be doomed to destroy its citizens. Demand your government to show one.Each nation must create its own environmental warriors, fighting the state and corporations who continue to despoil nature. We are ravaging this Earth as if there is no limit to growth, as those in the Club of Rome once said. Pushed by the global elite who worship free enterprise and neoliberalism, and who are interested only in huge profits, our lives are sped up. And with that, the velocity of our destruction is guaranteed. Slow it down. We must visit the graveyard of the Luddites, asking them why their revolution failed.They want us to be smarter that machines. As if we have become dumb and dumber, surrendering our autonomy to technology. Man is too fascinated with technology, but that fantasy will become a dystopia of frightening proportions. Wage war against AI, revolt against the robots. We must first have a philosophy of devolution, as in the French Revolution.My shock syndromeIn 1974, when I was in school, I was shown two documentaries. I did not even recall the titles then, being swept away by fascination.  Now I know they were Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Tony Buzan's narration of the power of the human mind in Use Your Head . Today, my lectures revolve around futurism, complex systems, posthumanism, the onslaught of AI and the need for human beings to retreat into Plato's cave. Time is the irony of our forced existence.In opening my lectures these days, I am like a prophet of doom, a human voice of a Doomsday clock, an elegant pessimist telling students how much time we have left on planet Earth and that there is no Planet B, and that we are all mutants and transformed beings sent down from another planet to be facing our next destiny, awaiting machines to produce machines that will produce more machines to escape this mechanised earth we have chosen to destroy. Because we failed to heed Lao Tzu’s advice: "We carved the stone and thus began the act of destructing, signalling the Age of Destruction, Epoch of the Corrupted Machines." We humans deserve this humiliation. We are actually pseudo-spiritual beings not suited for this planet. We invent things to adapt, in the process, taking Nature down and apart. Now I am thinking of home again. The government have to respond to this question: Why are we a dumping ground for other people's waste, sent from other countries such as the US, China, Australia? The minister in charge, please answer.Back to nativityThe victory of BN and the election of the first Orang Asli to Parliament did make me reflect on what is possible, if indeed we are to frame things differently. If we are to let the native advise us on what can be the best and most sustainable path to our developmental goals.I thought of the rediscovery of a 'kampungism' an alternate way of thinking about sustainable goals we must design and implement, away from the post-industrialist euphoria, artificial or augmented intelligence, and more government projects for mass production of things and more cutting down of forests. I thought of an imaginary conversation with the wise elders of the natives in our own land.I believe the Orang Asli can explain this idea of human development better than any expert in any international development bank or in our Energy Ministry. I believe too that the Orang Asal of Sabah and Sarawak can teach modern 'civilised' man how not to plunder ancestral lands. I believe these natives can teach us in Putrajaya what ecosophical thinking means.Ecosophy, independence, and freedom are not mere slogans, but an existential state of mind and a condition of lived democracy, one in which citizens are aware of the oppressive, environmentally destructive systems are cultivated. From ecosophy we might learn how to 'revillagise' and relearn what 'kampungism' means, a form of economic thinking that values pastoralism.'Kampungism' as a philosophyWe must embrace pastoralism. For too long the word 'kampung' has taken a wrong semiotic turn to connote 'backwardness'. For too long the word 'progress' has been equated with development projects coming from the top and dictated by people who make decisions in five-star hotels, far away from the lives of the natives.For too long 'development' and 'national progress' have become meaningless mantras shoved into the minds of the natives, be they of the Orang Asal or the Orang Asli. What interests these "ogres from tanah seberang" (as WS Rendra once said) is logging and plundering at the expense of the lives of the natives. The history of the Penan, for example, is a classic example of an ongoing saga of the displacement of the natives under the shibboleth of developmentalism.Kampungism brings the human mind away from complex theories, complex systems, competitive and cutthroat economic philosophies, and combative male-female relationships. Kampungism is driven by the philosophy of Eastern existentialism, sound metaphysical construct, a harmonious conception of kinship, a good balance of patriarchy and matriarchy, and an economic production system based on the good old farming system that is not bio-technologically driven. It is not a philosophy that kowtows to the dictates of Wall Street, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.Kampungism is not based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference or greed, but the philosophy of human liberation and organisation. It has the potential of reorganising societies based on reason and a revolution in human consciousness. More than that, it can be inspired by the philosophy of ecological sustainability and closeness to nature as embodied by the Orang Asli and Orang Asal.If there is a revolution of spiritual consciousness emerging out of the awakening of this spirit, we in the modern world plagued by the disease of corporate crony capitalism ought to rejoice. No longer will the dance of the natives be one exploited for tourists, to showcase shallow and meaningless idea of 'multiculturalism', but a new dance for a new era grounded in Mother Earth.Are we there yet, talking about sustainability? Or are still busy trying to create more cars, more factories, more high-rise buildings, in the name of the life-threatening liberal-capitalist economy?Study sustainability now!

Solving the heavy schoolbag issue isn't rocket science

Solving the heavy schoolbag issue isn't rocket scienceOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 6:19 pm  |  Modified: Today 6:19 pm A+     A- COMMENT | We have a 20-year-old school dilemma treated as if we need rocket scientists to find a solution – the problem of heavy schoolbags, the 'payloads' our future astronauts are carrying.Children carrying anything above 8kg is not good, as I recall an orthopaedic surgeon once saying in an interview. Even if it is lighter than that, not carrying it properly could result in injury.My question is, what makes it so difficult to solve this problem? Often, we read about taskforces needing to be created to start thinking about approaching a solution.Such taskforces will need special grants, and the solutions will still need "feedback from the public" (like black shoes, white socks). Then further research needs to be done, to see if the weight of the bags correspond with the need for children to do more work at home, and how this will contribute to the critical success of this or that programme and so on and so forth. Then all these will be raised in cabinet meetings, and be again brought back and forth to the various levels of ministerial groups of decision makers, and suggestions passed down to district education heads, who will do more fact-finding, interviews, observations and await parental responses, and then go back to the ministry, which will report to the cabinet again, before it is brought to the next parliamentary debate.  There, opposition and supposition parties will spend hours debating on the acceptable weight of schoolbags, and then there will again be fierce arguments that will also spiral out of control, and the people will get emotional and then there will be walkouts and then the debate will be postponed to the next sitting… and then… and then… time waits for no man, no woman, no child, and then they grow up.The lossFrom 2000 to the 'great mythical visionary year' of 2020, the generation that carried heavy schoolbags will probably grow up in the footsteps of bodybuilders Malik Nor, Solomon Esmanto, and former Mr Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger (who did, of course, go on to have a political career).Meanwhile, in advanced industrialised countries, we see children growing up to become the Mark Zuckerbergs, Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks of the world, or top scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and humanists. Education there is about exploring innovations and creating new artefacts, through cultivation of learning- and teaching-based (and not rote memorisation, which necessitates the burden of heavy books), but on what teachers need to do in order to manage advanced project-learning curriculum that requires excellent skills of classroom management and a classroom culture of high-level thinking. Whatever happened to our cybernetics-inspired projects, such as smart schools and 1BestariNet, that ought to have existed under the grand design of the so-called Multimedia Super Corridor? And now, we wish to embark upon another high-tech mass-consumption based project to catch up to the Internet of Things with fancy iPads, supplied by who knows-which-companies owned by political cronies, rather than forge a cooperative society that will benefit the children of poor communities.The schoolA school is a space of cognitive ecology, or as philosopher John Dewey would term it, a space of negotiation of knowledge, power and stimulation of the variety of 'intelligences' a child possesses – each to be discovered, developed to the fullest, and given the suggestion for guidance. The classroom is an arena to allow the child’s cognition to celebrate, like in a carnival. Each classroom should be transformed into an organic and dynamic space of learning. The faces of enthusiasm, creativity, critical thinking and dynamism can tell us why the more we transform the classroom into an exciting place to be in, the more learning – directly, incidentally, and even vicariously – can happen.What is our philosophy and psychology of schooling in our multicultural mix of things entire? The problem could be with teacher training and the profession itself, in the representation and misrepresentation of what it means to be a teacher.The toolTechnology is just a tool. Our fascination seems to be with the rhetoric and jargon of progress – the models we do not understand, yet want to impose by borrowing lock, stock, and barrel. Culture, conditions, and criteria of school success we ignore or fail to understand.  Our Education Ministry wanting to suddenly introduce the teaching and infusing of artificial intelligence sounds postmodern and advanced, yet remains meaningless if the understanding of the culture, conditions and criteria of such implementation is non-existent. A simple example of this flight of fancy is that we have not even decided, for reasons political, whether Mathematics and Science should first be taught in English, knowing that the language of AI, coding and quantum computing is not Malay or Arabic. The pedagogyWe need to harness cultural creativity and intelligence. The basic issues of the foundations of education, namely race relations, ecology and the social ergonomics of schooling, are not yet resolved. We do not have any plan for that crucial vision of multiculturalism. We do not even have a set of national core curriculum content standards to start a dialogue about what sustainable education means. Our educational leaders in the ministry need to have a grasp of the concept of the architecture of knowledge and its relationship to the progress of nations. What this means, I will leave it up to these experts to interpret, since they are entrusted to be the futurists and pragmatists of the country and its children.Will we continue to become a rote-learning nation? Or do we need a cognitively sustainable nation that creates innovators, inventors, and humanists, able to grasp the larger context of change, and how to manage change without the country rendered deranged?  The breeding grounds are our schools, and its extended domains of knowledge/power: home, neighbourhood, and society at large. These must be seen as a matrix of interdependent elements of how a child, a junior member society, acquires cultural knowledge, and how that knowledge is applied in a praxical mode in the process of being and becoming a good citizen and a productive member of society.Again, this is not rocket science, requiring educational space scientists to figure out hidden formulas to launch successful educational missions. Every teacher must think of himself and herself as managers and cultivators of learning – not as drill sergeants or correctional officers ordering children to do more homework and lug around more books, as if they are mere labourers building the next national monument to glorify this or that ruler. This is what mental slavery in a world of rote-learning is about, especially with the glamorised yet hideous term we use in this post-humanist world: 'knowledge workers', who harvest information in a cybernetic world of servitude, in which the owners get to think with an iPad and the workers struggle with robots in some warehouse.A solutionI’d say, leave the heavy books in the classroom. In a special locker. Leave some in the village library. Or in the elected representative's service centre, accessible daily. Train teachers in managing teaching and learning, collaboratively. Have them master the art and science of teaching, holistically. Get schools to monitor the environment professionally, for student safety, while learning engagingly, understanding educational laws and its legal boundaries. Give homework sparingly, only when necessary, giving time for the students to explore their hobbies. Finish tasks in the classroom efficiently. Infuse project-based learning extensively. Stop enriching the multi-billion ringgit tuition industry. Have learners enjoy schools and be happy if that is going to be our new educational philosophy.Our children are not bricklayers for the wealthy, They are the architects of the future. Theirs.

The cross and the deep-Salafi state

The cross and the deep-Salafi stateOpinion  |  Azly Rahman Published: Today 7:15 pm  |  Modified: Today 7:15 pm A+     A- COMMENT | Once again, Malaysians are deeply bothered by a ‘cross on a building’. The most recent issue of cross-shaped lights on a condominium facade in Penang is reminiscence of the “ Allah controversy”  and the “ Christianophobia seminar in UITM” I wrote about a few years ago.I believe that as long as our educational and cultural institutions do not address the issue of the “deep Salafi state” in our social midst, we will continue to see the waves of radical Islamism hitting our multiculturalist shores, ending perhaps one fine day in a generation or so, a tsunami of race-religious inevitability. The “evil cross” as semiotics of hate?Given the mass-paranoia following the sight of the cross-lit building in Penang, imagine what the next agenda of the paranoids would be.I had a series of humorous speculations I posted on social media, concerning the shape of the cross. I thought that soon, those fearful folks would warn their children about the blasphemy and danger of looking at anything that resembles a cross - KLIA seen from above. Window panes. A child’s bicycle seen from 10th, floor of the building. Hot-cross buns.Or, even the small letter “t” of our alphabet. Imagine these extremist-Islamist parents one day banning kids from reading or writing the letter “t”? I thought of how I’d survive in a city where all the ’t’s are gone. Replaced with, say, the letter “l” because it no longer looks like a cross.Imagine the mega-change: Tanjung (old name for Penang) becomes “Tanlung”. Butterworth becomes “Bullerworth”. Tun Mahathir becomes “Lun Mahalhir”. No more Tamil people but Lamils as a new race. The Malay boy “Atan” becomes “Alan” an American. Tok Kong becomes “Lok Kong”.Fatty Crab Ketam becomes “Fally Crab Kelam”. Lontong becomes “Lonlong”. Kuey Teow to Kuey Leow. Batu Ferringgi becomes Balu Ferriggi, The Widow of Feringgi. What about going to the “merkit” (market) in Bagan or Tanjung. To buy fish. Talapia = Lalapia. Terubuk = Lerubuk. Temekong =Lemekong. Tamban= Lamban. Tongkol becomes “Longkol”.What about opening speeches? “Luan Luan dan Puan Puan. Lelima kasih. Lolong duduk. Jangan lari!”. Imagine Malay proverbs. “Seperti kalak bawah lempurung”. There will be no Ketuanan Melayu but “Keluanan Melayu”, whatever that means. No more controversy, at least, we hope.It is ridiculous, seriously. But we must, as Voltaire the great French social critic once said, in our prayers ask God to make our enemy look ridiculous.Because it is a ridiculous situation with a deeply serious underlying principle - the continuous growth of the “deep-Wahabi-Salafi-Islamic-State” school of thought that has been permeating this multicultural, liberal and religiously tolerant nation, since the Islamisation Agenda of the Mahathir-Anwar Era, which was inspired by the political-ideological repercussions of the rise of the Egyptian Brotherhood, the Ikwanul Muslim and of course the birth of the first Islamic Republic, after the Iranian Revolution of 1979.This is the butterfly effects of things, exacerbated by the Internet, and fuelled by the drive to make the world and every living thing be under one “Islamic State” ruled by this one “Khalifah”.Though this seems reductionistic an analysis, one ought to study deeply the role of the “deep state” in Malaysia – of Malay-Muslim fundamentalist-separatist movement – to understand issues such as paranoia over the cross.It is pervasive, especially at a time when the old regime of Barisan Nasional, dominated by the Malays who too destroyed the Malays economically and cognitively, is desperate to regain power by using the strategy it knows best: creating a fear of other religion and other races, claiming that it is the sole protector and racial-warrior of the Malay Muslims.This is their strategy that necessitates the manufacturing of crises, through the unleashing of this and that, NGO championing for this and that. But, it is incomprehensible and even appalling to enlightened Malays, who refused to be represented by the band of ridiculous self-proclaimed patriots and all that nonsense.The Wahabi-Salafi-deep stateWe need to start developing a defence system of national resilience, albeit a spiritual one, against the threats of radical interpretation, implementation and institutionalisation of Islam, in the case of contemporary Malaysia.Arabism has destroyed the old culture within society and become a tool of control by dominating not just the national narratives but also daily life practices.We need a spiritual remedy to it, by way of seeing Islam in a new way, befitting its pragmatic existence and functioning in a multicultural society. Muslims need to promote Tawhidic (oneness) Islam as an inclusive, all-accepting-all-embracing worldview of Islam pragmatic in its utility in a multicultural society. Something in the magnitude of a (Thomas) ‘Jeffersonian’ Islam as conceived in a secular-humanistic country such as the United States.First things first. One must begin to study the interlocking ideological directorates and the Wahabbi-Theological Complex, politics, and the political-economy of knowledge-production in Malaysia.One must study the rise of the Wahabbi-inspired “Deep-Salafi State”, understand the “hows” of it to understand the “what and what-next” of the spread of fundamental-violence-inspired Islamism and take note on the meaning of “violence and jihadism”.Structural violence runs deep into mind, society, consciousness. For example, a teacher in school promoting rules against the concept of “schools are free from ideological and theological assessment” - forced wearing of the hijab, banning of musical performances, excessive deployment of religious instructions viz-a-viz teaching and learning time allotted by the curriculum as well as shaping and institutionalising of the “Islamic-only” culture in public spheres and institutions.These are the mechanisms and machination of a massive meanderings of the millinearistic movements of the “Islamic-ummahtic-deep state” in hypermodern and multicultural Malaysia.In Indonesia, that deep theological state is a threat to the Pancasila. In Malaysia, to the Rukunegara. How do we dismantle this system and work towards peaceful co-existence?Crusade long overI do not think the Christians and Catholics in Malaysia appreciate being bullied endlessly nor do they want to be branded as “evil people trying to spread false and dangerous message threatening Islam”.I do not think they need to be associated with the Crusade War a thousand over years ago, or even linked to the brutality of the Christian-imperialist army who were chanting “guns, guts, god, and glory” before annexing cultures and massacring the natives of Latin America, Africa, Asian, and even Northern America – so that the Crusaders carrying the order of the European monarchs can build churches while sucking the blood, sweat, and tears of the natives they enslave.I don’t think the Christians and Catholics in Malaysia want to be known as inheritors and carriers of those sins. They just want to live, work, and worship in peace and be assured of their safety in a majority Malay-Muslim country.If Muslims in predominantly Christian nations such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, can help protect the safety of Muslims from Christian extremists-wannabe-terrorists, why can’t Malaysia do similarly by not allowing conferences, talks, preaching that promote hate to be fed to the public?Why not encourage education for peace and conflict resolution? Why not teach empathy through ongoing good dialogue amongst Malaysians of different faiths? Why warn them of the “dangers of Christianisation” and not expect some lunatic fundamentalist groups to take the warning one step further and translate it into violent action, sanctioned and legitimised by the authorities?Look at what is happening to a state as small as Perlis: the struggle between the Salafi, Sunni, and Shia Muslims. A rural state that could not resist from falling in love with a Deeply Salafi Mumbai preacher, well-protected even by the current regime.Our challengeToday’s Islam in Malaysia is about the struggle for ideological control, anathema to the spirit of the Rukunegara, and the noble concept of being Malaysian. Let alone to the true meaning of Islam.It is about the Arabisation of Education, the contradictions in political evolution, the use and abuse of Islamic influence by political groups, mass indoctrination through the Quran-memorisation schools and of the pervasive control of the “Deep Wahabbi-Salafi State” in the area of appointments and political positioning of people to the locations and microbial nodes of power.These are the stories we are not being told - of hegemony and utopianism in a deep-Salafi state.If there is an image of a 10- or 20-year challenge in Malaysia, it is the rapidly changing nature of how the Sanskritised-Malay culture is being colonised and expunged by the Arabised-Malay ideological structure, in a country wherein more than 60 percent of the population are Malay-Muslims. And some of them will want to pull down any symbol deemed “threatening to Islam.”What then must we do, to get out of the matrix – of the new deep state? Can we even trust the new regime to protect us – when many of its members too are sympathisers, or even silent strategists, of the deep state?