There has always been constant chatter over the years in coffee shops, newspapers and now in social media about bigots, and to put it politely “the lack of common sense” politicians (whether congenital or accidental, for you to decide) across the sea.
It does not matter which political party it is, many of them provide Sarawakians with a lot of talk time. In fact, I am beginning to wonder what many of us would have to talk about, without their daily antics.
I might panic if it wasn’t for some of my brothers and sisters there keeping us entertained, amused, upset, shocked or even cheated.
Why would I panic? Well, I might have nothing interesting to write about, except for maybe about some mundane and pleasant event.
Okay, so what’s on the horizon now and invading the wonderful shores of Sarawak?
Trending at the moment are black shoes and socks, swimming pools, petrol stations in university campuses, asking Malayan religious teachers to educate our Sarawak kids towards good values and mastering a third or fourth language and of course “frogs” … yes, lots of frogs.
But I must be kind I suppose. All of the above issues put together still can’t beat President Trump.
By the way, a quick sidetrack, have you tried to search for the word “idiot’”on the “image” section of Google? Go on, try it.
Have you Googled it? So now you know perhaps who our Education Minister is trying to beat. He might want to be there, right up on the top of the web search result.
I can only speculate, but perhaps he thinks beating Trump will be a real feather in his cap. Whatever, it is, he is certainly working hard to achieve it.
He started with black shoes and socks. I mean can you imagine or visualise this, a ministerial meeting with staff and the Education Minister emphasising black socks and shoes?
His staff must be wondering, as we are, what happened to the Education Blueprint (or are they going to call it the Orangeprint now!).
There is actually no problem with advocating the use of black shoes and socks, but please put it in the proper context and priority. It’s the education quality which should come first.
Next came his plan to ensure all children need to learn how to swim. Then came the realisation there are not enough public pools to implement this plan.
So in comes his suggestion that hotels should share their swimming pools with the students.
Just imagine one class of 40 students entering a hotel swimming pool. Do you think so many students can learn how to swim in a hotel swimming pool?
It will just be one giant bathtub or splash pool for them. Not to mention the poor hotel guests standing there watching the whole scenario unfolding.
Another pertinent question would be, exactly how many teachers are trained swimming coaches?
I am sure we all support the idea of ensuring an ideal situation where all students in Malaysia should learn how to swim, but just not the way he planned and expressed it. Again a very good and noble thought gone awry.
A rural teacher mentioned to me that in Sarawak the federal government is not even prioritising repairing or building schools in the interior and here he is proposing swimming pools.
In parliament recently, our Education Minister asked teachers from Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah not to request for transfers back to Malaya and instead should turn Sabah and Sarawak into a “medan dakwah” (a platform for preaching).
This, of course, conjured up a picture of little kids in schools being brainwashed to convert.
After much hue and cry from many organisations in Sabah and Sarawak, he clarified that he meant bringing mankind towards good.
His clarification can now also be construed to mean our Sarawak teachers don’t know how to teach our kids good values.
Do Malayan teachers only know how to teach our kids good values? So even his clarification, if it is to be believed is not well thought out.
We are fortunate that our Minister of Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Education Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah made a statement to say, “If he means to ensure Muslim students get sufficient religious education, that we can accept, but in other contexts, it may be hard to accept because we respect one another’s religions”.
Perhaps she should be engaged by Putrajaya as a consultant to get them back onto the right path in our education system.
Sarawak has a peaceful environment, the Education Minister should not try to destabilise it. Maybe Sarawak can send teachers to teach several of the federal MPs about peace and harmony.
He then moved on to announce that some university campuses in Malaya will have petrol kiosks” All for a good cause, I am sure.
However, I would have thought since Sarawak is an oil and gas producing nation, at least we should have more petrol kiosks in the interior to help people in the rural areas have easy access to fuel for their vehicles and generators.
His latest and really visionary plan is to get our students to master a third or even fourth language. I mean, this is a really great vision by him.
This vision is so far ahead of everyone that even Nasa’s Hubble space telescope which can see into other galaxies could not see this one coming.
So many of us cannot even master English as a second language. Now we are supposed to master a third or fourth language? I wonder what all the ultras would think about this.
We should pity the staff in the Education Ministry coming to work every day wondering what’s next. Their colleagues in other ministries must be really ribbing them.
According to Wikipedia, Dr Maszlee Malik is obviously very well educated, having attended the University of Malaya, Al al-Bayt University (Jordan) and Durham University (England) and a well-read person of Hakka Chinese and Malay descent who has four books (including two on good governance) to his credit.
Have we just had a wrong concept of him and misunderstood him or is he actually stumbling about in the dark?
If I was stumbling about in the dark (which all of us do occasionally), I always appreciate a friend alerting me to the fact.
Let’s hope he has friends alerting him and I am sure he has good intentions.
By the way, the definition of foot-in-mouth disease according to https://www.dictionary.com means “the habit of making inappropriate, insensitive, or imprudent statements”.
I suppose they will be adding into their dictionary the following extension “statements usually made by Malayan politicians”.
Let’s just hope the bad press he is having from people like me does not last. All the best to him, for the sake of our children and Malaysia.
