Archive for category Mother Tongue
Infamy of Infamies – the 1MDB “kleptocracy at its worst” scandal
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Mother Tongue, Najib Razak on Thursday, 30 December 2021
Thanks goodness, it was not all news of infamy for Malaysia every day for the last week for the year 2021 – as there were also some good news and one came yesterday when the High Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled that the existence and establishment of vernacular schools and the use of Chinese and Tamil languages in schools are constitutional.
Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali ruled that vernacular schools are not a public authority and the use of a non-Malay medium of instruction for teaching in Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools is not for an official purpose and thus, did not infringe Article 152 (1) of the Federal Constitution. Read the rest of this entry »
Samy Vellu booed and jeered?
Posted by Kit in Indians, Mother Tongue, Politics on Sunday, 23 December 2007
This SMS was sent to me at 10.56 pm last night:
“d crowd jeered loudly at semi value (samy vellu) at ‘d atta 100 vagai’ at PISA in penang just now (22/12). d crowd booed loudly when DJ announced samy vellu’s presence. d ‘BOO’ was so loud dat no one heard anything. Within 2-3 mins he moved back 2 d stage. A very gd lesson 4 d spineless… I’m here in PISA. samy has left d arena.”
May be those who were present at PISA in Penang last night could give us eye-witness accounts of this episode.
Something that has no comparison anywhere else in the world
Posted by Kit in Education, Letters, Mother Tongue on Friday, 21 December 2007
by Loh Meng Kow
“Are the Malays that evil as to be accused of the horrific crime of ethnic cleansing? Are the Malays that ‘bad’ as to allow Chinese and Tamil Schools to continue to receive government funding – something that has no comparison anywhere else in the world?”—A statement by a Malay leader.
I shall deal only with the second question which concerns non-Malays since independence.
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
The colonial government in Malaya respected the rights of the parents to choose the kind of education they wanted for their children, and we had Chinese, Indian and Malay schools, in addition to the English schools in Malaya before Independence. Read the rest of this entry »
Hishammuddin – stop being “childish” and set an early date to meet up with Dong Jiao Zong
Posted by Kit in Education, Mother Tongue on Friday, 1 June 2007
The tantrums of the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein in the past few days, accusing the Chinese educational bodies Dong Jiao Zong of being “not sincere” and declaring that “it’s not the end of the world” if he did not meet the Dong Jiao Zong leaders or that the government will not protect Chinese education have rightly been criticized by many as manifestation of his “arrogance of power”.
But these tantrums also show his “puerile” dimension. It is time Hishammuddin stop being “childish”, be conscious that he is charge of one of the most important ministries in government and begin to conduct himself as Education Minister for all Malaysians and all streams of education by setting an early date for a meeting with Dong Jiao Zong in keeping with the Prime Minister’s injunction to all Ministers to “hear the truth” from the people and all sectors of Malaysian society.
I still wonder why Hishammuddin “blew his top” on Tuesday, openly accusing Dong Jiao Zong of being “not sincere” for laying down conditions for a meeting with him, which has been proven to be untrue by Dong Jiao Zong.
Was Hishammuddin misled by Chinese newspaper reports that day on the ten resolutions of the Jiao Zong 2007 Annual General meeting calling, among other things, for:
- Revision of the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 to make it compatible with Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-lingual characteristics;
- Repeal of the “final objective” of the national education policy to have only one language as medium of instruction at all levels of the education system.
- Review of the use of English to teach mathematics and science from Primary One;
- Re-opening of Damansara Chinese Primary School; and
- Adequate trained teachers and fair allocation of funding for Chinese primary schools.
As Hishammuddin does not read the Chinese newspapers, was the Education Minister who is also Umno Youth leader misled in “blowing his top” at Dong Jiao Zong on Tuesday. If so, who was responsible for misleading Hishammuddin? To the Malaysian public, if it is not Gerakan, then it must be MCA. Read the rest of this entry »
1987 Ops Lalang and Chinese primary school crisis – will Cabinet own up to historic wrongs?
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Mother Tongue on Friday, 27 April 2007
Veteran Chinese educationist Sim Mow Yu has said that Parti Keadilan Rakyat adviser and former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim should apologise for what he had done over the 1987 Ops Lalang mass arrests under the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the controversy over dispatching of staff unversed in Mandarin to hold senior posts in Chinese primary schools.
As one of the Ops Lalang ISA detainees served with a formal two-year detention order and incarcerated at Kamunting Detention Centre, Sim is most qualified to speak up on these subjects.
The Ops Lalang detention was my second ISA detention, which lasted 18 months as compared to 17 months in my first ISA detention in 1969-1970.
DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng and I were the last two of the Ops Lalang ISA detainees incarcerated in Kamunting Detention Centre to be released in April 1989 — serving the longest Ops Lalang ISA detention after all the other 49 Ops Lalang detainees had been earlier released from Kamunting in various batches.
Anwar has admitted that he was wrong in 1987 in the dispatch of staff unversed in Mandarin to become principals and senior assistants of Chinese primary schools which resulted in the subsequent Ops Lalang mass arrests.
Anwar has now taken a stand on mother-tongue education which is in accord with justice and fair play for mother-tongue education in plural Malaysia as well as the higher national interests of enhancing Malaysia’s international competitiveness, which should be commended and supported. Read the rest of this entry »
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