I advise the Education Minister Maszlee Malik to stop talking about socks and shoes so as not to fall into the trap of former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and UMNO propagandists and cyber-troopers to project the image that he is a very mediocre Minister who has very limited vision and objectives in the transformation of education in the country.
The latest example is the former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak staging a “cat crying over a dead mouse” act to humiliate Mazslee, pretending to laud Maszlee for his “farsightedness” in looking to change the colour of school students shoes and socks and suggesting that Maszlee should look into the colour of school children’s uniforms and school buildings.
Najib even feigned outrage at the criticisms directed against Maszlee over the issue of shoes and socks, and said it was a pity that BN Ministers had not realised the importance of the colour of shoes and socks to “the wholesome development of a student”.
This is a very low blow by Najib and Malaysians cannot but ask how much lower Najib would descend in order to distract attention from his world infamy of a global kleptocracy – the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal.
Today, Maszlee lamented that his “trivial” comments about the colour of students’ socks and school was highlighted by Utusan Malaysia, while his more important point about university hospitals was ignored.
Maszlee said
“I spoke about a trivial matter for less than a minute and Utusan reported it, even former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak was interested.
“I discussed important matters relating to university hospitals but none wanted to sensationalise it.”
This is not the first time that Maszlee was given such a shabby and deplorable treatment.
In his first long interview with Sinar Harian Live talk show in July as Education Minister, Maszlee spoke for two hours on education reforms, like ensuring lighter school bags for the students; improving the school curriculum so that the students of national schools are of international standard; giving the teaching profession back to the teachers, which means that they will no longer be burdened with tasks other than teaching; providing more space for art, music and literature in the classroom; improvements for special needs schools; restoring academic freedom in the universities; but he spoke for 30 seconds about no more white shoes for school children from next year.
The national avalanche of brickbats on Maszlee’s interview was on the 1% of his interview on black shoes, while the 99% of his two-hour interview on education reforms was completely ignored.
This has now again happened in Maszlee”s interview with Utusan with Najib jumping into the fray to distract attention from his 1MDB travails.
This is most ironic, for it is the Najib Cabinet with its load of half-past six Ministers, one of whom distinguished himself for not being able to differentiate between turtle eggs and ordinary eggs, which attracted the derogatory term of a Kakistocracy, i.e. a government by the worst persons.
Maszlee is not a member of any kakistocracy, but a person of substance; and the Mahathir Cabinet of 2018 is definitely superior to all the Najib Cabinets.
This is why Maszlee must quickly learn from the lessons of modern communications and focus his energies on proving that he is a better Education Minister than Najib himself, who hold the Education portfolio from 1995-2000.
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parlimen on Tuesday, 16th October 2018)