With the Cabinet decision yesterday on the Jawi controversy, there are totally contradictory reactions.

One reaction at one end of the spectrum is best represented by the UMNO Vice President, Khaled Nordin who said that the latest Cabinet decision on the Jawi controversy shows that DAP is the true power behind the Pakatan Harapan government.

At the other end of the spectrum, the DAP is regarded as “having gone from hero to zero in the eyes of the Chinese base” and having betrayed the voters and I have become a “running dog” betraying the rights and future of Chinese Malaysians.

Which version is right?

It is not possible for both allegations to be right although both allegations could be wrong – and there is no doubt that in this case, both such allegations are wrong.

Malaysia will fail as a New Malaysia which is a top world-class nation of unity, freedom, justice, excellence and integrity if we replace a “win-win” formula of nation-building with a zero-sum mentality.

A question that is frequently asked in the past three weeks of the Jawi controversy is why the DAP could agree to something which MCA and Gerakan claim that they never agreed, and they are now the loudest in condemning the DAP in this Jawi controversy.

A social media message on the issue is most pertinent, viz:

“2011 – BN started to implement Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR) – with plan to introduce lesson on Jawi in Standard 5 – MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2013 – SRJK standard 5 curriculum (with lesson on Jawi) was finalised. MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2015 – SRJK standard 5 started to learn about Jawi. MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2016 – KSSR (Semakan) started to be formulated, with more lesson on Jawi included. MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2017 – KSSR (Semakan) started to be introduced in SRJK. MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2018 (April) – KSSR (Semakan) on learning of Jawi (6 pages) being finalised. MCA/Gerakan kept quiet.

“2019 – PH agreed to a compromise by adjusting the curriculum and reduced the learning of Jawi from 6 pages to 3 pages, making the lessons optional and allowing parents to decide whether it should be taught, and the lessons will not the tested in examination. Yet MCA/Gerakan make noise over this.

“From 2011-2018, MCA/Gerakan never opposed the inclusion of learning of Jawi in SRJK, never opposed to the so called ‘opening of floodgate’, and Chinese education remained the same, SRJK never changed its character.”

May be the MCA and Gerakan leaders who were in Government until the historic May 9, 2018 decision of the 14th General Election which peacefully and democratically changed the government in Putrajaya the first time in six decades can respond to this social message – the rights and wrongs of it.

What, however, is incontrovertible is that the policy decision on Jawi in Std. IV, V and VI Chinese and Tamil primary school Bahasa Malaysia textbooks were decided at a meeting of the Jawatankuasa Perancang Pendikan on 21st Sept. 2015, which was chaired by the then Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid and attended by the two Deputy Education Ministers, Datuk Chong Sin Woon (MCA) and P. Kamalanathan (MIC).

After the policy decision on Jawi for Std. 4, 5 and 6 Chinese and Tamil primary school Bahasa Malaysia text book was made on Sept. 21, 2015, it became an administrative matter to be implemented by the Education Ministry officials.

This is probably the reason that why when the Jawi controversy blew up last month, the Pakatan Harapan political leaders only came to know of it for the first time.

As I admitted in Malacca two days ago, I only learnt about the origins of the Jawi subject controversy after my return from a week-long visit to India.

There were conspiracy theories that the Jawi controversy was invented either by the Education Minister, Mazlee Malek or the Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed to serve their political purposes.

In actual fact, however, the Jawi subject controversy was a legacy of the former government, as the final policy decision on the new textbooks for Chinese/Tamil primary schools to introduce the Jawi subject for Std. 4 pupils in 2020 was made by Education Ministry Curriculum Committee chaired by the then Education Minister and the then two Deputy Education Ministers in a meeting of Sept. 21, 2015, and it subsequently became an administrative matter to be implemented by the Education Ministry officials in the subsequent years until it blew up as a burning controversy.

As I said in Skudai over the weekend, if there had been no change of government in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018, the implementation of the Education Ministry decision on new curriculum in Sept. 2015 would probably result in “Three Wants” in the new textbooks for Chinese/Tamil Std. 4, 5 and 6 primary school pupils – Want to be compulsory, Want to have examination and Want students to learn and read Jawi.

The Cabinet has decided that the “Three Wants” become “Three Nos” — No Compulsion, No Examination and No learning/writing of Jawi but only an introduction.

I do not know whether the final decision taken by the Cabinet yesterday on the Jawi controversy will be acceptable to those who had proposed that the Jawi subject be scrapped for Chinese/Tamil primary schools altogether, although Jawi has already appeared in the current Std. V textbook in Bahasa Malaysia for Chinese and Tamil primary schools in the past few years

There is no doubt that DAP and Pakatan Harapan are facing a crisis which can break the first-ever and probably the only experiment at political change in a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation.

We must do our utmost to ensure that the Pakatan Harapan Government can succeed in the arduous challenge to build a New Malaysia for future generations.

If Pakatan Harapan Government fails, I do not see a second chance, and things can only get from bad to worse.

We owe it to ourselves, our children, our children’s children, and most of all, our nation to do our utmost to make the Pakatan Harapan Government and New Malaysia objective work and succeed.

(Speech by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang at the briefing for DAP Federal Territory/Selangor branch leaders at DAP Hqrs on Thursday, August 15, 2019 at 9 pm)