THE WEIGHT OF SMALL THINGS

Proposed changes to a school textbook led to a chain of fearmongering and

grandstanding that led to Malaysia’s ruling coalition facing a fierce backlash

Trust is a scarce commodity in Malaysia. When Sin Chew Daily – the largest
Chinese daily in the country – headlined a proposal by the Ministry of Education
to introduce a few pages of Khat, a stylized form of jawi-arabic-persian
calligraphy, in the Malay Language textbook for Chinese and Tamil vernacular
primary schools, the worst intentions were immediately assumed.
A chain of reaction snowballed into a fierce backlash to the Pakatan Harapan
ruling coalition. The United Chinese School Committees’ Association (Dong
Zong) rallied an umbrella of associations to organize resistance. Not all Chinese
were against the proposal (eventually revised from khat to jawi script) but all the
men featured in a viral press conference picture were Chinese locking arms
symbolizing a united resistance. The representation is clear: “They” were against
jawi, an important component in Malay language and culture.
Not all Malays concurred with the proposal but enough of them were incensed to
witness such public resistance from the men and began to question whether the
resistance smacks of racism. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called Dong
Zong a “racist” organization for inhibiting national education policies. The Youth
Wing of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia –Mahathir’s party launched a petition
to ban the Chinese educationist organization. In the midst of strong backlash from
Chinese educationists and grassroots leaders, Liew Chin Tong, Deputy Defence
Minister and the Political Education Director of the Democratic Action Party
(DAP), admitted the party is facing its worst crisis since coming to national power
last year.
The smallness of the whole fiasco is striking. The proposal consists of mere three
pages (initially six) in a textbook of over a hundred pages and the proposal was
carried over from the previous administration. Why are they fighting so much
over something so small?
Symbolism and hidden transcripts
Small stuff can carry a lot of weight. The public transcript is that it is being
“enforced upon” the schools; that they are not against the teaching of jawi script
but that it was made mandatory.
However, much of the weight lies in the hidden transcripts - a critique of power
spoken behind the back of the dominant. As political scientist James Scott puts it,
understanding hidden transcripts underneath power relations “offers a
substantially new way of understanding resistance to domination.”
The resistance must be viewed in the context of the Chinese educationists’
acrimonious relationship with the state, particularly the Ministry of Education.
The problem does not start with the current Minister of Education but precedes
the formation of the nation-state. Since independence, subsequent governments
have attempted to regulate, eliminate, or integrate the vernacular schools within
the larger national education policies.
For the dominant state, the vernacular schools – both the government-subsidized
public ones and the community-funded private ones – is an embodiment to the
ethnic minority’s refusal to assimilate. Critics allege it fosters ethnic segregation
and downplays the role of the national language. More than 90% of Chinese send
their kids to vernacular primary schools, and more than 90% of Bumiputera send
their kids to national schools.
Chinese educationists resist state policies because they perceived it to be a form
of domination. They do not see it as an attempt to foster integration but an attempt
to dominate the sphere where they almost freely operate. In a country where
ethnic discrimination is practiced by officialdom, the vernacular school is upheld
as the last bastion of cultural identity and autonomy.
Competing nations-within-nation
An ongoing contention in the vernacular schools to recognize the Unified
Examination Certificate (UEC) gets to the core of this conflict. The UEC is
awarded to the graduates of the Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary
Schools (MICCS). The UEC standardized test is administered not by the state,
but by Dong Zong. It has erstwhile been a contentious issue between the state and
Chinese educationists whether to recognize UEC for public university admission.
The contention is not about quality, as the UEC is recognized by various
institutions abroad. Rather, it is the hidden transcript that rouses strong objections
from both sides. Recognizing UEC and respecting the vernacular schools’
autonomy will legitimize the multiculturalist view of the nation, in which cultural
differences between ethnic groups are respected and given due recognition. But
those who hold a Malay-centric view of the nation, in which all things national –
whether it’s language, education or culture – must only be equated with Malay
culture, opposed this as undermining the national project.
At its core, this is about differing visions of the nation. Shamsul Amri Baharuddin,
founding director of the National Institute of Ethnic Studies, wrote, “Malaysia is
still "one state with several nations", meaning that in the broad economic sense it
is a coherent variant of a capitalist entity, but in the political and ideological sense
it is still searching for a parallel coherence because there exist strong competing
nations-of-intent.” The contention surrounding the vernacular school symbolizes
this competing visions of the nation.
The Chinese, and Tamil, communities are by no means the only ones to have a
competing view of the nation than officialdom. The Islamists reject the vision of
a multiracial nation-state with equal citizenship and instead, campaign for the
vision of an Islamic state with Muslim supremacy. Recently in response to
citizens’ backlash against controversial Muslim preacher Zakir Naik, the
president of the country’s main Islamist party sided with the Indian national and
pronounced that brotherhood between Muslims go above and beyond citizenship
ties.
The one-year old Pakatan Harapan administration has lost much political capital
for small things that produce no explicit benefits. Seemingly small issues arouse
emotions because underneath what was unsaid publicly is a contest to define who
we are as a nation. The government must propose radical policies to creatively
disrupt the whirlpool.