[18] Of I am a Malaysian
January 3rd, 2002 by Hafiz Noor Shams
This shall be my last babble in Minneapolis.
Being too bored staring at the monitor, I’d decided to visit some stuff about Malaysia. My first stop was catcha.com.my. Nothing much to be mentioned there. Second stop, thestar.com.my. I browsed through the news and read some of it. The same stuff over and over again. Politics, car accidents, some events, racial segregation…
Wait! Racial segregation? What in the whole wide universe is this? Racial segregation in Malaysia? I thought this thing has become the thing of the past. Of course, the issue the Chinese conquering the upper level of education level and the meritocracy has become the hot talk when I was in Malaysia but racial segregation in the system?
I say, people will surely blame the British for their divide and conquer method of ruling. Well, the British was surely the one to be blamed but that is the past and nothing can be changed about it, unless of course, if the physicists found the secret of time travel (spelling it out, back through time), that will be another matter. I shout, there’s been a mistake in the Malaysian education architecture and design. I hail, the vernacular system should be stop one and for all, by phrase, slowly and be ended sometimes in the future. No All-Chinese, All-Indian, All-Malay higher education. The Chinese minority should not be allowed to establish a university of their own. Nor the Indian, nor the Malay themselves. The University in Shah Alam should be opened to all. Every University should be made for all. If the Malays argue that it is their right, then, let the quota for the Malay stand tall but not too big to degrade the quality.
I hate it when Malaysians are asked, “Which race are you belong to?” and the question is answered by “I’m a Malay”, or “I’m a Chinese” or “Indian”. Why can’t the answer be just “I’m a Malaysian”? Is it so hard so for us to claim ourselves as a Malaysian?
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