[lg policy] Malaysia: Opt for respectful, honest discourse

[Harold Schiffman]

Opt for respectful, honest discourse

KEE Thuan Chye’s comment, "The Malaysian way to better English" (Aug
14), finally lets the cat out of the bag on what happens in many of
the closed-door, high-level brainstorming meetings and consultations
conducted by the government on controversial or sensitive issues such
as language policy, culture policy, history curriculum, religious
concerns, etc. The truth appears to be that in many of these dialogues
(and even more so in the official seminars and workshops) the private
sector and NGO participants invited to the meetings (in this
particular case some of the top educationists in the country) have
generally failed to voice their honest concerns and opinions.

In one part of his letter, Kee explains that "most of us at the
meeting were too polite to bring this out". By "this", he refers to a
whole set of concerns related to the politicisation of the language
issue, the way in which the vision on English has "always been short
term", the fear of stoking "the ire of certain interest groups", and
so on.  Instead of discussing how narrow sectarian political interests
have opportunistically taken the country backwards and ruined the
future of our young children by this flip-flopping language policy and
speaking their minds on how the official language policy in education
needs to be reformed or the necessity of bringing back the English
medium school, this group of presumably some of our finest
professional minds in the country on language issues appears to have
engaged in waffling or beating around the bush.

As Kee notes, "we dutifully confined ourselves" to issues such as
"training, marketing and pedagogy" and even "what to avoid if grammar
were to be taught explicitly"! Further Kee writes that the "meeting
was a sad reflection of what we are – a people who are rich but are
afraid to cultivate our wealth and let it blossom, and all because of
our insecurities. We fear opening our minds so we deny our children
access to our vaults."  That indictment is of course appropriate for
the political opportunists and language supremacists who have jumped
on the "memartabatkan" Bahasa Malaysia bandwagon. But it is equally an
indictment of all at the meeting who had the privileged opportunity to
put their honest concerns and opinions across, and who failed to do
so.

There may be important psychological underpinnings that explain why
many government-conducted dialogues with selected individuals or
organisations from the larger society end up in blind alleys or dead
ends. One Malay colleague explaining this phenomenon to me recently
has stressed the psychological and cultural advantage and superiority
of the civil service conveners organising and running these meetings
and the position of inferiority and subordination of the marginalised
minority groups and individuals invited to them.

Perhaps this is the case but what is probably just as important are
the material and personal advantages that come with either
ingratiating or playing along with the prevailing system or at least
not offending it, and the disadvantages that are perceived to come
along with dissent or disobedience. Kee ends by pointing out "It’s as
we say, the Malaysian way". I hope he is wrong. It may have been the
way of those who have been invited to these meetings and who for
various reasons have failed to speak their minds or chosen to look the
other way.

For the sake of our future, this Malaysian way needs to be replaced by
another one based on respectful but free, frank and honest discourse,
however sensitive the subject is. After all if we cannot speak our
minds in private, how can we ever have a larger public discussion on
the matters that we deem important to our lives?

Dr Lim Teck Ghee


 http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=37046

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