The Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua initiative launched by the Demi Negara Community triggered a potpourri of reactions from Malaysians at home and abroad. The vast majority are supportive while, as expected, a fringe group exhibited emotionally-charged resistance bordering on idiotic lunacy. Perhaps the dichotomous interpretation of the initiative between Mainstream Malaysiana and the prickly fringe groups reflects the demographic reality of Malaysia, where every act, every endeavour, every move are viewed from cloudy race-tinted lenses by a race-obsessed populace. The naysayers and resisters manifested in full glory their estrangement from reality, in a gory racist orgy sustained by collective denial of an inevitability.
Yes, I say inevitable.
There is no other way.
Our 52-year experiment of stirring undiluted chunks of foreign cultural-linguistic elements in a Malay soup inside a curdling social cauldron has been an utter failure. We are now estranged, mutually-alienised, moving apart, and caught in a self-destructive game of racial extremism exacerbated by a flourishing anti-national movement stoked by long-dormant subversive forces.
Indeed, the survival of the Malaysian nation itself hinges on the recalibration of our social framework, beginning with infusing the necessary cohesion among our disparate populace. This shall begin with our children. They will determine Malaysia’s future, whether we hurtle into the abyss of social destruction based on the current socio-political trajectory or we emerge reinvigorated in 2020 as a progressive nation of the true Anak Bangsa Malaysia, a nation of patriots cohesive in shared affinities and speaking in one voice – Bahasa Malaysia – the expressive soul of our nation.
Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua is the catalyst of this journey towards meaningful, cohesive nationhood, a key component of the blueprint of a raceless Malaysia that has been vigorously expounded in Demi Negara.
As of today, almost 1,600 people have signed the on-line petition, another 1,300 plus patriots became members of the Satu Sekolah Facebook site, and dozens of blogs proudly carry the Satu Sekolah logo. Based on the petition and Facebook sites, Satu Sekolah supporters include cabinet members, prominent politicians, academics, government officials, corporate chieftains and Malaysians from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds. These are the people who still believe in the Malaysian Story, in forging a united Bangsa Malaysia of unquestioned loyalty to the land we share.
Who then are the resisters to change? Who are these naysayers?
The usual suspects.
Lets begin with politicians. In this respect, the Pakatan Rakyat has been interesting. Till today, there has not been a single adverse official reaction by either the DAP, PKR or PAS on Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua. Maybe they are cunningly calculative, as to oppose Satu Sekolah would be to repudiate their own vision of a unified Malaysia under their Ketuanan Rakyat mantra. And when the Rakyat – the majority Rakyat – speaks of One School, they listen.
What about the Barisan Nasional? Well, we should not generalise, but a Teeny Weeny little Napoleon from a Barisan component party, MCA, made some noise, an act memorable for its humourous ludicrousness than anything else. Interestingly, this Wee Ka Siong @ Wei Jiaxiang chap is a Deputy Minister of Education, in effect a public servant voted by the Rakyat and sworn to serve us Rakyat irrespective of ethnicity or background. Perhaps Teeny Weeny’s actions are quite understandable. You see, Teeny Weeny wants to be the new hope of his stuttering party after their near demolition by DAP and PKR in PRU12, and he gets more than his fair share of bludgeoning in Parliament by the DAP Chinese zealots who accused him of not doing enough for Chinese schools in this country. Hence, Teeny Weeny's need to be seen as the champion of Chinese Rights in Malaysia today, and prove to his DAP and PKR and even Gerakan detractors that MCA is not a running dog of UMNO. This spawned his foolish bravado of demonising Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua to the extent of threatening a police report for “crimes” only known to him. The MIC didn't criticise Satu Sekolah, but did their part to further polarise our children as well.
Yes friends, we are living in interesting times indeed. You push an initiative to unite Malaysians, you get threatened with a police report by no less than a serving deputy minister of Najib Razak’s 1 Malaysia government. But when others spew seditious garbage against the Malays, Bahasa Malaysia, the Raja-Raja Melayu, Islam, NEP, even Malay Reserved Lands, they are feted as heroes by some, by the ungrateful beings who now deify the megalomaniac Chin Peng against all logic and realities of our country’s political history.
With partners like this, what hope for BN and UMNO in PRU13? You see, the non-Malay votes are already lost to the PR, and now the Malays may view MCA with contempt and disgust thanks to the antics of the likes of Teeny Weeny. Do you think Teeny Weeny can retain Ayer Hitam without the Malays who composed 56.4% of voters in the constituency and who would loyally vote for the BN dacing at every PRU irrespective of candidate? We shall see. But I think Ayer Hitam is too UMNO lah, too safe for heroes like Ah Siong. Perhaps BN should field him in Ipoh Timur or Seputeh to validate his gumption. But again, maybe this chap has noble intentions, perhaps misunderstood by many. But how could the Malays, including his Malay constituents who voted him to parliament, connect with his thoughts when his webpage is not in Bahasa Malaysia, but in Mandarin and English? Haiya Ah Siong, is this the way to say Terima Kasih to the Malay voters who made you a YB?
Teeny Weeny’s site also boldly proclaimed: “Speak Up, Make Changes, have NO FEAR.”
Yeah right … we speak up to make changes via One School and we get threats from Teeny Weeny, but I must say we have no fear.
Ok, who else opposed a unified school system for our children?
Well, the other usual suspects of course, the type who oppose for the sake of opposing. Yes, these are the professional opposers. These resisters themselves have NO alternative to whatever they oppose. That would be too brain consuming, quite understandable based on the characteristic dearth of gray matter that made them oppose Satu Sekolah in the first place.
I personally don’t take this motley crew of anarchists and pseudo-subversives and plain vanilla racists seriously. There’s nothing much you can do with people already set in their values and attitudes, what I termed Damaged Goods. As they say down in South Carolina, “it ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Yup, let them be, let them holler and shriek and yelp in their isolated dens and nooks and crevices. After all, we are a democracy. Imagine life without this eclectic collection of bumbling jesters? What would KijangMas write about?
Oh yes, some did their best to project an "intellectual" flavour to their futile opposition of Satu Sekolah. I cannot help but laugh at their flimsy, rudimentary and woefully lightweight arguments clouded by a mysterious paranoiac aversion to "things Malay" that afflict their troubled souls. I don’t want to clutter this post with my response to a vain pseudo-intellectual wannabe, but if you have time and appetite for gory literary dyslexia, go here. Of course, the less intelligent types typically just shout obscenities in their desperate lunge onto the path of the Satu Sekolah movement now gaining momentum among the common Rakyat. And I marvel at the sheer hypocrisy of it all as many of them are not exactly products of vernacular schools themselves! See, they use the literacy bestowed upon them by the Sekolah Kebangsaan to hantam the Sekolah Kebangsaan in a grotesque manifestation of the toxic Malayphobia that dominate their lives. Perhaps they should send their own kids to the likes of SJKT Tepi Sungai, Klang as a matter of principle.
Others? Yeah, it gets more bizarre as you burrow deep inside the cybersleazoid scrapheap. Nothing much can be learned from the emotional rantings of these rabid racists, except perhaps to validate Satu Sekolah's thesis that our children should go to one national school to avoid the very cultural-linguistic estrangement exhibited by these clueless resisters. As for this and this and this, well, their choice of hieroglyphics said it all.
Can we have an intelligent dialogue with fellow Warganegaras who chose to communicate in a script alien and incomprehensible to the vast majority of the Rakyat?
Thanks in part to these detractors, the Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua campaign has succeeded in putting the issue on the table. It has catalyzed healthy debate and raised public awareness. And contrary to claims by the forces of disunity, there really is nothing complicated about implementing One School by a sovereign nation. This is not Rocket Science. In fact, it is the norm in 99 percent of the world. It is a national imperative, a necessary component of nationbuilding, indeed, a non-negotiable avenue towards the ultimate creation of a raceless Malaysia for all. The resisters and naysayers above are mere irritants to our larger national agenda that must be embraced by all Warganegaras who pledged loyalty to King and Country, who in school swore to uphold the tenets of the Rukunegara. Of course, the establishment of One School may be a long process, but we now have the roadmap as promulgated in the memo and a tangible target.
We must ask ourselves: Why should the selfish indulgence of some elements within the 24+7 percent of the populace hold our beloved nation hostage to debilitating social fragmentation in perpetuity?
This anomaly is unheard of anywhere on earth. Why Malaysia so special? Why some people get special foreign language privileges in schools of their own making? Who is dependent on special privileges now? How come I see the proverbial tongkat and crutch galore whenever beneficiaries of this special concession twist and turn and kick and scream everytime the government tries to integrate their children with Mainstream Malaysiana? Wau-lau-eh, sampai bila mau guna ini tongkat sekolah? Masih mau asingkan diri dari arus perdana selepas 52 tahun merdeka? Bila mau jadi Rakyat Malaysia sepenuhnya yang berinteraksi rapat dengan semua kaum dari awal bangku sekolah dan fasih dalam Bahasa Malaysia milik kita bersama? Kalau mau "sama rata," kita harus amalkan Satu Sekolah. Betul? Boleh? Tak mau? Tak boleh? Masih pekat dalam kancah kuno belenggu perkauman yang menjahamkan negara?
So your motto is Malaysia Tak Boleh kah? Haiya, like this how?
Our schools affect us Rakyat more than anything else. We should let the Rakyat decide. We should have a national referendum on vernacular schools. A simple Yes-No answer. Let us collectively decide our future. A referendum is a fair, equitable way to gauge the preference of the Rakyat. We had referendums in the past on matters of more importance. Indeed, the formation of the expanded Malaysian Federation itself was determined via referendums of the people of Sabah and Sarawak. Other democracies have referendums as a matter of choice and necessity. In California, referendums are held for almost anything under the sun, from property taxes to public school funding to same-sex marriages.
Yes, a referendum is the most democratic way. Nobody can argue on the logic and fairness of the process as each of us has one vote irrespective of origin, background, ethnicity or sentiment. This is the epitome of justice, fairness and kesamarataan demanded by the anti-NEP forces all these years. Yeah, in the spirit of kita semua sama, lets vote sama-sama. Satu orang, satu undi.
Let the Rakyat decide.
Demi Negara calls for a national referendum on vernacular schools.
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