S'wak school racial incident: Is Wee afraid of upsetting his boss?

Wee poses for the camera, but is he there for them in real life?

Mariam Mokhtar, Malaysia Chronicle

Six students in Sarawak received report cards which classified them as 'Keturunan Melayu' instead of the usual ‘lain-lain’. Parents of the affected students were worried about the unauthorized change in their childrens’ status.

Credit is given where it is due. After the swift intervention of the Sarawak Teachers Union president, William Ghani Bina, the matter is now resolved.

This latest problem had the potential to escalate into another major incident. One parent claimed that the school told him that his child's status could not be changed to its original status as it was already set in the system.

This exacerbated the issue and caused an uproar. Sarawakians are reeling from the issue of the 10 year old boy who was caned for eating pork sausages at school.

Ghani flew into Kuala Lumpur to discuss the issue after receiving complaints from parents. According to him, the Education Ministry director-general Abdul Ghafar Mahmud had assured him that “it will never happen again”.

Earlier, it had been reported that the response from the Deputy Minister of Education Wee Ka Siong, when he was first alerted about this problem, was to shift the blame onto the National Registration Department (NRD) for changing the native children's race to Malay.

Sarawak PKR State Chief Baru Bian had also revealed his frustration at his attempts to resolve the issue.

He said, “I am disappointed with the Deputy Minister of Education, Wee Ka Siong, for saying that his ministry is not responsible for this. He should at least investigate first. Did he investigate? It could be Little Napoleans within his ministry that are doing this.”

Clueless

Wee appeared clueless and said that his ministry was not at fault: “Any correction to this (a child's racial origin) must be done with the NRD, not us. This has nothing to do with the ministry. We have no right to say if you're Malay or Chinese. We've no right.”

However, he added that it was possible the information in the report cards was not official and could have been amended.

According to Baru Bian, “If the Minister says it is the work of the National Registration Department (JPN), then I want to hear a response from the NRD now. This issue must not be taken lightly and swept under the carpet!”

In Sarawak (and Sabah), it is widely known that pagan and Christian Dayak schoolchildren have been re-classified, whether deliberately or inadvertently, as Malays in their school report cards.

The Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia) said the act of altering the children's race was “unconstitutional and wrong”.

Sadia president Sidi Munan said: “The ministry should know about the implications of such an act. This is a sensitive issue and affects us. They should just go back to the constitution. It clearly defines the natives of Sarawak.”

The PKR chief had also repeated his demands for the Education Ministry to start an immediate investigation.

In other racial incidents, Wee has issued only “gentle reminders” to Malay teachers who were allegedly accused of racial abuse against non-Malay students.

But in the latest incident, it is his apparent callous disregard for the change in status which has not gone down well with parents and students.

Afraid?

Maybe Wee is fearful of ‘upsetting’ his boss, the Education minister, who is also the deputy Prime minister.

It appears that ministries shift the blame onto each other, where possible. They are also afraid to act decisively on 'sensitive issues' in case they distress their Malay leaders or certain sections of the greater Malay population. In doing so, they fail to do the right thing and fail to act responsibly. In other words, they fail the victims of racism.

Last August, Prime minister Najib Abdul Razak denounced racism, adopted a policy of ‘zero-tolerance’ on racism and ordered a swift reaction against perpetrators of racial slurs.

Today, his government seems incapable of swiftly acting on racial issues.

Recent experience has shown that Najib’s policy on racism is merely political point-scoring. Others regard his original announcement as a ploy to attract foreign investment for the benefit of international observers concerned about our lack of racial harmony.

One question remains: Has this relatively swift resolution anything to do with not wanting a repeat performance of the pork sausages debacle or is it because the Sarawak state elections are due?