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Friday, March 4, 2011

INTERLOK PROTESTORS – LIARS, CHILDISH, IGNORANT, INCONSISTENT AND MAD


Commentor “Yeah” has stepped up to the plate to defend Interlok from the “denials faced by the “uninformed masses – as embodied by the folks in hartalmsm”.

We offered him a platform on HartalMSM to share his views on what great benefits Interlok would bring as a work of literature for BM students, as well as a work of art that will soothe the nation’s ethnic suspicions. He has provided the following answer.

We had so hoped that he would be able to clear our cynical minds and soothe our hardened souls by producing compelling evidence and arguments FOR Interlok’s benefits. But it seems that Yeah is content to merely accuse us and all other detractors as liars, childish, ignorant, inconsistent and mad.Well, at least he said it in flowery, intellectual language.

Although we feel somewhat shortchanged in terms of quality of debate, we will still honour our end of the offer.

Our own rebuttals will be in the comments section:

- Eyes Wide Open

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by “Yeah”

Just as I disagree that the usage of an abdriged edition of Interlok will not lead to the end of the world as we know it, I do not think its adoption (nor any other novel for that matter) will result in world peace.

Hartalmsm has been repeating lies about Interlok’s importance and impact, deliberately ignoring the fact that it will be used for Form 5 students in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya only (Zone 2). It also intentionally ignored the fact that such texts are selected and replaced from time to time.

Hartalmsm offers no alternatives on what it thinks is good enough as a text, but keeps citing parts of the novel where Chinese and Indian characters were portrayed negatively as a reason we should ditch the novel.

It boils down to the infantile view that all racial portrayals must be positive only, making it downright impossible to have villains unless they are Japanese or English. I suppose Hindraf can get the British and Japanese to share their outrage. Afterall, it is not true that the British or Japanese are cruel people, no?

EWO goes about throwing the figure of half a million impressionable young minds, and stating that even if a fraction is brainwashed, Interlok’s damage is done. Nevermind that the figure is closer to one-fifth of that number, and removing Interlok from schools is only another prickle in the bubble of denials faced by the uninformed masses – as embodied by the folks in hartalmsm.

The real truth is that racism is rife in our society, and our children are taught to be racists by example. Attacking Kenegaraan Malaysia is misguided, and BTN is only part of a larger problem in this country.

In perspective, Interlok is probably naive to imagine a harmonious multiracial spirit, we-are-all-in-it-together outcome, but it is FICTION, no?

There is no consistency in the arguments put forth by the detractors of Interlok. To them, Interlok HAS to be an inferior literary product because that is the only way the protests can be justified. But it is a quandary because the people who are able to decide whether Interlok has literary or educational merit like GAPENA, PENA has already spoken.

Even though the NUTP decided that Interlok is a hot potato they can do without, the organization supported sanitization efforts. But it will never be enough for those who sees Interlok as an essentially flawed product. It is this deep-seated prejudice that fuels the outrage against Interlok, despite the many mea-culpas who said that they are only against Interlok as a literature reading text for BM.

Here, at this juncture, we are fed with the supposed concerns of well intentioned people who fear that Interlok will turn our young teens into bloody racists, forgetting that Lee Su Ann’s “The Curse” – second prize winner in the English Novel Category of the Utusan Group’s 2005 Young Adult Literature Competition, features a Malay-only protagonist and antagonist where father murders daughter, wife murders husband, mob murders a witch, oh, you know, the usuals that goes about in rustic villages.

Yes, that book is used for English’s literature component for Pahang,Terengganu, Johor, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan.

Still don’t see the point?

When educational matters are politicised, the first thing to go is actually the welfare of the students and the teachers. Instead of thinking about how Interlok is a novel that offers critical stereotypes of Malayans in works of fiction, we are telling the authorities that our teens need to be protected from such images in life.

It is a fact that vernacular schools were created because the migrant community felt a need to preserve their roots, and it is only in Malaysia we have such amazing legacies. Many poured their wealth, effort and time into such institutions – a testament of their belief that education is most important for their children’s future and a basic human right. Is this wrong? How is that a negative portrayal?

Apparently “sepet” is also a derogatory description, so my friends must be extremely upset for being born with slit-eyes. Yasmin Ahmad, your movie failed to lift the word out of purgatory! Because Cing Huat in Interlok is fat, and we all know being plus size is a very very bad thing, all Chinese Malaysians should raise objections and ask the author to make Cing Huat handsome and slim. Nevermind the examples hartalmsm actually are mostly descriptions of the same person – Cing Huat. Hey, the author has to be consistent ok, if he described Cing Huat as a fatty in page 6, he should be a fatter fatty in page 290, ok?

Don’t you see the madness?

- Hartal MSM

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