Let's not confuse symptoms with the disease

YOURSAY ‘To blame vernacular schools for the divided Malaysian society is to camouflage the inequities of the system'.


Dr Mahathir's bad medicine

Anonymous_3f4a: Diversity in an education system is strength, not necessarily a weakness.

It's the discriminatory policy of the government that has fractured the country and caused disunity within.

To blame vernacular schools of the minorities for the divided Malaysian society is to camouflage the inequities of the system.

Swipenter: Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad should have used his brains and intelligence to unite us, but he used it to exploit and widen our differences, so much so now we are almost living parallel lives as Malaysians according to our ethnic and religious backgrounds.

It is much easier to divide than to unite but unfortunately, Mahathir chose the former and became a specialist in it. You see him talking about a united country but in practice and in reality, his policies are discriminatory, divisive, expedient and self-serving.

Even today he is still the same; full of doublespeak, devious and dangerous.

We must recall that in our country before Mahathir - education, religion and race were not such divisive issues.

We lived and coexisted rather well because our differences were not exploited and highlighted by politicians.

Our diversity is a both a curse and a strength, but unfortunately the former is being encouraged and nurtured at the expense of the latter. As a nation builder Mahathir has failed miserably.

Onyourtoes: Oh, now it is the fault of many who willingly walked into the trap set up by Mahathir.

Please use your logic; we trap animals all the time, do you think they willingly walked into the traps to be slaughtered later? Sometimes it is ignorance, sometimes it is desperation. Got it?

Granted, vernacular schools may not be good for national unity, but given the multifaceted discriminatory measures/institutions/polices everywhere, do you think abolishing the vernacular schools would have make a difference?

Yes, you said fighting bigotry and racism in national schools would have been more logical.

But do you think there is hope for us to do just that when the whole national school system was/is decided and operated by a mono-ethnic group, not unlike the vernacular schools?

Like animals in desperation, what else is left, if not to fight for the continued existence of vernacular schools? Please think deep, before you write.

Headhunter: Vernacular schools would have died a natural death a long time ago had national schools been given to run like multi-racial schools, where religions and racial bias are kept out and politicians not allowed to have a free run.

There are many parents who have reservations and trepidation in sending their children to national schools because of the fear of indoctrination by religiously-biased teachers on their children.

Another factor is the poor standard of teaching and discipline in national schools.

Poor syllabi, which emphasise on racial bias and religious issues, are total put-offs and waste much education time.

What do they expect when you have teachers calling Indians kelingor telling the Chinese to leave if they don't kowtow to the Malays?

Like all the ills in the country, the BN is solely responsible for this sorry state of our education system.

Onyourtoes: Well, we just have to keep insisting that fighting for equality and fair treatment is not racism (they can continue to label us whatever they want).

Those fighting to maintain exclusivity, privilege and to continue discriminate others are racist to the core.

They are simply wrong - not in sync with the present time and place. Whether it is, extremism or Arabisation, it is not just about Umno fighting PAS.

It is inculcation and indoctrination of intolerance of others and exclusivity of themselves.

It was part of the discriminatory policies. It was not about religion and piety.

Anonymous #18452573: Understand that Mahathir has been the ugly manipulator who had pitted religion against religion, race against race, and minister against minister (more recently, the current PM against his DPM).

And as I mentioned before, perhaps even pitting his family members against one another to prove their love and loyalty to him. And you are right; a manipulator can only manipulate a weak or willing mind.

The hope is that more Malaysians have matured enough in the last 50 years to know that it is time to manipulate the regime out and regain our confidence, in a greater and better Malaysia for all Malaysians.

Kazakh: For whatever that is wrong with our country, you can blame it on our class of politicians from both sides. God gave us race but it's the racists who divide us. So throw out the racists and we shall have peace in the equation.

Ace: We do not need to analyse this man Mahathir anymore. He is just an old ex "leader" seeking to perpetuate his influence and power through puppets and pawns so that his children can take over when the time comes.

He has absolutely no concern for the wellbeing of the nation. The nation can die and burn for all he cares.

So long as his interests are intact, it's perfectly okay with him - hence his continuous rambling of racist and extreme views so that a section of the rakyat will continue to support his chosen caretakers of power.

He thinks just the support of this section will be enough if he is extreme enough and can work on their baser instincts.

Retnam: Singapore has no vernacular schools. Does that mean there are no racial divisions in Singapore? Please lah! - Malaysiakini