Stop giving face to racists – Ravinder Singh

What nonsensical advice is Deputy Education Minister Mary Yap giving non-Muslim pupils – that they should not eat in the presence of Muslim pupils who are fasting?

She justified herself saying "Out of respect to our Muslim friends, we as non-Muslims should avoid eating or drinking in front of our Muslim friends”.

Did she not read or hear what the president of the National Union of the Teaching Profession, the largest teacher union, had to say about the “drink urine” incident?

NUTP president Hashim Adnan, a Malay and a Muslim, said “non-Muslim pupils should have the right to drink wherever they want since they are not the ones fasting”.

"Why create problems? We live in a world where we have all these different ethnic groups in the classes. So please respect others while teaching and working in the classroom.

"Every teacher should respect other races, because we wouldn’t want to be saying something that sounds like a joke, but means a lot to the people listening to it."

He further stated that the issue of instructing non-Muslim pupils not to drink water in the presence of their Muslim classmates should not arise. He said it was "ridiculous" to expect non-Muslims to eat and drink in hiding just because it was the fasting month.

"They (Muslim pupils) are not being forced to eat. It is just their friends eating their lunch and they are not even asking them to eat.

"We respect each other, but you have to respect other people also. If they want to eat, let them eat and where they want to eat is up to them," he said.

Well said, Hashim. This was the situation in the schools of the 1950s and 1960s. The non-Muslims even used to eat pork dishes (sold in the school canteens) sitting beside their Muslim friends and no one made any fuss.

Yap has done a great disservice. Did she not have any Muslim friends in her childhood? If she did, did they make any fuss the way a few Muslim extremists are making a fuss and trying to impose their religious bigotry onto non-Muslims?

These holier-than-thou extremist teachers are actually not allowing the Muslim children to go through the challenges of fasting. The challenge is to see others eating and refrain from doing so. I still see some Malay-Muslim children do this easily.  

If Yap strongly feels that non-Muslim children should hide somewhere to have their meals, she should get the schools to open up the teachers’ dining rooms in the canteen for the use of non-Muslim children during the fasting month as no one else would be using these rooms during this period.

Yap, please issue a directive to all schools to open up the teachers’ dining rooms for the non-Muslim pupils to hide in for their meals without being seen by Muslim pupils. Then make sure the directive is followed without exception. Every school that has a canteen has a teachers’ dining room. There should be no excuse not to open up this room if non-Muslim children must be hidden from view of the Muslim pupils when having their meals.   

Action speaks louder than words. So please do this and show that you don’t only make comments but also find practical solutions to problems and implement them without fear or favour. 

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.