If khat lessons just tracing and copying, might as well not teach

Many are happy I wrote about khat. Some are angry because I spoke of hegemony and ideology. I spoke of creeping Islamisation. Of how the young gets introduced to a religion that is now badly represented.

Jawi, a Malay writing system, will forever connect me. especially to my beloved mother (bless her soul). She, and a Chinese teacher in my primary school, Wong Seng Kwong, and my religious school in Majidee were my Jawi teachers. 

I wrote well in Jawi and in English when I was a kid. I still write Jawi well. Then secondary school made me a different being.

Whenever I think of my mother, I'll write Jawi. Then I play the guitar. Then I listen to my vinyl LPs. Then I water the plants. Then I cook. Then I feed the cats. Then I watch Quentin Tarantino. Then I listen to the singer Herman Tino. Then I write and write. Then I go teach people.

Khat as Islamic art

Here is the difference between Jawi and khat to be taught to all children in Malaysia, Muslims and non-Muslims. Perhaps the Education Ministry will get many non-Muslims introduced to Islam at an early and impressionable age. 

Khat is the gateway. Although it is not exclusively Islamic and Quranic in use as an art form in that Arab Christians also use it, in the case of Malaysia, I sense that khat is not going to be used in schools to promote biblical verses. I may be wrong.

Below is Jawi and khat I wrote yesterday. I will need to practice more Jawi and khat. Too much gangsta English has made my soul too excitable.

Essentially, khat is the art of Islamic calligraphy to promote the Quran. Will the non-Muslims be okay with this mandate? A gateway to Islamic scripture? Jawi is cultural. Less religious in connotation, denotation, and usage.

I foresee problems later. What if the non-Muslims use Arab calligraphy to write verses from their religious scriptures? 

Will khat or Bahasa Malaysia teachers allow it? Will the children be told not to create anything they wish to create with Jawi and turn it into khat-work? 

Remember the issue of using 'Allah' in the Bahasa Malaysia Bible? One that almost tore the nation apart?

Mindless khat lesson?

There is also the promise that children will only learn to trace the letters and copy them. I read this news with horror. If that’s the only thing we’re teaching - copying letters – might as well not teach it.

We need thinking skills infused in all our lessons. Higher Order Thinking Skills or the HOTS, not just more drill and practice and mindless exercises. 

We already have enough of these, the mindset that has created tuition centres and make teachers look forward to offering tuition more than teaching thinking. What a waste of learning time if we continue to do this. For the sake of cultural preservation?

The khat that will be taught is not approached with cognitive thinking values. Merely copying and stringing letters? A waste. Then, let the non-Muslim children practice their devotional art too: the mandalas, the chakras, etc. Shall we?

Why make the Islamic calligraphy art of Quranic writing compulsory for non-Muslim children? Kids these days are more interested in K-pop than khat. Can we acknowledge that cultural shift?

Abandon khat?

The best alternative is to abandon the introduction of khat. Or introduce other cultural-religious calligraphies. Human beings are souls with culture, ready to be fully developed, not manipulated for political ends.

Not only the educational leadership needs revamping, but also curriculum, pedagogy, even daily lesson plans, so that we have "thinking schools"

Given their way, the radical Islamists might also want to ban the English language for its "liberalism". Today's Islamists-Salafi-Wahabbis want to take away the childhood of our children. To create that ummah thing. 

I miss my primary school in Johor Bahru in the late 1960s. No khat. No sweat. Just bola chopping, sepak yem, and roaming around a Chinese graveyard. When I was in secondary school, I wanted to take three electives: silat, kung fu, making murukku. They did not offer these subjects. Disappointing school. 

But it produced leaders who were then politically connected to the old regime. Politics of patronage rules. Even in this new and improved regime. Old stuff, new branding.

I prefer kids learn to draw cartoons than khat. They will be funnier. Less mullah-like. Khatand Jawi merely drill and practice. Nice hobby. Feels cultural. What we need to do is to teach children Science as early as one can.

Larger issues

Already too much drill and practice in schools. Add religious indoctrination to it and we’ll produce religio-humanoids. Our children lack intensive writing, reading, thinking in schools. Restructure the curriculum to allow these.

Other bigger issues matter such as this: does the education Ministry have any plan to make Orang Asli children happy in school? Or do we prefer to be busy arguing about khat and Jawi? 

We have got a problem here due to our inadequacy in managing cultural differences and teaching diversity. We need changes.

Not only leadership needs revamping, but curriculum, pedagogy, even daily lesson plans, so that we have "thinking schools." 

Maybe those in the ministry need to stop seeking advice from wayward Islamists trying to turn our schools into one grand medan dakwah. 

Maybe the Malay language nationalists need to sit still and refrain from discouraging our children from mastering the English language. 

Maybe headmasters and district education chiefs need to learn to empower schools and teachers, rather than play politics. Maybe our teachers need to be trained to ignite students' interest in learning, so that schools become exciting.

Even our History lessons in schools are monarchy-Malay-centric. Change the narrative. People's history is supreme. Rewrite! 

Struggling with their adequacies, false promises, self-interests, internal squabbles, can the Pakatan Harapan government pay attention to our children? The politicians helming the ministry and those meddling in it are only interested in sustaining a race-based political ideology. 

Too much 'top-down' reform, forgetting that the child in school is a living, breathing, thinking cultural being

Back to basics

Philosophical thinking is non-existent in schools, science is of lip-service, cultural appreciation is a taboo. Failures! After 62 years we still have not seen education addressing racism and religious bigotry. 

When a large segment of our youth is not interested in schools, turning deviant, we have got a philosophical problem. 

'Reform' in education is not enough. We must reinvent the Malaysian philosophy of education to address newer realities. This is a daunting task. 

The ministry does not seem to have grasped Multicultural Philosophy in Education. Hence, now Malaysian education is struggling with mundanity turn monstrous.

Focus on strengthening languages (national and English) and integrate other languages into content areas. The ministry's addiction to pushing the ketuanan Melayu ideology is making Malays and all Malaysians lose the sense of progress.

In education, there are three curriculums - formal, informal, hidden. The hidden is governed by Wahabbism. Science and philosophy should guide our Education Ministry, not religion and ideology.

We still have not seen a document on major reform of education, befitting the new, transformative age we are supposed to be in.

An Islamic art

Here is a clarification of Islamic khat from the Department of Islamic Art at them Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“Just as the religion of Islam embodies a way of life and serves as a cohesive force among ethnically and culturally diverse peoples, the art produced by and for Muslim societies has basic identifying and unifying characteristics. 

"Perhaps the most salient of these is the predilection for all-over surface decoration. The four basic components of Islamic ornament are calligraphy, vegetal patterns, geometric patterns, and figural representation...

"Calligraphy is the most highly regarded and most fundamental element of Islamic art. It is significant that the Quran, the book of God’s revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, was transmitted in Arabic, and that inherent within the Arabic script is the potential for developing a variety of ornamental forms. 

"The employment of calligraphy as ornament had a definite aesthetic appeal, but often also included an underlying talismanic component... One should always keep in mind, however, that calligraphy is principally a means to transmit a text, albeit in a decorative form."

Khat is religious art. Do not impose it on those of different faiths than Islam, especially in this country. It takes away our children’s valuable class time.

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AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, columnist, and author of seven books. He holds a doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writing here. - Mkini