Interlok in the dock: NUTP boss backs Paari

A teachers' union has come out in support of a move to use legal means to get a controversial book removed.

PETALING JAYA: The head of the national teachers’ union has declared his support for an MIC move to use legal means to remove the novel “Interlok” from the school reading list.

Hashim Adnan, president of the National Union for the Teaching Profession (NUTP), said it was “not right for the book to be used as a textbook” for Malay literature students in Form Five.

He also criticised Utusan Malaysia for trying to whip up emotion among supporters of the book.

MIC’s S Vell Paari told FMT yesterday that he would seek a court order compelling the Education Ministry to discard Interlok and to disclose how it came to choose it as compulsory reading for Form Five students.

Paari is a member of the party’s central working committee.

Hashim said he supported Paari’s move in the interest of maintaining racial harmony. He described the novel as “sensitive to the Indian community”.

In a front-page report today, Utusan Malaysia quoted the novel’s author, national laureate Abdullah Hussain, as saying he had been misunderstood. The report featured a photograph of Abdullah weeping.

Commenting on this, Hashim said: “Do we sympathise with one laureate or one whole generation of one community?”

The Consensus Council of the National Parent-Teacher Association (PIBGN), one of the NGOs supporting Interlok, has urged the Education Ministry to host a roundtable conference on the book.

“Questioning the use of the book is equivalent to questioning the ministry’s credibility,” said its president, Mohd Ali Hasan.

He said it was Paari’s right to file his suit, but added that he did not think going to court was the best means of resolving the issue.

He said PIBGN would host an open forum on the controversy in a fortnight’s time at Rumah Universiti in Petaling Jaya.

‘Good book’

The Federation of Malay Writers Associations (Gapena) and the National Writers Association (Pena) also declared today that they would continue to defend the book, but would let Paari do as he pleased.

Pena would submit a memorandum to the Education Minister Muyhiddin Yassin today to express its support for the book, said its president, Mohamad Saleeh Rahamad.

Gapena’s deputy president, Abdul Latiff Bakar, told FMT: “We are against the removal of Interlok from schools because it is a good book that was written without any bad intention.”

The Kavyan Writers Association, representing Indians who write in Malay, is the only writers’ group so far that has shown support for Paari’s court action.
Its president, Uthaya Sankar SB, said the use of the word “pariah” in the novel was an affront to 1Malaysia.

He suggested that Paari also form a core group of writers and scholars to back him in his campaign against the book’s use in schools. - FMT